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TESLA PROPOSES FIFA: VIDEO TECH


BIG PAYOUT ‘DEFINITELY’ AT WORLD
IF MUSK MEETS CUP, FINDING SPONSOR
LOFTY GOALS

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AI CAN READ!
TECH FIRMS RACE
TO SMARTEN
UP THINKING
MACHINES

18 134
APPLE WILL GIVE USERS CONTROL OVER SLOWDOWN OF OLDER iPHONES 08

EU FINES QUALCOMM FOR PAYING APPLE TO USE ITS MICROCHIPS 14

NETFLIX’S SUCCESS TURNS NET NEUTRALITY INTO AN AFTERTHOUGHT 28

MONTANA MANDATES ‘NET NEUTRALITY’ FOR STATE CONTRACTS 36

GET YOUR STUFF AND GO: AMAZON OPENS STORE WITH NO CASHIERS 50

FACEBOOK TO EMPHASIZE ‘TRUSTWORTHY’ NEWS VIA USER SURVEYS 74

MAYBE NEXT TIME: CITIES SEE FAILED AMAZON BIDS AS TRIAL RUNS 80

COMMERCIAL ROCKET FROM NEW ZEALAND DEPLOYS SMALL SATELLITES 88

COMCAST HOPES FOR A TV WINDFALL FROM SUPER BOWL, OLYMPICS 92

WILD RIDE: ‘JUMANJI’ HOLDS ON TO TOP SPOT AT BOX OFFICE 120

‘HOBBIT’ DIRECTOR PETER JACKSON MAKING WWI DOCUMENTARY 130

SPACEWALKING ASTRONAUTS GIVE NEW HAND TO ROBOT ARM 142

CHRISTA MCAULIFFE’S LOST LESSONS FINALLY TAUGHT IN SPACE 146

BETTER THAN HOLOGRAMS: A NEW 3-D PROJECTION INTO THIN AIR 154

SOLAR INDUSTRY ON EDGE AS TRUMP WEIGHS TARIFFS ON PANELS 168

UK REGULATOR SAYS FOX TAKEOVER OF SKY NOT IN PUBLIC INTEREST 176

TOP 10 APPS 100


iTUNES REVIEW 104
TOP 10 SONGS 158
TOP 10 ALBUMS 160
TOP 10 MUSIC VIDEOS 162
TOP 10 TV SHOWS 164
TOP 10 BOOKS 166
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APPLE WILL
GIVE USERS
CONTROL OVER
SLOWDOWN OF
OLDER iPHONES

Apple’s next major update of its mobile


software will include an option that will
enable owners of older iPhones to turn off a
feature that slows the device to prevent aging
batteries from shutting down.

The free upgrade announced Wednesday


will be released this spring.

The additional controls are meant to


appease iPhone owners outraged since
Apple acknowledged last month that its
recent software updates had been secretly
slowing down older iPhones when their
batteries weakened.

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Many people believed Apple was purposefully
undermining the performance of older iPhones
to drive sales of its newer and more expensive
devices. Apple insisted it was simply trying to
extend the lives of older iPhones, but issued an
apology last month and promised to replace
batteries in affected devices at a discounted
price of $50.

Despite Apple’s contrition, the company is still


facing an investigation by French authorities, a
series of questions from U.S. Senate and a spate
of consumer lawsuits alleging misconduct.

Besides giving people more control over the


operation of older iPhones, the upcoming
update dubbed iOS 11.3 will also show how
well the device’s battery is holding up. Apple
had promised to add a battery gauge when it
apologized to consumers last month.

Other features coming in the next update will


include the ability to look at personal medical
histories in Apple’s health app, more tricks in its
augmented reality toolkit and more animated
emojis that work with the facial recognition
technology in the iPhone X.

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14
EU FINES QUALCOMM FOR PAYING
APPLE TO USE ITS MICROCHIPS

The European Union slapped a $1.23 billion


fine on U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm for abusing
its market dominance in the lucrative sector of
components in smartphones and tablets for
half a decade.

EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said that


San Diego-based Qualcomm “illegally shut out
rivals from the market” for more than five years
by paying key customer Apple to not use chips
made by Qualcomm’s rivals.

Vestager said Qualcomm paid “billions of dollars”


to Apple and in the process helped establish
itself as the dominant force.

She said the payments were made in part by


reducing prices for Apple to buy Qualcomm
components on condition that Apple iPhones
and iPads would exclusively use Qualcomm chips.

The EU said that the abuse happened between


2011 and 2016 and centered on baseband
chipsets that allow smartphones and tablets

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to connect to cellular networks. Over most of
that period, Qualcomm accounted for over 90
percent of the market.

Apple was a dominant player with its iPad and


iPhones and the two companies twice entered
an agreement that cut out rivals.

Vestager said there were no regulatory


repercussions for Apple despite accepting the
system for the best part of six years. She said
she had internal documents showing Apple
considered switching some of its work to Intel
but could not do so financially until the end of
the agreement.

Only when the deal was about to expire did


Apple start to diversify. “Competition in this
market is now on the up,” Vestager said.

Qualcomm issued a statement saying it “strongly


disagrees with the decision and will immediately
appeal.” It said that the EU move did not affect its
ongoing operations.

In a warning to others, Vestager said “don’t go


there” and the fine of 997 million euros is meant
to be a deterrent. She said it amounted to
almost five percent of annual turnover.

“It is reflecting the fact that it is very illegal


behavior. It went on for quite some time.”

She said Qualcomm used the system to establish


the company as the industry’s chipmaker of
choice. She said that if smaller companies see a
big firm like Apple using Qualcomm chips, they
would be more likely to do so as well.

“In particular it has made a difference because


we are talking about the one of the biggest
and most important customers in this market,”
Vestager said.

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TESLA PROPOSES
BIG PAYOUT IF
MUSK MEETS
LOFTY GOALS

Elon Musk is known for his bold predictions on


electric and self-driving cars. Now his pay could
depend on whether those predictions come true.

Under a new all-or-nothing pay package, Musk


would remain at Tesla Inc. for the next decade
and see his compensation tied to ambitious
growth targets.

The proposal, revealed this week in a regulatory


filing, requires that Tesla grow in $50 billion
leaps, to a staggering $650 billion market
capitalization.

The electric car maker, based in Palo Alto,


California, is worth less than $60 billion today.
Tesla must hit a series of escalating revenue
and adjusted profit targets, only after which
Musk would vest stock options worth 1 percent
of company shares. He would get no other
guaranteed compensation.

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The pay package, developed over the last six
months by Tesla’s board, still needs the approval
of Tesla shareholders, who will vote on it at a
special meeting in late March. Musk and his
brother Kimbal, who is a Tesla board member,
will recuse themselves from the vote.

If the goals are reached, Tesla would be one of


the biggest companies in America. The $650
billion benchmark would make Tesla the fourth-
most valuable U.S. company, behind only Apple
Inc., Alphabet Inc., and Amazon.com Inc. based
on current valuations. It would be larger than
Microsoft Corp., and would exceed the current
combined valuation of the world’s top eight
publicly-traded auto companies.

The pay scheme would also catapult Musk into


the ranks of the world’s richest people. Musk’s
stock options could be worth up to $55.8 billion
if he meets the company’s goals. He also would
own a 28 percent stake in Tesla, which would
be worth $182 billion. Forbes’ current richest
billionaire, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, is
worth $86 billion.

Musk has long had ambitious plans for Tesla. In


a 2015 earnings call with analysts and media,
he predicted Tesla could match Apple in total
value by 2025.

Musk’s growth plans were laid out in a 2016


blog post he titled “Master Plan, Part Deux.”
Tesla plans to expand from electric cars and
SUVs to trucks — including a semi due out in
2019 — and buses. It will continue to work on
autonomous vehicle technology and plans to
enter the car-sharing business, letting Tesla
owners share their cars when they’re not using
them and running Tesla-owned fleets in cities.

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The company, which bought solar panel maker
SolarCity Corp. in 2016, also plans to expand its
solar panel and energy storage businesses. Tesla
is making solar panels and roof tiles at its factory
in Buffalo, New York, which will help the company
blunt any impact from President Donald Trump’s
recent 30-percent tariff on imported solar panels
and cell modules.

The plans are ambitious, but that’s nothing new


for Tesla. Under a 2012 agreement, Musk’s stock
options vested only if the Tesla’s market cap
continued to rise in $4 billion increments. The
company also had to hit matching operational
milestones, including vehicle production targets
and developmental milestones tied to the
Model X and Model 3 programs. Tesla wound up
reaching all of the market cap milestones and nine
of the 10 operational milestones, falling short only
of its goal to have four consecutive quarters with
30-percent gross margins.

When that pay package was created, the company


was worth just $3.2 billion. Its market cap at the
end of last year was 17 times that amount. That’s
why the new goals may not be that far-fetched,
says Michael Ramsey, an analyst with Gartner who
follows Tesla.

“To this point, it has been dangerous to predict


failure for Tesla or Elon,” he said.

Adam Jonas, an analyst with Morgan Stanley who


follows Tesla, thinks plan is partly a marketing tool
as the competition for electric and autonomous
vehicle talent heats up.

Jonas added that Musk — who owns 21.9 percent


of Tesla shares — is already “all-in” on the company,
so he sees the incentive package as more for investor
confidence than for Musk’s personal benefit.

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In order to vest shares when milestones are
reached, Musk must stay on as CEO or serve
as both executive chairman and chief product
officer. That would give Tesla the option of
hiring a different CEO. Tesla said while it doesn’t
currently intend for Musk to step away from
the CEO role, the terms allow him to potentially
focus his attention on key products and strategy.

The amount of time Musk divides between


Tesla and other ventures has been a concern for
investors. Musk is also the founder and CEO of
rocket maker SpaceX and the co-founder and
chairman of OpenAI, a nonprofit that researches
artificial intelligence. He also recently started
The Boring Co., which hopes to build tunnels
beneath Los Angeles and other major cities for
high-speed transit.

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Musk has never made a salary at Tesla, which
is unusual but not unheard of for a CEO. Ford
Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford didn’t
take a salary or bonus for five years starting
in 2005 when the company’s fortunes were
sagging. Oracle Corp.’s Larry Ellison has a $1
salary but takes home millions in stock awards.
And Steve Jobs took home $1 per year when he
was Apple’s CEO from 1997 to 2011.

Tesla — which turns 15 this year — has never


earned a full-year profit. It has reported only two
profitable quarters since it went public in 2010.

Each of the four vehicles it has made has faced


significant delays and production problems. Its
newest vehicle, the lower-cost Model 3 sedan, is
no exception. Musk initially said Tesla would be
making 20,000 Model 3s per month by the end
of 2017, but he recently pushed that goal to the
end of the second quarter.

That hasn’t dimmed investors’ appetite for


Tesla’s stock. Tesla shares were up less than 1
percent to $352 in afternoon trading. They’ve
risen around 40 percent over the last year.

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NETFLIX’S
SUCCESS TURNS
NET NEUTRALITY
INTO AN
AFTERTHOUGHT

Netflix once fought fiercely for net neutrality,


fearing that its online video service would suffer
if internet providers were free to discriminate
against it.

But now that it boasts one of television’s largest


audiences, Netflix isn’t spending much time
worrying about the demise of the government
rules that once protected it.

With millions of subscribers still flocking to its


service, Netflix figures internet providers are
unlikely to do anything that might alienate large
numbers of their own customers who also turn
to Netflix for trendy shows such as “Stranger
Things,”“The Crown and “Black Mirror.”

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“Netflix’s fortress is so strong now that net
neutrality has become background noise for
them,” says GBH Insights analyst Daniel Ives.

BIG AND GETTING BIGGER


The Trump-era Federal Communications
Commission repealed net-neutrality rules
in mid-December. Those regulations barred
internet providers like Comcast, AT&T and
Verizon from slowing or blocking customer
access to apps and sites, or from setting up paid
“fast lanes” for favored companies. The rules
have been a big deal for smaller startups, as
Netflix once was.

But now Netflix has more than 117 million


subscribers worldwide, including nearly 55
million in the U.S., according to the company’s
fourth-quarter earnings report, released
Monday. The service picked up 8.3 million of
those worldwide subscribers — a quarterly
record — in the October-December period last
year. That included a gain of 2 million in the U.S.

The performance blew past the projections of


Netflix’s own management and stock market
analysts. It was especially striking given a 10
percent price increase on the company’s most
popular subscription plan in the U.S.

Investors apparently aren’t fretting about the


end of net neutrality, either. The company’s
stock soared 9 percent to $248.24 in Monday’s
extended trading. That positions Netflix’s market
value to surpass $100 billion for the first time in
Tuesday’s regular trading session.

Emboldened by its success, Netflix now plans to


spend up to $8 billion on its programming line-
up this year, up from $6 billion last year.

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“Our goal is to entertain people,” Netflix wrote in
its earnings commentary . “We are thrilled to be
able to do that at great scale.”

Last year, Netflix’s average viewership rose


9 percent, although the company refuses to
disclose how many subscribers are watching
at any given time. CBS was the most watched
traditional TV network in the U.S. during the
season ending in last May, with an average
viewership of nearly 10 million people.

NETFLIX NEUTRALITY
When it was smaller, Netflix worried that
internet providers might throw obstacles in
its way to protect the cable businesses many
of them owned. Those pay-TV bundles have
been losing subscribers for years, thanks in
part to consumers opting for Netflix and other
streaming services.

In early 2014, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings wrote


an essay advocating strong net-neutrality rules
to keep cable and phone companies from
imposing tolls on services like Netflix. That was
shortly after Netflix reluctantly agreed to pay
Comcast, one of the biggest internet providers
in the country, for a more reliable connection
that would ensure its videos weren’t disrupted in
mid-stream.

At the time, though, Netflix had half as


many subscribers worldwide as it does now,
including 20 million fewer in the U.S. And it
had only recently launched an expansion into
original programming that turned it into an
entertainment powerhouse.

Netflix is now such a household staple that


even Comcast, the owner of NBC and other

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TV networks, has incorporated the video service
into its set-top boxes. That makes Netflix as easy
to watch as any other cable channel. Other cable
providers have since followed suit.

That’s one of the reasons that Hastings softened


his tone on net neutrality. By last May, he told
a technology conference during an onstage
interview that net neutrality is “not our primary
battle at this point.” In a show of solidarity,
Netflix is still joining the legal fight to restore the
net neutrality regulations, but only as part of the
Internet Association, a trade group.

Netflix earned $186 million, or 41 cents per


share, on revenue of $3.3 billion to hit analyst
targets. But the company also absorbed a
fourth-quarter charge of $39 million to account
for programming that it decided to abandon.
The company didn’t identify the shows.

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MONTANA
MANDATES
‘NET NEUTRALITY’
FOR STATE
CONTRACTS

Montana became the first state to bar


telecommunications companies from receiving
state contracts if they interfere with internet
traffic or favor higher-paying sites or apps, under
an order from Gov. Steve Bullock intended to
protect so-called net neutrality.

The Democratic governor’s order comes after


the Federal Communications Commission last
month repealed rules enacted in 2015 that
had more tightly regulated companies such as
AT&T and Verizon.

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Commission members said the repeal was
needed to ensure the government maintains
a “light touch” in its oversight of the internet.
But critics such as Bullock contend change will
hurt consumers and make it harder for startup
companies to enter the market.

“There has been a lot of talk around the country


about how to respond to the recent decision,”
Bullock said in announcing his order before a
group of computer science students in Helena.
“It’s time to actually do something about it.”

Attorneys from more than 20 states and the


District of Columbia have sued to block the
repeal. State legislatures in New York, California
and elsewhere have introduced bills promoting
net neutrality, but Bullock is the first governor
to taken action, according to the National
Conference on State Legislatures.

His order applies to any company seeking a


new state contract for telecommunications
services after July 1. At that time, in order to
receive a state contract companies must not
“unreasonably interfere” with Montana internet
users’ ability to access the content of their
choice. That includes giving preference to
websites that pay more to internet providers.

Terms of existing telecommunications contracts


with the state — worth about $50 million
annually — would not be changed, Bullock
spokeswoman Marissa Perry said. Among those
are contracts with CenturyLink, Verizon, AT&T
and Comcast, she said.

It was unclear from the order what would


happen to companies with existing contracts.
Bullock told the state Department of
Administration to craft policies and guidance

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by March 1 to put the order into effect, and he
invited governors and lawmakers across the
United States to duplicate his action.

If other states follow suit, it could have


a significant impact — both on large
telecommunications companies with state
contracts and smaller companies trying to
get into the market, said Christopher Mitchell
with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which
supports net neutrality.

“States spend a lot of money on


telecommunications contracts,” Mitchell said.
“We’re seeing a number of states interested in
doing something like this.”

The National Cable and Telecommunications


Association and USTelecom, which represent
the broadband industry, said Congress and not
individual states should step forward to craft
permanent rules.

“We simply cannot have 50 different regulations


governing our internet,” said Sally Aman, US
Telecom’s senior vice president for public affairs.

It was not immediately clear if Bullock’s order


could face a legal challenge for being out of step
with the FCC plan.

The FCC repeal — expected to go into effect


this spring — pre-empted states and cities from
imposing rules that contradict its own plan.

Perry said Bullock had latitude on the issue


because his order applies only to state
contracts and the terms by which Montana, as a
consumer, wants to buy internet services

Aman said it was too soon to say if the


broadband association would file a lawsuit over
Bullock’s order.

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NY DECREES NET NEUTRALITY FOR
WEB FIRMS WITH STATE CONTRACTS
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo enacted the
policy through executive order, following a
similar move by Montana Gov. Steve Bullock.
Several states are considering how to respond
after the Federal Communications Commission
last month repealed its net neutrality policy.

New York state legislators had pushed for the


new policy as a way to protect consumers
by using the state’s lucrative information
technology contracts as leverage over
internet companies.

Attorneys general for 21 states and the District


of Columbia have sued to block the repeal of the
federal policy, which had banned companies
from interfering with web traffic or speeds to
favor certain sites or apps.

Image: Spencer Platt


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FIFA: VIDEO TECH
‘DEFINITELY’
AT WORLD
CUP, FINDING
SPONSOR

Video replays will be used at the World Cup for the


first time and talks are underway with potential
sponsor branding to appear when the technology
is used, a FIFA executive said on Monday.

Soccer’s rule-making panel met on Monday


to assess recent trials ahead of video assistant
referees (VAR) being officially approved by FIFA
later this season for use in Russia in June and July.

“Definitely, VAR will happen,” FIFA chief


commercial officer Philippe Le Floc’h told The
Associated Press. “It’s great to have technology
in football because this is also a fair(ness) thing.”

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Referees were assisted for the first time by high-
tech aids at a World Cup in 2014 when goal-
line technology was used. That system sees a
message instantly flash on referees’ watches
saying only whether the ball crossed the line.

Video review is used when there is a “clear and


obvious error” involving goals, penalty awards,
red cards, and mistaken identity.

Replays could lead to delays in games in Russia


as different angles are reviewed, presenting an
opportunity for FIFA to brand up the segment
on the global broadcast feed.

“We are talking to various technological


companies who are very interested with
what we are doing on the technology side of
things,” Floc’h said on board the World Cup
trophy tour plane during a stop at London
Stansted Airport.

The final decision on allowing replays to


become part of the rules of the game falls to
the International Football Association Board on
March 3 when its annual meeting is held at FIFA.

Video review has been expected at the World


Cup because FIFA controls half the votes in IFAB’s
decision. The other voters are the four British
soccer federations.

Monday’s meeting brought together IFAB


technical experts, FIFA refereeing officials, and
researchers from the University of Leuven in
Belgium, who have studied use of video review
in 804 games across more than 20 competitions.

“The discussions we had today do not indicate


that further experiments need to be conducted,”
said Johannes Holzmueller, FIFA’s lead official for
technological innovation.

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IFAB’s research showed one “clear and obvious
error” in every three games for decisions
involving goals, penalty awards, red cards, and
mistaken identity.

That rate equates to 21 errors in a 64-game


World Cup in Russia.

In the 804 competitive games, video review


technology was decisive in 8 percent of them —
the equivalent of five World Cup games.

The research suggested referees’ accuracy in key


decisions rose from 93 percent to 98.9 percent.

FRENCH LEAGUE TERMINATES GOAL-


LINE TECHNOLOGY CONTRACT
The French football league has terminated the
contract with its goal-line technology provider
after a series of glitches.

The LFP had already suspended the use of


GoalControl, the German system that was
deployed at the 2014 World Cup.

According to L’Equipe newspaper, the league


will launch a tender in February to find a new
provider of the technology that determines
whether the ball crossed the line.

In recent months, the French league had


repeatedly expressed its discontent with
Goal Control.

Goal-line technology entered soccer after a goal


was wrongly disallowed at the 2010 World Cup.

FIFA is already focused on fast-tracking the next


phase of technology — video assistant referees
— for the World Cup in June.

Goal-line technology and VAR were provided by


Hawk-Eye at the Confederations Cup last year.

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Image: Elaine Thompson
50
GET YOUR
STUFF AND GO:
AMAZON OPENS
STORE WITH
NO CASHIERS

No cashiers, no registers and no cash — this is


how Amazon sees the future of store shopping.

The online retailer opened its Amazon Go


concept to the public this week in Seattle, which
lets shoppers take milk, potato chips or ready-
to-eat salads off its shelves and just walk out.
Amazon’s technology charges customers after
they leave.

“It’s such a weird experience, because you feel


like you’re stealing when you go out the door,”
said Lisa Doyle, who visited the shop this week.

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Amazon employees have been testing the
store, at the bottom floor of the company’s
Seattle headquarters, for about a year.
Amazon.com Inc. said it uses computer vision,
machine learning algorithms and sensors to
figure out what people are grabbing off its
store shelves.

The store is yet another sign that Amazon is


serious about expanding its physical presence.
It has opened more than a dozen bookstores,
taken over space in some Kohl’s department
stores and bought Whole Foods last year, giving
it 470 grocery stores.

But Amazon Go is unlike its other stores.


Shoppers enter by scanning the Amazon Go
smartphone app at a turnstile, opening plastic
doors. When an item is pulled of a shelf, it’s
added to that shopper’s virtual cart. If the item is
placed back on the shelf, it is removed from the
virtual cart.

Not everyone can shop at the store: People


must have a smartphone and a debit or credit
card they can link to be charged. Amazon said
families can shop together with just one phone
scanning everyone in. Anything they grab from
the shelf will also be added to the tab of the
person who signed them in. But don’t help out
strangers: Amazon warns that grabbing an item
from the shelf for someone else means you’ll be
charged for it.

There’s little sign of the technology visible to


customers, except for black boxes, cameras and
a few tiny flashing green lights in the darkened,
open ceiling above.

One shopper, Paul Fan, tested the technology


by turning off his phone and taking items and

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Image: Bloomberg
54
putting them in incorrect spots. The app was still
able to tally up his items correctly.

“It’s really smart,” he said.

At 1,800 square feet, Amazon Go resembles a


convenience store, except for a kitchen visible
from the street where sandwiches and ready-
to-cook meal kits are prepared. A small section
features products from the Whole Foods 365
brand. There’s no hot coffee or hot food, but
microwaves are available for customers who
want to warm something up. Beer and wine is in
a cornered-off section where a staffer checks ID
before anyone enters.

The store has other employees, too,


who make food, stock shelves and help
customers. This week, workers were on hand
to help shoppers find and download the
Amazon Go app and guide them through
the exit.

The company had announced the Amazon Go


store in December 2016 and said it would open
by early 2017, but it delayed the debut while
it worked on the technology and company
employees tested it out. By lunchtime on day
one, Amazon’s no-lines hope was thwarted, at
least outside the store: There were at least 50
people waiting to enter, in a line that stretched
around the corner.

Peter Gray, who said he typically shops online


and avoids physical stores, stopped by Amazon
Go after seeing it on Twitter.

“Just being able to walk out and not interact


with anyone was amazing,” he said.

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APPLE’S HOMEPOD IS ON THE HORIZON
Apple’s $349 HomePod is now available to
preorder and the wireless speaker will be in
stores on February 9. The HomePod will be on
sale in US, UK and Australia and will rollout to
France and Germany in the spring. Apple will
finally compete with the likes of Google Home
and Amazon’s Echo as they bring out their
own smart speaker. Apple is promoting it as a
speaker primarily and an assistant second. This is
a speaker that could transform how you listen to
music at home as it claims to analyze the room
to deliver exceptional quality. It will also allow
you to make lists, write emails, send messages
and ask the weather, but how will it compare
with others on the market?

Image: Justin Sullivan


58
APPLE’S HOMEPOD FINALLY
HAS FCC APPROVAL
Apple originally suggested the HomePod
would be available in December 2017, but
they failed to meet this promise. Apple
then promised the device will be ready in
“early 2018” and we have only just received
confirmation that it will launch on February 9,
a lot sooner than we thought.

Apple has finally obtained FCC approval for


their HomePod, meaning they are free to begin
selling their device. They need this approval
from the United States Federal Communications
Commission because all communications
technologies like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi need
to be approved before they can be sold.

WWDC ‘17: Apple HomePod first look

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Apple received FCC approval for the iPhone X
on October 4 and was able to release the phone
on November 3, and the HomePod’s release has
followed a similar pattern. We can finally get our
hands on the speaker in early February.

According to The Taipei Times, Apple supplier


Inventec has began shipping the first million
HomePods to Apple. Apple will finally be able
to compete with the likes of Google Home and
Amazon’s Echo. Some claim that Apple has
joined the party too late, but their smart speaker
does offer a lot of unique features that could set
it apart from their competition.

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APPLE TO COMPETE WITH GOOGLE
HOME AND AMAZON’S ECHO
When the HomePod is released, the battle of
the smart speakers will truly commence. Smart
speakers were all the rage in 2017, and it is only
now that Apple is finally catching up. All the
leading smart speakers will tell you the news,
how much traffic there is, and whether you will
need an umbrella, but how do they differ and
which gets you the most for your money?

In terms of design, its down to personal


preference and in reality, they don’t differ
much. Amazon’s Echo has become a lot more
inconspicuous, but Google Home will definitely
blend into your home better. You even have
the option of choosing different colors for
the base. In comparison, Apple’s HomePod
is perhaps a little bland, but many prefer this
minimalistic look.

Google Home has undoubtedly been deemed


the best at voice recognition, and it can be
paired with your Chromecast so you can stream

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directly to your TV. The Echo definitely beats
Google Home when it comes to sound quality,
however, while Apple’s HomePod hasn’t had
much time to prove itself yet, it is already
being voted as having the best sound quality
of the three. Many have commented that
Google Home is a little base heavy, while the
Echo can be paired with any Apple or Android
smartphone with Bluetooth casting, its sound
quality does not come close to Apple’s product.
Apple claims their speaker “senses the room
and tunes the music”. They claim the smart
speaker can analyse the acoustics of any room
and will adjust the sound accordingly.

We also have to also consider the price of the


three leading smart speakers. Apple’s HomePod
is the most expensive at $349, while the Echo
originally launched at £150 and the new
Echo 2 is sold for £90. Google Home is sold
at £130, but they both also have smaller, and
cheaper, versions that Apple does not offer. The
Echo Dot and Google Home Mini both retail at
£50. Therefore, Amazon’s smart speaker wins
on price, but for many, Google Home wins on
value for money.

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REVOLUTIONISING MUSIC
Critics say the sound quality of Google’s
HomePod easily beats Amazon’s Echo and
Google Home, and this is only to be expected,
given the price. How accurate Apple’s claim is
that it can analyze the acoustics of any room
and adjust the sound accordingly is still yet
to be determined. However, their claim that the
speaker can hear you over the music no matter
how far away you are and how loud the music is
has proved true.

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While Amazon and Google both focus on the
smart side of their assistant, it is the sound
quality that Apple is emphasizing. They are
marketing it as a speaker first and foremost,
choosing to reiterate the quality of the sound.
The speaker, of course, works with Apple Music
and users can not only ask it to play a specific
song but can also ask a series of questions
including when the song was recorded, who it is
by and who the drummer was.

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Apple HomePod Special Event in 8 minutes

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A DEDICATED A8 CHIP
You might be wondering what powers this
speaker to give it such a powerful sound. It is
the dedicated A8 chip that analyses and delivers
outstanding sound quality. Apple claims this
chip is the most powerful processor to ever
be found in a speaker. It is the same chip that
appeared in the iPhone 6 in 2014, and while
this is not the latest Apple has released, it is
undoubtedly the most powerful to ever have
featured in a speaker. The HomePod is equipped
with a 4in, upward-facing woofer and seven
beam-forming tweeters. These each come with
their own amplifier.

Apple even claims it has automatic bass


equalization and dynamic audio modeling. All
of this is powered by the A8 chip. This chip even
helps it determine if there is another HomePod
in the room so the two can work together to

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deliver ultimate sound quality. However, this
feature might not be available with initial launch
and may require a future software update.
Overall, Apple has done a good job creating a
speaker that really does fill the room with sound.

IT’S MORE THAN JUST A SPEAKER


While, Apple is pitching the HomePod as a
speaker primarily, it does excel in other areas.
HomePod is also a HomeKit hub, meaning you
can control other accessories using it. You can
run automations through it without an Apple
TV or an iPad in the house. The smart speaker
can also play Apple Podcasts, set reminders,
provide weather updates and send messages.
It’s still unclear if the HomePod will have
multiuser features.

It will also have multi-room audio playback


using AirPlay 2 and two HomePods will be able
to pair. It comes in both black and white and
the top will be touch sensitive, allowing you to
activate Siri manually.

The HomePod is likely to be popular with


anyone who already uses a variety of Apple
products if they are willing to pay the price. It is
also the best choice for anyone who rates sound
quality highly. It remains to be seen whether the
big price tag will harm its sales and prevent it
competing on the same level as Google Home
and Amazon’s Echo.

by Benjamin Kerry & Gavin Lenaghan

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FACEBOOK
TO EMPHASIZE
‘TRUSTWORTHY’
NEWS VIA
USER SURVEYS

Facebook is taking another step to try to


make itself more socially beneficial, saying it
will boost news sources that its users rate as
trustworthy in surveys.

In a blog post and a Facebook post from


CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the company said it is
surveying users about their familiarity with and
trust in news sources. That data will influence
what others see in their news feeds.

It’s the second major tweak to Facebook’s


algorithm announced this month. The social-
media giant, a major source of news for users,
has struggled to deal with an uproar over
fake news and Russian-linked posts, meant to
influence the 2016 U.S. elections, on its platform.
The company has slowly acknowledged its role
in that foreign interference.

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Zuckerberg has said his goal for this year is to fix
Facebook , whether by protecting against foreign
interference and abuse or by making users feel
better about how they spend time on Facebook.

Facebook announced last week that it


would try to have users see fewer posts from
publishers, businesses and celebrities, and
more from friends and family. Zuckerberg
said because of that, news posts will make
up 4 percent of the news feed , down from
5 percent today.

Facebook says it will start prioritizing news


sources deemed trustworthy in the U.S.
and then internationally. It says it has
surveyed a “diverse and representative
sample” of U.S. users and next week it will
begin testing prioritizing the news sources
deemed trustworthy. Publishers with lower
scores may see a drop in their distribution
across Facebook.

“There’s too much sensationalism,


misinformation and polarization in the
world today. Social media enables people to
spread information faster than ever before,
and if we don’t specifically tackle these
problems, then we end up amplifying them.
That’s why it’s important that News Feed
promotes high quality news that helps
build a sense of common ground,”
Zuckerberg wrote.

Of course, there are worries that survey-takers


will try to game the system, or that they just
won’t be able to differentiate between high-
quality and low-quality news sources — an
issue made evident by the spread of many
fake-news items in the past few years.

Image: Konstantin
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Zuckerberg says that some news organizations
“are only broadly trusted by their readers or
watchers, and others are broadly trusted across
society even by those who don’t follow them
directly.” But this is complicated.

In the U.S., there has been a growing


partisan split in perceptions of the media .
Roughly a third of Democrats in early 2017
said they trusted information from national
news organizations a lot; only 11 percent of
Republicans did, according to Pew Research
Center; that gap had grown from early 2016.

Facebook’s move is a positive one, but that


it’s not clear how effective this system will
be in identifying trustworthy news sources,
David Chavern, CEO of the news media trade
group News Media Alliance, said in a
statement last Friday.
Image: Stephen Lam
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MAYBE NEXT TIME:
CITIES SEE FAILED
AMAZON BIDS AS
TRIAL RUNS

For some of the 200-plus cities knocked out of


the running for Amazon’s second headquarters,
the effort may turn out to be a trial run for other
opportunities. But they’re advised to not make
the same kind of promises to just anyone.

Cities such as Detroit, Memphis, Tennessee;


and Gary, Indiana, failed to make Amazon’s first
cut as the online giant narrowed its list to 20
prospective sites for the $5 billion project that
could employ up to 50,000 people. Looking on
the bright side, several leaders whose proposals
didn’t make it say the time spent putting
together juicy tax incentives, massive chunks of
land and infrastructure studies was not wasted.

“We used this opportunity to showcase all the


options in Delaware not just for Amazon, but
for any business looking for a location to set
down roots and grow,” the state’s governor, John
Carney, said.

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“This exercise showed us new ways to showcase
our city that we are already using to attract other
businesses,” Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said.

Seattle-based Amazon made clear that tax


breaks and grants would be a big factor in
its decision.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan floated an incentive


package of more than $5 billion to lure the
second headquarters to Montgomery County.
New Jersey’s pitch contains $7 billion in tax
breaks and Boston’s offer includes $75 million
for affordable housing for Amazon employees
and others.

Generous tax breaks and other incentives can


erode a city’s tax base. Economists have said the
Amazon headquarters is a rare case in which
some enticements could repay a city over the
long run.

But the pursuit of Amazon could re-ignite an


incentive war between cities, regions and states
to lure companies and jobs, says Tim Bartik, a
senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for
Employment Research in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Just because they offered certain things to


Amazon, doesn’t mean every company should
get the same, Bartik said. “’Now that we’ve
offered the store to Amazon, let’s offer the
store to someone else,’” he added. “I’d be little
concerned with that.”

Amazon’s list includes New York, Boston, Los


Angeles, Indianapolis, Washington, D.C., Denver,
Miami, Atlanta and Chicago. Texas’ Austin
and Dallas made the cut, as did Philadelphia
and Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. The others
are Columbus, Ohio; Montgomery County,

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83
Image: Paul Sancya

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Maryland; Nashville, Tennessee; Newark, New
Jersey; Northern Virginia; and Raleigh, North
Carolina. Toronto also is on the list.

Detroit’s absence from the list muted what many


see as an exciting time in the city as it makes
progress since its 2014 exit from bankruptcy.
Businessman Dan Gilbert led the team that
put together the Motor City’s proposal, which
included a video showcasing the city and a more
than 240-page, color, spiral-bound book. The
cost of the proposal has not been revealed.

“We are not deterred in any way, shape or


form,” said Gilbert, founder of online mortgage
lender Quicken Loans and Bedrock commercial
real estate. “Detroit is the most exciting city
in the country right now and the momentum
continues to build every single day. There
are numerous large and small deals you will
continue to see develop into reality in the
months and years ahead.”

Some spent big on their pitches to Amazon.


Worcester, Massachusetts, released invoices
showing that it spent more than $10,500 on
its proposal, most of it on a video. Connecticut
shelled out $35,000 for renderings and drone
footage. Virginia Beach, Virginia, reported
spending at least $85,000. That included $3,000
to build a sand sculpture at the beach to
promote its application.

For areas considered longshots, going after


Amazon was a bit of an experiment.

“As much as this process helped identify our


major assets, it also helped us to assess our gaps
and where we can continue to improve,” said
Birgit Klohs, chief executive of Grand Rapids,
Michigan-based The Right Place, Inc. The

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economic development organization was part
of the team making the pitch for Grand Rapids.

Gov. Chris Sununu said New Hampshire’s


proposal “was the most comprehensive business
marketing plan” the state had produced.

“We are excited that it is already serving as a


template for other businesses that now have
New Hampshire on their radar,” Sununu said.
He did not name specific companies, and
Democrats argued that if Sununu truly wanted
to attract businesses, he would invest more
in education, workforce development and
increasing the minimum wage.

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COMMERCIAL
ROCKET FROM
NEW ZEALAND
DEPLOYS SMALL
SATELLITES

A rocket launched from New Zealand on


Sunday successfully reached orbit carrying small
commercial satellites.

California-based company Rocket Lab said


its Electron rocket, which carries only a small
payload of about 150 kilograms (331 pounds),
successfully deployed an earth imaging and two
other satellites for weather and ship tracking
after blastoff from the Mahia Peninsula on North
Island’s east coast.

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Company CEO and founder Peter Beck, a New
Zealander, said the launch marks the beginning
of a new era in commercial access to space. He
said that deploying customer payloads on a
second test flight “is almost unprecedented.”

The company last May reached space with its


first test launch, only to abort the mission due to
a communication glitch. It has official approval
to conduct three test launches and sees an
emerging market in delivering small devices,
some as big as a smartphone, into orbit.

The satellites would be used for everything from


monitoring crops to providing internet service.

Image: Rocket Lab


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Image: Jeff Fusco
92
COMCAST
HOPES FOR A TV
WINDFALL FROM
SUPER BOWL,
OLYMPICS

Comcast’s NBC is airing both the Super Bowl and


the Olympics in February, a double-whammy
sports extravaganza that the company expects
to yield $1.4 billion in ad sales, helping it justify
the hefty price it’s paying for both events.

NBC is banking heavily on these sports events


since traditional TV ratings have slumped in recent
years. Live sports are marquee TV events that
draw most of the largest TV audiences, but even
those ratings have declined. More Americans are
dumping their cable packages — Comcast lost
33,000 video customers in the fourth quarter
and 151,000 for all of 2017 — and advertisers are
following consumers to their phones.

Spending on U.S. TV ads is expected to grow


an anemic 0.4 percent this year, according
to eMarketer.

In the October-December quarter,


NBCUniversal’s broadcast TV ad revenue fell
6.5 percent, after a boost in 2016 from election

93
ads. As it adapts to a slowing TV market, NBC
is continuing some digital efforts from Rio and
expanding others to meet viewers wherever
they are — whether in front of a TV or not.

THE SUPER BOWL


The Super Bowl reaches more than 100 million
people in the U.S., outstripping every other TV
event. It’s the most expensive ad time on TV.

This year’s Super Bowl is Feb. 4 and follows a


two-year slump in regular-season NFL ratings,
according to ESPN . But NBC has said it is not
worried about a lack of interest. The game is an
event that “transcends sport and even the game
itself,” Dan Lovinger, an NBC Sports ad-sales
executive, said in January, about three weeks
before the game.

NBC said then that it had nearly sold out Super


Bowl ad spots and that on average, companies
are paying more than $5 million for 30-second
ads during the game. Kantar Media expects rates
slightly higher than last year’s $5.05 million.

Fox aired the Super Bowl in 2017, and said it had


$500 million in ad revenues for the day. NBC has
predicted about $500 million for the game and
associated events this year.

NBC also makes money from ads during events


before and after the game and a special episode
that day of its hit drama, “This is Us.”

For the first time, it’s selling ads for the game
that will only appear on its app or website.

ADS FROM PYEONGCHANG


NBC is paying $963 million for the broadcast rights
to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South

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Korea, which follow a Summer Olympics in Rio two
years ago that disappointed in some ways.

NBC ruled the airwaves during the Rio Games,


besting other networks, and raked in $250
million in profit. But ratings for the prime-time
broadcast declined compared to the London
Olympics in 2012, so NBC had to give advertisers
some extra ad slots to make up for it.

This time around, NBC will sell ads for this


Olympics based on total viewership, counting
cable and digital viewers as well as those who
tune into NBC proper. That gives them more
leverage with advertisers, said Brian Wieser, an
ad analyst for Pivotal Research Group.

NBC expects to sell more than $900 million


worth of ads for the Olympics, which it
says would be the highest ever for a Winter
Games. (Summer Games are more popular.)
The company is offering more hours of
programming this year, both on TV and online,
than it did for the Sochi Games in 2014.

KEEPING FANS HAPPY


Past Olympics have been criticized by fans for
tape-delayed events. This year, NBC will air its
nightly prime-time broadcast simultaneously
across the country. That means the West Coast
evening broadcast will start early, at 5 p.m.

The company says it will be able to show many


Olympics events live for the U.S. audience,
including skiing, snowboarding and figure
skating. (U.S. prime time starts at 10 a.m. Korean
time.) But some popular events will be live at
odd hours in the U.S. Speed skating will take
place in the evening in Korea, for example —
but morning in the U.S.

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Image: Cameron Spencer
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Image: Mary Altaffer
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NBC will stream the opening ceremony at 6 a.m.
Eastern on Feb. 9, but only for cable customers.
A delayed version will air on prime time. And
it’s not yet clear whether exciting medal-round
events will be shown at the best time for NBC’s
ratings, said Kantar Media chief research officer
Jon Swallen. NBC just says that all figure skating,
alpine skiing and freestyle snowboard finals will
be aired live in either prime time or what it calls
“prime-time plus,” which stretches from 11:30
p.m. until 2 a.m. Eastern.

GOING DIGITAL
As it did during the Rio Olympics, NBC has
again partnered with BuzzFeed to make videos
on Snapchat, a messaging app popular with
millennials. These will include behind-the-
scenes videos posted by Snapchat users, clips of
athletes and Olympics venues shot by BuzzFeed,
and snippets of NBC’s own Olympics coverage.
NBC’s revenue from its Snapchat deal is in the
tens of millions, said an NBC Sports spokesman.

The broadcaster is also teaming up with the


online news site Vox to make a daily Olympics
podcast for the 18 days of competition. NBC
parent Comcast is showcasing both NBC’s
Olympics broadcasts and streaming video for
its home cable customers in a way that will be
easily searchable on TV sets.

In its fourth-quarter earnings report on


Wednesday, Comcast said its net income
soared to $15 billion, or $3.17 per share, from
$2.3 billion, or 48 cents per share, because of
a one-time impact from tax changes recently
signed into law. Revenue climbed 4 percent
to $21.92 billion.

99
#01 – Knife Hit
By Ketchapp
Category: Games / Free
Requires iOS 8.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#02 – Finger Driver


By Ketchapp
Category: Games / Free
Requires iOS 8.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#03 – YouTube: Watch, Listen, Stream


By Google, Inc.
Category: Photo & Video / Free
Requires iOS 9.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#04 – Google Arts & Culture


By Google, Inc.
Category: Entertainment / Free
Requires iOS 10.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#05 – Instagram
By Instagram, Inc.
Category: Photo & Video / Free
Requires iOS 9.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#06 – Messenger
By Facebook, Inc.
Category: Social Networking / Free
Requires iOS 8.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#07 – Snapchat
By Snap, Inc.
Category: Photo & Video / Free
Requires iOS 10.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#08 – Facebook
By Facebook, Inc.
Category: Social Networking / Free
Requires iOS 8.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#09 – HQ - Live Trivia Game Show


By Intermedia Labs
Category: Games / Free
Requires iOS 9.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#10 – Twisty Road!


By Voodoo
Category: Games / Free
Requires iOS 7.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

100
#01 – GarageBand
By Apple
Category: Music / Free
Compatibility: OS X 10.10 or later

#02 – WhatsApp Desktop


By WhatsApp Inc.
Category: Social Networking / Free
Compatibility: OS X 10.9.0 or later, 64-bit processor

#03 – Open Any File


By Rocky Sand Studio Ltd.
Category: Utilities / Free
Compatibility: OS X 10.10 or later, 64-bit processor

#04 – Xcode
By Apple
Category: Developer Tools / Free
Compatibility: OS X 10.11.5 or later

#05 – 1Doc: Word Processor for Writer


ByChengyu Huang
Category: Business / Free
Compatibility: OS X 10.10.0 or later, 64-bit processor

#06 – OneDrive
By Microsoft Corporation
Category: Productivity / Free
Compatibility: OS X 10.9.0 or later, 64-bit processor

#07– Microsoft OneNote


By Microsoft Corporation
Category: Productivity / Free
Compatibility: OS X 10.10 or later, 64-bit processor

#08 – Kindle
By AMZN Mobile LLC
Category: Reference / Free
Compatibility: OS X 10.9 or later

#09 – Slack
By Slack Technologies, Inc.
Category: Business / Free
Compatibility: OS X 10.6.0 or later, 64-bit processor

#10 – PDF Reader Pro Free


By PDF Technologies, Inc.
Category: Business / Free
Compatibility: OS X 10.8 or later, 64-bit processor

101
#01 – Minecraft
By Mojang
Category: Games / Price: $6.99
Requires iOS 8.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#02 – Pocket Build


By MoonBear LTD
Category: Games / Price: $0.99
Requires iOS 8.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#03 – Heads Up!


By Warner Bros.
Category: Games / Price: $0.99
Requires iOS 8.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#04 – Geometry Dash


By RobTop Games AB
Category: Games / Price: $1.99
RRequires iOS 8.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#05 – Plague Inc


By Ndemic Creations
Category: Games / Price: $0.99
Requires iOS 8.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#06 – NBA 2K18


By 2K
Category: Games / Price: $7.99
Requires iOS 9.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#07 – Facetune
By Lightricks Ltd.
Category: Photo & Video / Price: $3.99
Requires iOS 9.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#08 – Bloons TD 5
By Ninja Kiwi
Category: Games / Price: $2.99
Requires iOS 6.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#09 – The Game of Life


By Marmalade Game Studio
Category: Games / Price: $2.99
Requires iOS 8.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#10 – Tabs & Chords - learn and play


By Ultimate Guitar
Category: Music / Price: $2.99
Requires iOS 9.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

102
#01 – Magnet
By CrowdCafé
Category: Productivity / Price: $1.39
Compatibility: OS X 10.9 or later, 64-bit processor

#02 – The Sims™ 2: Super Collection


By Aspyr Media, Inc.
Category: Games / Price: $39.99
Compatibility: OS X 10.9.2 or later

#03 – Final Cut Pro


By Apple
Category: Video / Price: $399.99
Compatibility: OS X 10.7 or later

#04 – Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas


By Rockstar Games
Category: Games / Price: $20.99
Compatibility: OS X 10.10 or later, 64-bit processor

#05 – Adware Doctor: Malware Remove


By YONGMING ZHANG
Category: Utilities / Price: $6.99
Compatibility: OS X 10.10 or later, 64-bit processor

#06 – Logic Pro X


By Apple
Category: Music / Price: $279.99
Compatibility: OS X 10.10 or later, 64-bit processor

#07 – Disk Doctor: System Cleaner


By FIPLAB Ltd
Category: Utilities / Price: $3.99
Compatibility: OS X 10.10 or later, 64-bit processor

#08 – ShutterCount
By DIRE Studio
Category: Photography / Price: $5.49
Compatibility: OS X 10.8 or later, 64-bit processor

#09 – RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 Platinum


By Aspyr Media, Inc.
Category: Games / Price: $27.99
Compatibility: OS X 10.8.5 or later

#10 – The File Converter


By SmoothMobile, LLC
Category: Utilities / Price: $9.99
Compatibility: OS X 10.10 or later, 64-bit processor

103
by Hany Abu-Assad
Genre: Drama
Released: 2017
Price: $9.99

144 Ratings

Trailer

Movies
&TV Shows
Rotten Tomatoes

41 %
104
The Mountain
Between Us

Kate Winslet and Idris Elba’s characters


become stranded on a remote snow-
covered mountain following a plane crash.
From here on out this suspense drama is
a battle for survival as the pair begin their
perilous journey home. The strangers are
forced to work together, and they discover
their own inner strength as they fight for
their lives.

FIVE FACTS:
1. Much of the film was shot in Canada, on
the border of Alberta and British Columbia.
2. Both Michael Fassbender and Margot
Robbie dropped out of the movie, followed
by Charlie Hunnam and Rosamund Pike. Idris
Elba and Kate Winslet were eventually cast in
the leading roles.
3. Filming was delayed a few days so Kate
Winslet could attend Alan Rickman’s funeral.
4. In an interview, the director said the high
altitude caused the actors to faint due to
lack of oxygen.
5. Kate Winslet wouldn’t let her stunt double
fall through the ice for her, stating that when
you sign up for a part, you have to play the
whole part.

105
106
“We Don’t Have A Choice”

107
Happy Death Day

This petrifying thriller features a college


student who is forced to relive the day of
her murder. She lives through the mundane
details as well as her terrifying end. She is
trapped in this seemingly unending torture
until, finally, she unveils the identity of
her killer.

FIVE FACTS:
1. In one scene, Tree walks across the
campus quad completely naked. This had
to be filmed quickly as they were filming
on a real college campus and couldn’t
risk students witnessing the scene and
taking photos.
2. Originally, the film was going to be called
Half to Death.
3. Christopher Landon thinks too many
horror films take themselves too seriously
and argues that fear and humor work
well together.
4. The original mask for the killer, designed
by Tony Gardner, was a pig but this had been
used in the Saw movies.
5. While testing out the killer’s baby mask,
director Christopher Landon scared a worker
in his office while testing out the baby mask.

Trailer

108
by Christopher Landon
Genre: Thriller
Released: 2017
Price: $14.99

139 Ratings

Rotten Tomatoes

71 %
109
110
Happy Death Day Movie Clip
Tree Gets Attacked (2017)

111
“From Now On” with Hugh Jackman

112
Music
The Greatest
Showman
Various Artists

The soundtrack from the ultimate feel-good


film will have you singing along and grinning
from ear to ear throughout. The Greatest
Showman is a celebration of the birth of show
business, following the true story of a man
who challenged social norms to bring the
excluded and mocked out from the shadows.
The film is a celebration of humanity, and so is
the soundtrack that accompanies it.
Genre: Soundtrack
Released: Dec 8, 2017
11 Songs
Price: $9.99
FIVE FACTS:
1. Hugh Jackman’s favorite track is ‘This
1.7K Ratings is Me’, which is all about celebrating our
differences and accepting who we are.
2. While the film is set in the 1800s, the
decision was taken to make the songs are far
more contemporary, evoking pop and hip-
hop genres, rather than the more classical
music style of the time.
3. Rebecca Ferguson’s voice was dubbed by
Loren Allred.
4. All eleven songs are written by Benj
Pasek and Justin Paul, who also wrote the
award-winning tracks that featured in
La La Land (2016)
5. Zac Efron has starred in four other
musicals, including the High School Musical
trilogy and Hairspray.

113
“Come Alive” Live Performance

114
115
Hallelujah Nights
LANCO

Their new album encompasses everything


LANCO are known for and showcases feel-
good country anthems with an edge of
classic rock and blues. This much-awaited
album is likely to serve as a base to their
successful career and could have them
following in the footsteps of Imagine Dragons
and Mumford & Sons. This album is upbeat
and uplifting and is packed full of anthems
that you can’t help but sing along to.
Genre: Country
Released: Jan 19, 2018
11 Songs
FIVE FACTS: Price: $7.99
1. Their debut EP, Extended Play, was
released in April 2016.
56 Ratings
2. Pick You Up, Win You Over and Middle
of the Night are all about the same night
mentioned in Greatest Love Story, their
breakthrough single.
3. Jay Joyce, who has worked with the likes
of Little Big Town, Zac Brown Band, and
Emmylou Harris, produced the album.
4. The band’s name is short for Lancaster
and Company as the band consists of lead
singer Brandon Lancaster, who started the
band, and four other members.
5. Greatest Love Story became the theme for
the Netflix series The Ranch, in 2017.

116
“Hallelujah Nights”

117
118
“Trouble Maker”

119
120
WILD RIDE:
‘JUMANJI’ HOLDS
ON TO TOP SPOT
AT BOX OFFICE

“Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” notched its


third straight weekend on top of the box office,
besting a pair of new releases — “12 Strong” and
“Den of Thieves” — both of which still managed
to slightly outperform expectations.

Sony’s “Jumanji” took in $19.5 million in ticket


sales in its fifth weekend of releases, according
to final box-office figures Monday. The reboot,
starring Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, has
shown surprisingly strong legs after spending its
first two weeks of release in second behind “Star
Wars: The Last Jedi.” Its cumulative total through
Sunday is $316.5 million.

Warner Bros ‘s “12 Strong,” about U.S. special


forces sent to Afghanistan in the weeks after
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, followed with $15.8
million in its debut. STX Entertainment’s crime
thriller “Den of Thieves” debuted in third with
$15.2 million.

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122
The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters
Friday through Monday, followed by distribution
studio, gross, number of theater locations,
average receipts per location, total gross and
number of weeks in release, as compiled
Monday by comScore:

1. “Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle,”


Sony, $19,505,170, 3,704 locations,
$5,266 average, $316,450,318, 5 weeks.

2. “12 Strong,” Warner Bros.,


$15,815,025, 3,002 locations,
$5,268 average, $15,815,025, 1 week.

3. “Den Of Thieves,” STX Entertainment,


$15,206,108, 2,432 locations,
$6,253 average, $15,206,108, 1 week.

4. “The Post,” 20th Century Fox,


$11,716,960, 2,851 locations,
$4,110 average, $44,758,362, 5 weeks.

5. “The Greatest Showman,” 20th Century


Fox, $10,644,824, 2,823 locations,
$3,771 average, $113,125,431, 5 weeks.

123
124
6. “Paddington 2,” Warner Bros.,
$8,009,129, 3,702 locations,
$2,163 average, $24,810,362, 2 weeks.

7. “The Commuter,” Lionsgate, $6,603,842,


2,892 locations, $2,283 average,
$25,627,371, 2 weeks.

8. “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” Disney,


$6,555,435, 2,456 locations,
$2,669 average, $604,273,911, 6 weeks.

9. “Insidious: The Last Key,” Universal,


$5,874,055, 2,546 locations,
$2,307 average, $58,658,320, 3 weeks.

10. “Forever My Girl,” Roadside


Attractions, $4,245,490,
1,114 locations, $3,811 average,
$4,245,490, 1 week.

125
11. “Proud Mary,” Sony, $3,568,996,
2,125 locations, $1,680 average,
$16,850,600, 2 weeks.

12. “Phantom Thread,” Focus Features,


$3,246,720, 896 locations,
$3,624 average, $6,059,449, 4 weeks.

13. “Pitch Perfect 3,” Universal,


$3,022,185, 1,772 locations,
$1,706 average, $100,535,230, 5 weeks.

14. “I, Tonya,” Neon Rated, $2,859,938,


799 locations, $3,579 average,
$14,508,658, 7 weeks.

15. “Darkest Hour,” Focus Features,


$2,729,810, 1,341 locations,
$2,036 average, $40,792,987, 9 weeks.

126
127
128
16. “The Shape Of Water,” Fox
Searchlight, $2,186,311,
853 locations, $2,563 average,
$30,195,358, 8 weeks.

17. “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing


Missouri,” Fox Searchlight,
$1,917,162, 954 locations, $2,010 average,
$31,994,519, 11 weeks.

18. “Coco,” Disney, $1,910,672,


878 locations, $2,176 average,
$200,726,972, 9 weeks.

19. “Ferdinand,” 20th Century Fox,


$1,686,160, 1,212 locations,
$1,391 average, $79,172,376, 6 Weeks.

20. “Molly’s Game,” STX Entertainment,


$1,622,177, 1,091 locations,
$1,487 average, $24,280,686, 4 weeks.

Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast


Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics
are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney,
Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned
by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are
owned by 21st Century Fox; Warner Bros. and New Line are units
of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors
including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn;
Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by
AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

129
130
‘HOBBIT’ DIRECTOR
PETER JACKSON
MAKING WWI
DOCUMENTARY

“The Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson


is going from Middle Earth to the Western
Front, transforming grainy black-and-white
footage of World War I into 3-D color for a new
documentary film.

Jackson’s movie, announced this week, is among


dozens of artworks commissioned by British
cultural bodies to commemorate 100 years since
the final year of the 1914-18 war.

The New Zealand-based director of “The Hobbit”


and “Lord of the Rings” series has restored film
from the Imperial War Museum using cutting-
edge digital technology and hand coloring,
pairing it with archive audio recollections from
veterans of the conflict.
Image: Matt Sayles
131
He said the aim is to close the 100-year time gap
and show “what it was like to fight in the war.”

“We all know what First World War footage


looks like,” Jackson said in comments broadcast.
“It’s sped-up, it’s fast, like Charlie Chaplin,
grainy, jumpy, scratchy, and it immediately
blocks you from actually connecting with the
events on screen.

“But the results we have got are absolutely


unbelievable. They are way beyond
what I expected.

“This footage looks like it was shot in the last


week or two, with high definition cameras.”

The film will have its premiere during the


London Film Festival in October before being
broadcast on BBC television. Every school in the
U.K. will also receive a copy.

The film is part of the government-backed 14-18


Now project, which has presented works by more
than 200 artists over four years to remember a
conflict in which 20 million people died.

Other works premiering this year include a


large-scale performance piece by South African
artist William Kentridge about African porters
who served in the war; processions to mark
the 100th anniversary of some British women
winning the right to vote; and a performance
celebrating wartime homing pigeons that
includes birds fitted with LED lights.

Slumdog Millionaire” director Danny Boyle


— who helmed the 2012 London Olympics
opening ceremony — will create a mass-
participation work to be performed on the
anniversary of the Nov. 11, 1918, armistice that
ended the war.

132
133
AI CAN READ!
TECH FIRMS RACE
TO SMARTEN
UP THINKING
MACHINES

Seven years ago, a computer beat two human


quizmasters on a “Jeopardy” challenge. Ever
since, the tech industry has been training its
machines even harder to make them better at
amassing knowledge and answering questions.

And it’s worked, at least up to a point. Just don’t


expect artificial intelligence to spit out a literary
analysis of Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” any
time soon.

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135
Research teams at Microsoft and Chinese tech
company Alibaba reached what they described
as a milestone earlier this month when their AI
systems outperformed the estimated human
score on a reading comprehension test. It was
the latest demonstration of rapid advances
that have improved search engines and
voice assistants and that are finding broader
applications in health care and other fields.

The answers they got wrong — and the


test itself — also highlight the limitations of
computer intelligence and the difficulty of
comparing it directly to human intelligence.

ERROR! ERROR!
“We are still a long way from computers
being able to read and comprehend
general text in the same way that humans
can,” said Kevin Scott, Microsoft’s chief
technology officer, in a LinkedIn post that
also commended the achievement by the
company’s Beijing-based researchers.

The test developed at Stanford University


demonstrated that, in at least some
circumstances, computers can beat humans
at quickly “reading” hundreds of Wikipedia
entries and coming up with accurate answers
to questions about Genghis Khan’s reign or the
Apollo space program.

The computers, however, also made mistakes


that many people wouldn’t have.

Microsoft, for instance, fumbled an easy


football question about which member of
the NFL’s Carolina Panthers got the most
interceptions in the 2015 season (the correct
answer was Kurt Coleman, not Josh Norman).

136
137
A person’s careful reading of the Wikipedia
passage would have discovered the right
answer, but the computer tripped up on the
word “most” and didn’t understand that seven
is bigger than four.

“You need some very simple reasoning here,


but the machine cannot get it,” said Jianfeng
Gao, of Microsoft’s AI research division.

HUMAN VS. MACHINE


It’s not uncommon for machine-learning
competitions to pit the cognitive abilities
of computers against humans. Machines
first bested people in an image-recognition
competition in 2015 and a speech recognition
competition last year, although they’re still
easily tricked. Computers have also vanquished
humans at chess, Pac-Man and the strategy
game Go.

And since IBM’s “Jeopardy” victory in 2011, the


tech industry has shifted its efforts to data-
intensive methods that seek to not just find
factoids, but better comprehend the meaning
of multi-sentence passages.

Like the other tests, the Stanford Question


Answering Dataset, nicknamed Squad,
attracted a rivalry among research institutions
and tech firms — with Google, Facebook,
Tencent, Samsung and Salesforce also
giving it a try.

“Academics love competitions,” said Pranav


Rajpurkar, the Stanford doctoral student who
helped develop the test. “All these companies
and institutions are trying to establish
themselves as the leader in AI.”

138
Image: Jeff Chiu
139
LIMITS OF UNDERSTANDING Computers are getting better at the statistical
intuition that allows them to scan text and find
The tech industry’s collection and digitization
what seems relevant, but they still struggle with
of huge troves of data, combined with new sets
the logical reasoning that comes naturally to
of algorithms and more powerful computing,
people. (And they are often hopeless when it
has helped inject new energy into a machine-
comes to deciphering the subtle wink-and-nod
learning field that’s been around for more than
trickery of a clever puzzle.) Many of the common
half a century. But computers are still “far off”
ways of measuring artificial intelligence are in
from truly understanding what they’re reading,
some ways teaching to the test, Littman said.
said Michael Littman, a Brown University
computer science professor who has tasked “It strikes me for the kind of problem that they’re
computers to solve crossword puzzles. solving that it’s not possible to do better than
people, because people are defining what’s
correct,” Littman said of the Stanford benchmark.
“The impressive thing here is they met human
performance, not that they’ve exceeded it.”

140
141
142
SPACEWALKING
ASTRONAUTS GIVE
NEW HAND TO
ROBOT ARM

Spacewalking astronauts gave a hand to the


International Space Station’s big robot arm.

As the federal government geared back up 250


miles below, NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei
and Scott Tingle successfully installed the new
mechanical gripper.

Because of the lingering effects of the


government shutdown, the spacewalk got
started in the morning without coverage on
NASA TV. An on-air message simply stated: “We
regret the inconvenience.” Nearly an hour into
the spacewalk, however, NASA TV came alive
and began broadcasting the event with typical
blow-by-blow commentary.

Space station operations were largely unaffected


by the three-day shutdown. Considered
essential personnel, Mission Control kept watch
as usual at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Vande Hei performed a similar spacewalk last


October, when he replaced the first of two
original hands on the Canadian-built arm. This

143
second new hand will go on the opposite end of
the 58-foot arm, able to move like an inchworm
by grabbing hold of special fixtures.

The bulky bundle of latches — more than 3


feet, or a meter, long and weighing more than
440 pounds, or 200 kilograms — needed to be
replaced because of wear and tear. It’s been in
orbit, grabbing cargo capsules and performing
other chores, since 2001.

Tingle had to use extra muscle to release


a stubborn bolt securing the spare
mechanical arm.

“Nice work,” Vande Hei said. “And the crowd goes


wild,” chimed in Mission Control.

Next, the spacewalkers wrested the old,


degraded hand from the robot arm. Once
the new hand was in place, a software issue
cropped up briefly. Six hours into the spacewalk,
NASA declared victory. The spacewalk lasted
7 1/2 hours.

It was the first spacewalk for Tingle, who arrived


last month, and the third for Vande Hei.

“Make us proud out there,” astronaut Joe Acaba


told the spacewalkers from inside. “We’ll have
hot chow for you when you get back.”

Vande Hei will go back out Monday with


another astronaut to finish the job. Then the two
Russians on board will conduct a spacewalk Feb.
2 to install a new antenna on their country’s side
of the outpost.

The space station is home to three Americans,


two Russians and one Japanese.

Online: NASA

144
145
146
CHRISTA
MCAULIFFE’S LOST
LESSONS FINALLY
TAUGHT IN SPACE

Christa McAuliffe’s lost lessons are finally getting


taught in space.

Thirty-two years after the Challenger disaster,


a pair of teachers turned astronauts will pay
tribute to McAuliffe by carrying out her science
classes on the International Space Station.

As NASA’s first designated teacher in space,


McAuliffe was going to experiment with fluids
and demonstrate Newton’s laws of motion for
schoolchildren. She never made it to orbit: She
and six crewmates were killed during liftoff of
space shuttle Challenger on Jan. 28, 1986.

147
Image: Victor Zelentsov
148
Astronauts Joe Acaba and Ricky Arnold will
perform some of McAuliffe’s lessons over the
next several months. Acaba shared the news
during a TV linkup last week with students at
her alma mater, Framingham State University
near Boston.

“I can’t think of a better time or a better place to


make this announcement,” Acaba said. He and
Arnold “look forward to helping to inspire the
next generation of explorers and educators.”

Four lessons — on effervescence or bubbles,


chromatography, liquids and Newton’s laws —
will be filmed by Acaba and Arnold, then posted
online by the Challenger Center, a not-for-profit
organization supporting science, technology,
engineering and math education.

The center’s president, Lance Bush, said he’s


thrilled “to bring Christa’s lessons to life.”

“We are honored to have the opportunity to


complete Christa’s lessons and share them with
students and teachers around the world,” Bush
said in a statement.

On Friday, he thanked Acaba, who along with


two station crewmates fielded questions from
Framingham State students about life in space.

NASA’s associate administrator for education,


Mike Kincaid, said the lessons are “an incredible
way to honor and remember” McAuliffe as well
as the entire Challenger crew.

Four of the six lessons that McAuliffe planned to


videotape during her space flight will be done.
A few will be altered to take advantage of what’s
available aboard the space station.

The lessons should be available online


beginning this spring.

149
Image: Kolenovsky
150
151
Acaba returns to Earth at the end of February.
Arnold flies up in March. NASA is billing their
back-to-back missions as “A Year of Education
on Station.”

The two were teaching middle school math


and science on opposite sides of the world
— Acaba in Florida and Arnold in Romania
— when NASA picked them as educator-
astronauts in 2004.

McAuliffe was teaching history, law and


economics at Concord High School in New
Hampshire when she was selected as the
primary candidate for NASA’s teacher in space
project in 1985.

Her backup, Barbara Morgan, is on the


Challenger Center’s board of directors.
Morgan was NASA’s first educator-astronaut,
flying on shuttle Endeavour in 2007 and
helping to build the space station.

McAuliffe planned to keep a journal during


her space shuttle mission, and one college
student asked if the astronauts were doing
the same. Acaba said he’s been making
entries in a leather-bound journal during
his 14 years as an astronaut. He writes in it
every night before he goes to sleep on the
space station.

“When I’m sitting on my porch sometime in


the future, I’ll look back on all these great
times,” Acaba said.

Online:

NASA: tinyurl.com/yearofeducation

Challenger Center: www.challenger.org

152
153
BETTER THAN HOLOGRAMS:
A NEW 3-D PROJECTION
INTO THIN AIR

154
One of the enduring sci-fi moments of the
big screen — R2-D2 beaming a 3-D image of
Princess Leia into thin air in “Star Wars” — is
closer to reality thanks to the smallest of screens:
dust-like particles.

Scientists have figured out how to manipulate


nearly unseen specks in the air and use them
to create 3-D images that are more realistic and
clearer than holograms, according to a study in
Wednesday’s journal Nature. The study’s lead
author, Daniel Smalley, said the new technology
is “printing something in space, just erasing it
very quickly.”

In this case, scientists created a small butterfly


appearing to dance above a finger and an image
of a graduate student imitating Leia in the Star
Wars scene.

Even with all sorts of holograms already in use,


this new technique is the closest to replicating
that Star Wars scene.

“The way they do it is really cool,” said Curtis


Broadbent, of the University of Rochester,
who wasn’t part of the study but works on a
competing technology. “You can have a circle of
people stand around it and each person would
be able to see it from their own perspective. And
that’s not possible with a hologram.”

The tiny specks are controlled with laser light,


like the fictional tractor beam from “Star Trek,”
said Smalley, an electrical engineering professor
at Brigham Young University. Yet it was a

155
different science fiction movie that gave him the
idea: The scene in the movie “Iron Man” when
the Tony Stark character dons a holographic
glove. That couldn’t happen in real life because
Stark’s arm would disrupt the image.

Going from holograms to this type of


technology — technically called volumetric
display — is like shifting from a two-dimensional
printer to a three-dimensional printer, Smalley
said. Holograms appear to the eye to be three-
dimensional, but “all of the magic is happening
on a 2-D surface,” Smalley said.

The key is trapping and moving the particles


around potential disruptions — like Tony Stark’s
arm — so the “arm is no longer in the way,”
Smalley said.

Initially, Smalley thought gravity would make the


particles fall and make it impossible to sustain
an image, but the laser light energy changes air
pressure in a way to keep them aloft, he said.

Other versions of volumetric display use larger


“screens” and “you can’t poke your finger into
it because your fingers would get chopped
off,” said Massachusetts Institute of Technology
professor V. Michael Bove, who wasn’t part of the
study team but was Smalley’s mentor.

The device Smalley uses is about one-and-a-half


times the size of a children’s lunchbox, he said.

So far the projections have been tiny, but with


more work and multiple beams, Smalley hopes
to have bigger projections.

This method could one day be used to help


guide medical procedures — as well as for
entertainment, Smalley said. It’s still years away
from daily use.

156
Pictures in the air: 3D printing with light

157
158
GOD’S PLA N
Drake

PERFECT
eD Sheeran

MEANT TO BE
(FEAT. FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE)
BeBe rexha

HAVANA (FEAT. YOUNG THUG)


Camila CaBello

NO NAME
nF

FINESSE (REMIX) [FEAT. CARDI B] - SINGLE


Bruno marS

THUNDER
imagine DragonS

PARALLEL LINE
keith urBan

FILTHY
JuStin timBerlake

ROCKSTAR (FEAT. 21 SAVAGE)


PoSt malone

159
160
THE GREATEST SHOWMAN
(ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK)
VariouS artiStS

MANIA
Fall out Boy

POET L ARTIST
Jonghyun

HALLELUJAH NIGHTS
lanCo

÷ (DELUXE)
eD Sheeran

HYSTERIA
DeF lePParD

KIDZ BOP 37
kiDZ BoP kiDS

CAMILA
Camila CaBello

PYROMANIA
DeF lePParD

REPUTATION
taylor SwiFt

161
162
PERFECT SYMPHONY
(WITH ANDREA BOCELLI)
eD Sheeran

FINESSE (REMIX) [FEAT. CARDI B]


Bruno marS

FLIP MY HAIR
JeSSie JameS DeCker

HAVANA (FEAT. YOUNG THUG)


Camila CaBello

PERFECT
eD Sheeran

END GAME (FEAT. ED SHEERAN & FUTURE)


taylor SwiFt

MIC DROP (STEVE AOKI REMIX)


BtS

DESPACITO (FEAT. DADDY YANKEE)


luiS FonSi

NO LIMIT REMIX (FEAT. A$AP ROCKY,


CARDI B, FRENCH MONTANA, JUICY J &
BELLY) [OFFICIAL VIDEO]
g-eaZy

YONCÉ
BeyonCé

163
164
IT’S NOT ABOUT THE PASTA
VanDerPumP ruleS, SeaSon 6

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER


keePing uP with the karDaShianS, SeaSon 14

2204
the BaChelor, SeaSon 22

SEVEN REASONS
the gooD DoCtor, SeaSon 1

ONE OCEAN
Blue Planet ii

THE BOY ON THE BRIDGE


the alieniSt, SeaSon 1

STORMING OUT
the real houSewiVeS oF atlanta, SeaSon 10

1-800-799-7233
grey’S anatomy, SeaSon 14

PASSING THE TORCH


Summer houSe, SeaSon 2

CLOSE TO HOME, PT. 1


the BraVe, SeaSon 1

165
166
THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW
a. J. Finn

FALL FROM GRACE


Danielle Steel

HERE COMES THE SUN


marie ForCe

JUDGMENT ROAD
ChriStine Feehan

THE WIFE BETWEEN US


greer henDriCkS & Sarah Pekkanen

FOREVER MY GIRL
heiDi mClaughlin

FIRE AND FURY


miChael wolFF

XO, ZACH
kenDall ryan

12 RULES FOR LIFE


JorDan B. PeterSon

ALL-AMERICAN MURDER
JameS PatterSon anD otherS

167
168
SOLAR INDUSTRY
ON EDGE AS
TRUMP WEIGHS
TARIFFS ON PANELS

Solar energy is booming in the United States,


but companies riding the wave fear that
President Donald Trump could undercut them
this week if he decides to impose new tariffs on
imported solar panels.

Businesses that install solar-power systems


are benefiting from a glut of cheaper panels
made overseas, mostly in Asia. That has made
solar power more competitive with electricity
generated from coal and natural gas.

A green-technology research firm estimates that


tariffs could cost up to 88,000 U.S. jobs related to
installing solar-power systems.

On the other side are two U.S. subsidiaries of


foreign companies that argue the domestic
manufacturing of solar cells and modules has
been decimated by a flood of imports, mostly
from Chinese companies with operations
throughout Asia.

Imports of silicon photovoltaic cells, the building


blocks of solar panels, soared nearly 500 percent
Image: Freiburg im Breisgau
169
between 2012 and 2016, according to the U.S.
International Trade Commission.

The four members of the commission —


two Republicans and two Democrats —
unanimously ruled in October that import are
hurting American manufacturers, although they
differed on exactly how the U.S. should respond.
Trump has until this Friday to act on the agency’s
recommendations for tariffs of up to 35 percent.

Trump has wide leeway — he can reject the


recommendations, accept them, or go beyond
them and impose tougher tariffs. Congress
has no authority to review or veto his action.
Countries harmed by his decision could appeal
to the World Trade Organization.

The trade case grew out of a complaint by


Suniva Inc., a Georgia-based subsidiary of a
Chinese company, which declared bankruptcy
last April. Suniva was joined by SolarWorld
Americas, the U.S. subsidiary of a German
company. Suniva wants higher tariffs than those
recommended by the trade commission.

The U.S. Commerce Department imposed stiff


anti-dumping duties on imported panels made
from Chinese solar cells in 2012 and 2015.
Tim Brightbill, SolarWorld Americas’ lawyer,
said Chinese companies have gotten around
those sanctions by assembling panels from
cells produced in other Asian countries such as
Malaysia and Vietnam. That makes the current
trade case even more important, he said.

“It is a global case. It addresses the global


import surge,” Brightbill said. “We need the
strongest possible remedies from President
Trump to maintain solar manufacturing here in
the United States.”

170
171
A consultant for SolarWorld said tariffs on
imports could create up to 45,000 U.S. jobs,
assuming that domestic capacity grows, and
installation jobs would also increase. But U.S.
manufacturing of solar cells employed only
about 1,300 people at its recent peak in 2012,
according to the trade commission.

While U.S. solar-cell manufacturing has


shriveled, installations — from home rooftops
to utility-scale operations — have boomed.
Installations have soared more than tenfold
since 2010, with the biggest jump coming in
2016, after prices for solar panels collapsed. In
2016, solar was the largest source of new U.S.
electricity-generating capacity.

The Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade


group for U.S. installers, says tariffs would drive
up the cost of installing solar-power systems,
leading to a drop in demand.

“We are selling energy that can be created by


wind, by natural gas, by hydro, by coal, by nukes.
When you raise the price of what we are selling,
we can’t compete,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, the
group’s president.

Jim Petersen, CEO of PetersenDean, a California


company that installs solar rooftop panels
mostly for residential customers, once favored
tariffs on imported panels, which he found to be
of inferior quality. He has changed his mind.

Petersen said tariffs could stunt his business by


raising the cost of a job, which ranges from $6,000
to $60,000 or more. He said he might be forced
to lay off up to 25 percent of his 3,200 installers.

“This is bad for American jobs, bad for the


consumer,” he said.

172
173
174
In the New Mexico desert, Albuquerque-
based Affordable Solar is working on a $45
million solar farm to help power a massive
new data center for Facebook. The company’s
president, Kevin Bassalleck, said tariffs would
hurt homegrown companies that make racks,
tracking systems and electronics that are
part of a power system. He said jobs at those
companies are hard to outsource.

“If you ever set foot in a solar module assembly


factory, most of what you see are robots. There
are very few people,” he said. “But if go out on
to any one of our project sites like the Facebook
project, you would see a small army of people
working and installing things.”

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico


Democrat and advocate for renewable energy,
said tariffs won’t revive U.S. solar manufacturing.

“The jobs that have been lost because of


cheaper solar cells have already been lost,”
Heinrich said in an interview. “These tariffs are
then going to take the very rapidly growing,
successful, good jobs that we have built in
manufacturing of the other equipment, in
installing, and reduce those jobs to a fraction of
what they should be.”

Many people on both sides of the debate expect


Trump to impose sanctions.

Brightbill, the lawyer for SolarWorld Americas,


sounded confident.

“This administration’s focus is on U.S.


manufacturing and U.S. jobs and getting tough
on China for the trade deficit,” he said, “so we
think the administration’s goals are very well-
aligned with saving U.S. solar manufacturing.”

175
176
UK REGULATOR
SAYS FOX
TAKEOVER OF
SKY NOT IN
PUBLIC INTEREST

British regulators said this week that 21st


Century Fox’s takeover of London-based pay
TV company Sky is not in the public interest
because it would give Rupert Murdoch too
much control over the country’s news media.
But they offered remedies that may pave the
way for the deal go ahead.

The regulator’s preliminary finding is the


latest hurdle for Fox’s effort to buy the 61
percent of Sky PLC it doesn’t already own for
11.7 billion pounds ($16.3 billion). A previous
takeover attempt six years ago was derailed
by the phone-hacking scandal at Murdoch’s
British newspapers.

177
The findings of the Competition and Markets
Authority will be finalized by May 1, when the
regulator will send its report to the government,
which will make a final ruling on the Sky deal.
That decision may ultimately be a moot point
because the Walt Disney Co.’s $52.4 billion bid for
most of Fox would give Disney — not Murdoch
— full ownership of Sky.

Regulators said the Sky takeover raises concerns


about Murdoch’s power over British media because
his family trust already controls News Corp., which
owns newspapers such as the Times and the Sun,
and the deal would increase its control of the
influential Sky News channel. Even before the Sky
bid, liberal politicians claimed Murdoch had too
much influence over public debate, with his papers
often supporting conservative causes.

“The (Murdoch family trust’s) news outlets


are watched, read or heard by nearly a third
of the U.K.’s population, and have a combined
share of the public’s news consumption that
is significantly greater than all other news
providers, except the BBC and ITN,” the regulator
said in a statement. “Due to its control of
News Corp., the Murdoch family already has
significant influence over public opinion, and full
ownership of Sky by Fox would strengthen this
even further.”

But the regulators also offered ways for Fox to


remove their objections, including a spin-off of
Sky News or “behavioral remedies” that would
reduce the Murdoch family’s ability to direct the
channel’s news coverage.

Fox said it was “disappointed” by the ruling


on media plurality, while Sky took note of the
suggested remedies.

178
179
180
The authority recognized that the completion
of Disney’s bid for Fox would weaken concerns
about media plurality, because Disney would
own Sky. But the authority said there was no way
to guarantee when or if Disney’s takeover of Fox
will be completed so the British government’s
review of the Sky merger must go forward.

“We cannot be sufficiently confident at this


stage whether, when, or how the Disney/Fox
transaction will complete,” the regulator said.

Former British Culture Secretary Karen Bradley


asked the authority to evaluate the takeover
in September, directing it to look at Fox’s
commitment to broadcasting standards and the
deal’s impact on media plurality in the U.K.

In its decision, the regulator dismissed concerns


about broadcasting standards, saying that Fox
and Sky had a good record in this area. As part
of its investigation, the authority considered
allegations of sexual harassment at Fox News in
the U.S.

“While these are serious, the CMA has


provisionally found that these are not directly
related to the attainment of broadcasting
standards and do not call into question Fox’s
or the (Murdoch family trust’s) commitment
to broadcasting standards in the U.K,” the
authority said.

Campaign group Avaaz did not bother to hide


its disappointment that the authority did not
hold the Murdoch empire to account for alleged
sexual harassment in the workplace and other
issues. They promised to fight on.

“The watchdog has let the Murdochs squirrel


out of any responsibility for the hacking,

181
182
harassment and hush money at his companies,”
Alex Wilks, Campaign Director, Avaaz. “In the
coming weeks they’ll hear from citizens, victims
and whistleblowers to show them they got
this wrong.”

Analysts said the ruling may actually be good


news for the takeover because the spinoff of
Sky News is workable — while it would have
a less clear path for the companies to mitigate
concerns about broadcasting standards. Shares
of Sky plc rose 2.3 percent in London.

“It has a path to conclusion,” said media analyst


Alice Enders of the decision. “That’s why the
markets are so jolly.”

Fox is seeking to consolidate its control over


Sky as media companies try to combine
content creation and distribution channels
amid pressure from competitors such as Netflix,
Google and Amazon.

Sky’s European pay TV operation has 22.5 million


customers, attracted by offerings such as English
Premier League soccer and “Game of Thrones.”

A previous bid for the whole of Sky foundered


amid the 2011 phone-hacking scandal, in which
journalists working for Murdoch newspapers
were accused of gaining illegal access to the
voicemail messages of celebrities, members of
the royal family and crime victims. Murdoch’s
News Corp. withdrew its bid for Sky in 2012.

Labour Party Deputy Leader Tom Watson, a


long-time opponent of the Murdochs, tweeted
that the regulator was “right to say that the Fox
takeover of Sky would give the Murdoch family
too much power.”

“This is the right decision for the U.K.,” he said.

183
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