Category: News and Views

TV Is Losing Ground to the Internet Where It Really Counts | WIRED

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AS A SPATE of new shows from Netflix and Amazon prove that some of the best television being made streams rather than airs, TV will take a financial hit. PwC’s annual five-year forecast for entertainment and media released today has revised downward the growth rate for ad spending on television. Last year, PwC predicted advertising would increase 5.5 percent annually over the next five years; now PwC says that rate will slow to just 4 percent annually through 2019.

And those are just the global figures. In the United States, TV ad spending is growing by just a little more than 3 percent annually on average. By contrast, spending jumped 5 percent between 2013 and 2014, the most recent years that PwC makes available.

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Rare Apple I computer put into recycling | BBC News

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A San Francisco recycling centre is seeking a woman who may have handed over a rare Apple I computer by mistake.

The machine was among other components and computers the woman wanted to dispose of after her husband died.

Only about 200 of the first-generation Apple computers were made.

The company recognised the value of the old computer and sold it to a private collector for about $200,000 (£131,000).

Tiny memory

The recycling centre, called Clean Bay Area, has launched a web and media campaign to track down the woman so she can receive her half of the cash they got for the machine.

It has produced a short video it is asking people to share to see if they can reach the donor.

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Women pay 76 cents to men’s $1 at shop promoting wage equality | mashable

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You pay what you earn at a tiny shop in Pittsburgh that is take a strong stance on gender equality.

Elana Schlenker’s pop-up shop, Less Than 100, sells gifts like ceramics, paper crafts and art by independent makers. It’s like a brick-and-mortar Etsy, except for one distinctive attribute: men pay more.

“I don’t think anyone should be discriminated against, but the wage gap is a pervasive problem and we need to recognize the ways in which our (often unconscious) biases are perpetuating it. I hope the shop sparks conversation around the issue,” Schlenker told Mashable in an email.

Specifically, Less Than 100’s pricing reflects the current average wage gap in Pennsylvania. Women there are paid 76 cents compared to every dollar a man earns for the same job.

It’s not that items are being marked up for men, technically. Rather, women are getting a discount. According to the shop’s website, women pay 76% of any item’s full ticket price, and men pay the full amount.

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California’s Water Crisis Is The Result Of Market Failure As Much As Drought | Co.Exist

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3046647-inline-i-1-californias-water-crisis-is-the-result-of-market-failure-as-much-as-droughtWeak pricing signals. Poor accounting. Byzantine rules. These are just a few of the reasons why California is in the midst of a water crisis. A lack of rainfall is perhaps the least of the state’s problems.

California’s situation is symptomatic of escalating water risks all across the world, where water is typically undervalued and, as a result, used incredibly inefficiently as more people than ever need it.

“There’s no room to hide anymore, this is where finance hits reality,” said Piet Klop, senior advisor of responsible investment at Dutch pension fund manager PGGM, who spoke with me recently about escalating water risks globally.

At meetings I attended across the state this month with water-savvy investors, the California drought always loomed large. In addition to fallowed farmland and depressed earnings, they acknowledged a larger more profound reality—the devastating drought and growing climate change impacts are likely the “new normal” for California.

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Japan Unleashes A Robot Revolution | Bloomberg Business

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A new greeter at the entrance of the Mitsukoshi department store in central Tokyo has caused a stir. The worker, dressed in a kimono and cheerfully welcoming shoppers in honorific Japanese, is a robot made by Toshiba and shows how lifelike these machines can be.

This latest example of Japan’s skill comes just as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is calling for a “robot revolution.” Advances in robotic computing power, the ability to recognize voices and images, and machine learning could help the country overcome the handicap of a fast-aging populace and a declining workforce.

At the opening of Japan’s Robot Revolution Initiative Council on May 15, Abe urged companies to “spread the use of robotics from large-scale factories to every corner of our economy and society.” Backed by 200 companies and universities, the five-year, government-led push aims to deepen the use of intelligent machines in manufacturing, supply chains, construction, and health care, while expanding robotics sales from 600 billion yen ($4.9 billion) annually to 2.4 trillion yen by 2020.

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Security Awareness: Phishing up the weakest links! | TekSec

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phishing-security-awarenessWho (in their right mind) would like to appear as the corporate dunce who infected their company network (by clicking on an email attachment or url)? Not you, not me, and certainly not the PR department or the company CEO’s administrative assistant, or even the CEO himself.

Phishing is an activity that cybercriminals utilize to acquire personal and sensitive information. Whether it is an account username and password, credit card details, a social security number, or other personal data — it is designed to coax you into giving up your personal information for criminal gain. For those of us who have been unfortunate enough to click on a deceptive phishing link or email attachment, it is an event that most of us would probably rather forget.

Phishing it up

Most of us are aware that if an email arrives unsolicited and includes grammatical errors, we should just delete it and continue on with our day. Not all phishing emails contain bad grammar, unsolicited attachments, or immediately request sensitive information. Last summer I received an email that appeared quite genuine, so genuine in fact — that I almost became victim to a very clever phishing scheme.

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Young people are buying real estate — just not the same kind as their parents | Business Insider

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Millennials and younger members of Gen X appear to be delaying the financial responsibility of homeownership.

But it’s hard to blame a group who watched the housing market skyrocket and plummet just as they were entering college or becoming young professionals gearing up to buy a starter home.

As the economy improved, and financial arrested development started to end, some 20- to 30-somethings have started to invest in real estate, but not in the traditional sense.

Many have turned to turnkey properties, which offer the opportunity to become a homeowner while adding another revenue stream to an investment portfolio.

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11 dead, 12 missing after record floods swamp Texas and Oklahoma | Mashable

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UPDATED 1:15 p.m. ET: With the addition of three fatalities in the Houston area, the death toll from the Memorial Day weekend storms in Texas and Oklahoma has now risen to 11. This figure is expected to rise based on the number of people still missing from the flash flood in Wimberley, Texas.

Authorities are still searching for 12 members of two families who went missing over the weekend when sudden, raging floodwaters swept a vacation home away in Wimberley, Texas. Those family members are now presumed to have perished in the flood, according to the emergency operations center in Hays County, Texas.

The floods have been a remarkable turn of events for a region that was still mired in drought as of three weeks ago. That drought, which had affected Texas since 2010, is now effectively over in most areas, as is a long-running drought in Oklahoma.

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