LONDON — Unilever, the monolithic company behind the likes of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Hellmann’s mayonnaise and Dove, has rejected a takeover bid from fellow consumer goods giant firm Kraft Heinz, both companies confirmed on Friday.
On Friday afternoon, Kraft, which is backed by legendary investor Warren Buffett, confirmed that it had an approach to take over Unilever rejected, following a story from the Financial Times Alphaville blog earlier in the day.
Late in 2015, a new restaurant opened in Winter Park, Fla., a northern suburb of Orlando. It’s a big room with exposed ductwork, an open kitchen along one wall and a long bar skirting the other. The cooks there cut and smoke all the meats in house, and many of the ingredients are locally sourced. The patrons, not surprisingly, skew young, which also probably explains menu items like chicken waffles, Wonuts (a hybrid of waffles and donuts) and a pretzel braid appetizer that comes with a Samuel Adams cheese fondue. Out on the patio, you’ll find “Yappy Hour,” a happy hour with dogs invited, though you’ll probably have to wait for a table—weekends often see lines out the door.
THERE IS A term for news organizations that predate the internet—legacy media—and you may have heard they’re dying. But in researching who was watching and reading what at the end of 2016, one thing became clear: Some of the oldest voices in the news are still the biggest. Just the print issue of The New York Times reaches more people every day than the Huffington Post does, and the nightly news shows on ABC, CBS, and NBC each have many millions more viewers than even the highest-trafficked news site. At least for now.
It’s been something of an open secret that Generation 2 Pokémon from the games Gold and Silver installments were coming to Pokémon GO at some point. But at this point, with so little official information, it seemed as if their arrival was still months away.
Try days away.
This morning, Niantic has announced that Gen 2 is rolling out (almost) all at once with 80 new Gen 2 Pokémon appearing in the game by the end of this week. These are all “Johto” region Pokémon, and while the game has gotten a few Gen 2 “babies” in an earlier event, this is Pokémon GO’s biggest update since launch, one that should result in a huge resurgence in interest, even if the game has fallen out of favor with many.
We all remembered when MTV famously played the music video “Video Killed the Radio Star” over and over when the service first aired. On air radio remains a mainstay because it is one of the few information and entertainment services one can access and enjoy while working, driving or working. However, video streaming does have the potential to kill TV services for several reasons. This is why stations like HBO are changing and tech companies from YouTube to Amazon are altering how they do business.
Content You Can’t Find Anywhere Else
YouTube, Amazon and Netflix have free content available on demand while other movies and shows require you to pay per episode. They try to differentiate themselves by not offering the same catalog of movies and TV shows.
Partially in response to licensing rights that were a legal mess to get approved when Amazon and Netflix tried to license American TV shows abroad, they started curating their own content and creating their own shows. For example, you can only find the modern remake of “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Fuller House” on Netflix while “Transparent” is only on Amazon Prime.
Verizon has brought back its unlimited data plan. That’s great if you’re a Verizon customer. But it is terrible news for its investors.
Verizon (VZ, Tech30) stock fell nearly 1.5% in early trading Monday. It’s now down about 10% so far this year, making it the Dow’s worst performer of 2017.
Verizon’s move is a clear sign the company has to pull out all the stops to remain competitive with wireless rivals AT&T (T, Tech30), Sprint (S) and T-Mobile (TMUS).
“In recent months, both T-Mobile and Sprint had some success taking additional share from Verizon by virtue of their unlimited offerings,” wrote Morgan Stanley analysts in a report Monday morning.
Twitter may have re-oriented itself and laid off part of its workforce to streamline its business, but it still doesn’t look like it is bringing in enough money to keep Wall Street happy.
Here is the biggest data point from the company’s fourth-quarter earnings report: according to the company, advertising revenue totaled $638 million, which was down slightly year-over-year. A reversal in its advertising growth is certainly not going to help Twitter’s case, which needs to be able to pitch itself to advertisers as a legitimate alternative to Facebook — and now Snap, which is expected to go public in March and already generated $400 million in 2016.
It seems Google is all prepared to release its anticipated data-conscious YouTube Go app to the public.
An early version of YouTube Go hit the Google Play Store Wednesday. The app, as promised by Google last year, is light (less than 10MB in size) and features an option to share files using Wi-Fi Direct protocol.
In November, Kevin Hrusovsky paid a visit to the NFL’s headquarters on Park Avenue in New York. Hrusovsky (pronounced ruh-sov-skee) is chairman and chief executive officer of Quanterix, a life sciences startup that makes machines for measuring proteins and other biomarkers in the blood. He had the NFL’s attention because researchers have been using his company’s machines to hunt for markers of concussions and neurodegenerative disease. In an open letter NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell published in September about the league’s commitment to player safety, he wrote that Quanterix was developing “a blood test to reveal a concussion diagnosis.” It would be, Goodell said, “a major breakthrough.” The league, through a partnership with General Electric, has awarded Quanterix $800,000 in grants in the past three years. Hrusovsky was hoping to persuade the NFL to invest directly.
A jury in Dallas, Texas ordered Facebook to pay video maker ZeniMax $500 million after concluding that Oculus founder Palmer Luckey violated a non-disclosure agreement, according to published reports. The same jury rejected claims by ZeniMax that Oculus had misappropriated its intellectual property.
While the award, which is likely to be appealed, is sizable, it is less than the $2 billion in damages ZeniMax sought, and it isn’t likely to significantly affect Facebook, which has more than $29 billion on its balance sheet. Facebook shares, which were up on Wednesday, barely budged following reports of the judgement. They shot up more than 2% in after hours trading after Facebook reported financial results.
Dispatches From The Front 