AppleMagazine - truePDF 16.november.2018

STAN LEE: REMEMBERING
A REALLIFE SUPERHERO
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FROM AUDIBLE TO WHOLE THIS IS HEAVY:

FOODS: A LOOK AT THE KILOGRAM IS
AMAZON’S EMPIRE GETTING AN UPDATE
76
CLAIRE FOY TRADES
ELIZABETH FOR LISBETH
08 138
AMAZON OPENS NEW OUTPOSTS IN NEW YORK, NORTHERN VIRGINIA 16
YELP’S SHARES TAKE A BEATING AFTER REVENUE MISS 28
WITH UBER EATS’ FAST GROWTH COMES POTENTIAL FOR PROFIT 32
LAB AIMS TO ENCOURAGE YOUTH TO PURSUE MITCHELL TECH INDUSTRY 38
CELEBRITIES OFFER THANKS, CONDOLENCES IN DEATH OF STAN LEE 64
FORD, WALMART TEST SELFDRIVING GROCERY DELIVERY SERVICE 90
ACTOR DOUGLAS RAIN, WHO SUPPLIED HAL’S VOICE, DIES AT 90 92
WITH J.K. ROWLING’S HELP, JUDE LAW BUILDS A NEW DUMBLEDORE 118
LATEST ‘FANTASTIC BEASTS’ IS A MIXED BAG OF WONDERS 128
‘GAME OF THRONES’ RETURNING IN APRIL 2019 FOR FINAL SEASON 144
SMARTPHONE MAKERS BET ON FOLDABLE SCREENS AS NEXT BIG THING 146
POCKET MONEY APPS AIM TO HELP KIDS IN CASHLESS WORLD 152
EPA SEEKS NEW TRUCK POLLUTION RULES; SAYS AIR WON’T SUFFER 170
SPAIN CONSIDERS BAN ON SALE OF GAS AND DIESEL CARS BY 2040 178
SOFTBANK MOBILE UNIT TO GO FOR IPO RAISING SOME $20 BILLION 180
US PANEL WARNS AGAINST GOVERNMENT PURCHASE OF CHINESE TECH 184
TOP 10 APPS 98
iTUNES REVIEW 102
TOP 10 SONGS 160
TOP 10 ALBUMS 162
TOP 10 MUSIC VIDEOS 164
TOP 10 TV SHOWS 166
TOP 10 BOOKS 168
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FROM AUDIBLE TO
WHOLE FOODS:
A LOOK AT
AMAZON’S EMPIRE
Amazon is hard to escape.
Whether you’ve bought shoes at Zappos,

picked up milk at Whole Foods or listened to an
audiobook on Audible, you’ve been caught up in
Amazon’s growing web of businesses.
And now, Amazon’s sprawling empire will
stretch even further. The company announced
Tuesday that it will open two more bases outside
of its Seattle headquarters: one in Arlington,
Virginia and the other in New York’s Long Island
City neighborhood.
Amazon, which got its start as an online
bookstore two decades ago, has grown to
a behemoth that had nearly $180 billion in
revenue last year. Its workforce has ballooned
to more than 610,000 employees worldwide,
making it the second largest U.S.-based,
publicly-traded employer behind Walmart,
according to FactSet. That growth has also made
its founder and CEO Jeff Bezos one of the world’s
richest people, with his stake in Amazon worth
more than $135 billion.
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Here’s a look at some of the various businesses
Amazon has its hand in:
ONLINE SHOPPING
Online sales are still Amazon’s biggest money
maker, bringing in $108 billion in revenue last
year. That’s slightly more than 60 percent of its
total revenue.
Besides Amazon.com, it also owns several

smaller sites, including shoe retailer Zappos.com,
rare books seller AbeBooks.com, deal site
6pm.com and women’s clothing retailer
Shopbop. It recently began selling medication
after purchasing online pharmacy PillPack in
September for $753 million.
PHYSICAL STORES
Amazon’s largest brick-and-mortar push was its
nearly $14 billion purchase of Whole Foods last
year, giving it about 500 grocery stores.
It has created its own shops, too. There are

18 Amazon bookstores, five cashier-less
convenience stores and three 4-star stores,
which sell toys, cookware and other items.
There are also dozens of Amazon pop-up
shops inside malls and Kohl’s department
stores where shoppers can touch and try
out its gadgets.
Its physical locations had revenue of $13 billion

in the first nine months of 2018.
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WEB SERVICES
There’s more to Amazon than just shopping.
Its Amazon Web Services unit, founded in
2006, provides cloud computing services to
corporations and government agencies, and is
one of Amazon’s fastest growing businesses.
It had revenue of $17 billion last year, about 10
percent of its total revenue.
ADVERTISING
The ads at the top of Amazon search results are
becoming a big business for the company. Amazon
doesn’t say exactly how much revenue it makes
from ads, but an executive said that ad revenue
makes up the majority of the “other revenue” listed
in its financial reports. In its most recent quarter, its
“other revenue” was $2.5 billion, more than double
its revenue in the same period the year before.
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Amazon Prime is a way to cement customer
loyalty and get them to spend more on the site.
For $119 a year or $12.99 a month, members
get free shipping, access to its video streaming
service and other perks. The company disclosed
for the first time earlier this year that it had
more than 100 million paid Prime subscribers
worldwide. Revenue from subscriptions topped
$9.7 billion last year.
GADGETS
Amazon has been churning out some successful
gadgets, including: Kindle tablets, Echo voice-
activated speakers and Fire TV video streaming
devices. The company doesn’t break out revenue
for these products.
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HOLLYWOOD STUDIO
Amazon produces TV shows for its video
streaming service, such as Emmy-winning
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” and films, such as
“Manchester by the Sea.” Amazon doesn’t break
out revenue for its studio.
VIDEO GAMES, AUDIOBOOKS AND MORE

Amazon also owns Twitch, a video streaming
service for gamers; Audible, the audiobooks
seller; and IMDb.com, an online database of
movie and TV show starts, directors and other
information. Amazon doesn’t break out revenue
for these businesses.
AMAZON BRANDS
Instead of relying on famous brands, Amazon has
been creating its own. It designs sofas for its Rivet
brand, men’s shirts for Goodthreads and batteries
for AmazonBasics. Amazon has about 130 private
label brands, according to TJI Research, which
tracks Amazon and its businesses.
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AMAZON OPENS
NEW OUTPOSTS
IN NEW YORK,
NORTHERN
VIRGINIA
Amazon, which started as an online bookstore

two decades ago, has grown to a behemoth
that had nearly $180 billion in revenue last
year. It now owns well-known brands including
grocer Whole Foods and online shoe-seller
Zappos. It also makes movies and TV shows,
runs an advertising business and offers cloud
computing services to corporations and
government agencies.
The company has more than 610,000

employees worldwide, making it the second
largest U.S.-based, publicly-traded employer
behind Walmart.
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But it was the prospect of 50,000 jobs that led
238 communities across North America to pitch
Amazon on why they should be home to the
next headquarters.
Amazon could have picked a struggling city

desperate for new jobs. But instead it went with
two of the nation’s largest and most powerful
metro areas. The reason Amazon gave: they are
best suited to attract the high-skilled workers
the company wants.
New York is the nation’s financial and media

powerhouse and has been working to attract
technology companies. Google already has
more than 7,000 workers in the city and,
according to media reports, is looking to add
12,000 more in coming years.
Arlington is directly across the Potomac River

from Washington. Many large government
contractors have offices and lobbying
operations there. However, many of its 1980s-era
office buildings have vacancies after thousands
of federal employees moved elsewhere. Being
near the nation’s capital could help Amazon with
lobbying efforts as the company faces rising
scrutiny from politicians.
Amazon said it will spend $5 billion

between both locations on construction
and other projects.
The new outposts won’t appear overnight.

Amazon said hiring at the two headquarters
will start next year, but it could take a decade
or more to build out its offices.
Its New York location will be in the Long
Island City neighborhood of Queens, while its
Virginia offices will be in a part of Arlington
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that local politicians and Amazon are calling
National Landing, a made-up area around
Reagan National Airport that encompasses
Crystal City and Potomac Yard.
Both are waterfront communities away
from overcrowded business districts, giving
Amazon space to grow.
Virginia state Sen. Adam Ebbin, a Democrat

who represents the area where Amazon’s
new headquarters will be located, said that
affordable housing may be an issue, but the
announcement is a welcome development
that will help increase the area’s tax base
to help ease overcrowding in schools and
address other pressing needs.
Not everyone was pleased.
“Offering massive corporate welfare from

scarce public resources to one of the
wealthiest corporations in the world at a
time of great need in our state is just wrong,”
said New York State Sen. Michael Gianaris
and New York City Councilman Jimmy Van
Bramer, Democrats who represent the Long
Island City area, in a joint statement.
Amazon said it will refer to the new locations
as headquarters, even though with 25,000
jobs each, they would have fewer workers than
its Seattle hometown , which houses more than
45,000 employees.
Seattle will remain as one of Amazon’s three
headquarters, and the company said that
senior executives will also be based in the two
new locations. It plans to hold company-wide
events at the new locations, including meetings
of its shareholders.
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A person familiar with the
plans says Amazon will split
its second headquarters
between Long Island City in
New York and Crystal City in
northern Virginia.
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There were early signs that Amazon had its
sights set on New York and northern Virginia.
Among its 20 finalists, the company had selected
two locations in the New York metro area and
three in the D.C. area. Plus, CEO and founder Jeff
Bezos has a home in Washington D.C., and he
personally owns The Washington Post.
While it didn’t win the main prize, Nashville,
Tennessee, won’t go empty handed. Amazon
said the city, which was one of finalists, will be
home to a new Amazon office that will create
5,000 jobs, focusing on customer delivery.
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YELP’S
SHARES TAKE A
BEATING AFTER
REVENUE MISS
Shares of Yelp Inc. took a beating Thursday (08)

after the online-reviews site reported soft third-
quarter sales and indicated the current period
would also be weak.
Yelp’s stock was down $12.50, or 29 percent, to

$31 in after-hours trading.
CEO Jeremy Stoppleman blamed the

revenue miss on the company’s new non-
term advertising, intended to encourage
advertisers to try the site without being tied to
longer-term contracts.
“While the shift to non-term advertising has
opened our sales funnel, it has also made our
results more sensitive to short-term operational
issues,” Stoppleman said in a new release. He
said the company said expected revenue would
also take a hit in the fourth quarter.
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The San Francisco-based company reported
revenue of $241.1 million in third quarter, up
from $223 million during the same period a year
ago. That was below Wall Street expectations
of $245.4 million, according to Zacks
Investment Research.
Yelp posted profits of $15 million, or 17 cents

a share. Earnings, adjusted for stock option
expense, came to 43 cents per share. That
was above the 35 cents per share expected
by analysts.
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Image: Martin Dimitrov
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WITH UBER EATS’
FAST GROWTH
COMES POTENTIAL
FOR PROFIT
In three years, the Uber Eats restaurant

food delivery service has grown from an
experiment to serving much of the U.S. and
major cities worldwide.
By year’s end, the ride-hailing company says it
will cover 70 percent of the U.S. population and
be in 243 metro areas, mainly by expanding into
smaller cities. It’s already in over 300 cities in
36 countries with many international deliveries
done by bicycle.
Jason Droege, an Uber vice president who leads
Uber Everything, the unit that explores how to
build new businesses off the Uber network, says
Eats is growing as fast as the ride-hailing service
did in its early days. He talks about the future
of the service and demand for getting food
delivered to your home. Questions and answers
have been edited for length and clarity.
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Q: Is there a particular demographic group that
uses Uber Eats?
A: Certainly younger generations use it more.

It’s more like how they eat. I think there’s a
convenience premium for people who are
coming of age now versus people who already
have their habits set. If you look back, fast casual
was something that was just getting going
when I was 10, 11 years old. My generation
is very used to going to a restaurant and
doing take out, versus maybe the previous
generation might have been used to ‘hey, let’s
go get groceries.’ Take out has been on the
rise ever since the mid- to late-80s. Now you
have a generation who wants the additional
convenience. Maybe they want to stay home
and watch Netflix, or use social media, or they
want the access to hundreds of restaurants.
Q: What kind of range do you serve from a

customer’s home?
A: We want to make sure that the food arrives
hot and delicious. If the food is in the car too
long, that’s bad. It’s more about the time than
it is about the business because we want that
experience to be high quality. Uber has always
believed that the faster you can get your ride,
or your food, changes how consumers think
about the level of convenience. So we’ve been
focused from the beginning on getting food
delivery from 40 to 45 minutes (from the order
time) down to, I think our global average is now
31 minutes. Usually when people are ordering
they’re hungry. So we see that people use the
product more when it’s delivered faster, so we
focus a lot on speed.
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Q: How did you know that people would
want more than pizza delivered to their home,
was it testing?
A: Sometimes we do tests and they work,
sometimes we do tests and they didn’t work.
Uber historically has done stunts. Uber ice
cream, where we delivered ice cream on
demand for a few years, or there was Uber
puppies and Uber kittens, where a car would roll
up and you’d play with some kittens in the back.
We did those actually very locally. One common
thread you saw is when a city, like the city of
Fresno put on the local barbecue spot that was
hard to get to, had really long lines, you saw a
lot of demand. From the early days, we noticed
that when we put popular restaurants on Uber
and delivered them on demand, those are some
of our most consistently successful stunts. Even
in our marketing promotions we saw food
and Uber had some connectivity. So we had
some signal, but experimentation is what really
pushed us there.
Q: Is Eats a profit-making entity?

A: We’re focused on growth now, so we’re
investing aggressively. We feel really good about
the economics of the business. Before we went
into expansion, we actually got to a point where
we saw the path to profitability, which is why we
decided to invest aggressively.
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LAB AIMS TO
ENCOURAGE
YOUTH TO PURSUE
MITCHELL TECH
INDUSTRY
All of it is possible due to the Smart Lab at

the Mitchell Middle School, which is now fully
implemented after receiving an additional
$25,000 in grant money from America’s
Farmers Grow Rural Education program,
sponsored by Monsanto.
Principal Justin Zajic started looking into

replacing the industrial technology course
last December and put together a committee
involving the Mitchell Area Development
Corporation, Toshiba, Muth Electric, Mitchell
Technical Institute and other community
members, the Daily Republic reported.
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Image: Sean Ryan
“We discovered we were having problems

getting people into these major tech
industries that we have here in Mitchell, so
we brainstormed on how to grow locally. We
wanted to look at curriculums that would
put our middle schoolers on the right path to
develop skills for these industries,” Zajic said.
The program offers a combination of curriculum
and assessment, hardware and software. The
classroom is what used to the former woodshop,
and one will not find a teacher standing in front
of the class lecturing the students. Instead,
autonomy is encouraged and collaboration
among the students is the norm.
“The students come in and set a goal to create

or make something. They have to complete the
goal and then we reflect on what they have
worked on,” math teacher Sara Stelke said. “I am
actually considered a facilitator in the Smart
Lab. Our kids observe who has done what
project and we have a rule called ‘three before
me,’ that teaches them to interact with each
other and exchange what they have learned
among themselves.”
Students interested in coding can explore the

world of programming in a game setting.
“You have a character on the screen and the

kids have to write code using a diagram and
make it walk over the screen,” Zajic said. “It’s
very introductory, but then as you dig deeper it
goes into how to code an application or a game.
Hopefully we will have some kids from here that
start designing a new school app for us one day.”
The kids also learn to work with user manuals,
do research online and gain valuable problem
solving skills.
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Image: Sean Ryan
“It helps children learn how to do stuff on their

own and help others build their confidence.
Every day, you are exploring something new
and learning more every single day. I think it’s
a really good knowledge builder,” said student
Brooklyn Smith.
Every sixth-grader can register for the exploratory

course that covers about three or four modules
and lasts a quarter of a semester. The eighth-grade
program is offered as a more in-depth elective
and lasts two quarters of a semester.
“If everything goes as planned, we should be able
to get kids interested in certain aspects of this
program into high school classes, which will put
them into college classes either at MTI or others.
Hopefully, these kids will then come back to the
Mitchell area and work here locally,” Zajic said.
The school had been awarded a state grant of

almost $80,000 for its Smart Lab in February and
received the additional $25,000, sponsored by
Monsanto, shortly before school started.
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Image: Evan Hurd
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GOODBYE, STAN LEE
Stan Lee, the legendary Marvel Comics writer,
and publisher, has died aged 95. The icon was
responsible for characters including Spider-
Man, Thor, Iron Man, Black Panther, and the
X-Men, making him a real-life superhero around
the world, with millions of adoring fans. In this
special edition of AppleMagazine, we look back
on his impressive career and explore how his
imaginative mind helped create one of the
world’s most successful movie franchises.
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Image: Gerald Martineau
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HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
Born Stanley Martin Lieber, Stan Lee started
his career back in 1939, when he became an
assistant at Timely Comics, a irm that would
evolve into Marvel Comics by the 1960s. The job
paid just $8 per week, and during his early years
at the company, he was responsible for illing
inkwells, proofreading, fetching lunches and
inishing pages, before making his comic book
debut two years later with the iller “Captain
America Foils the Traitor’s Revenge” under a
pseudonym. Months later, the talent moved on
from writing iller and became a comic book
writer and created his irst superhero, known as
the Destroyer. During these early days, Lee also
created characters such as Jack Frost and Father
Time, and by late 1941, at just 19 years of age, he
was made interim editor of the comic.
Just as he was making a name for himself,

however, Stan had to leave. In 1942, Lee entered
the United States Army, serving as a member
of the Signal Corps, where he was responsible
for repairing telegraph poles. Soon after,
he was transferred into the Training Film
Division, writing training manuals, slogans, and
cartooning for the army, where his skills came to
the top. Lee was classiied a ‘playwright’, along
with just nine other Army men.
After several years in the Army, Lee returned

to the company, then known as Atlas Comics,
and wrote stories across a whole host of genres,
including science iction, romance, Westerns and
horror. Lee quickly grew tired of the industry,
and after threatening to quit, was advised
by his wife to create a new superhero team,
experimenting with new stories that he was
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interested in, as he had “nothing to lose”. Some
of the irst he created with artist Jack Kirby was
the Fantastic Four, which were immediately
popular in the comic book community.
They quickly followed up the success of the

Fantastic Four with other iconic characters,
such as Hulk, Thor, Ironman, and the X-Men, as
well as Doctor Strange and, arguably Lee’s most
successful character of all time, Spider-Man.
Historian Peter Sanderson said that “Marvel
was pioneering new methods of storytelling
and characterization, addressing more serious
themes, and in the process keeping and
attracting readers in their teens and beyond,”
and added that “among this new generation
of readers were people who wanted to write
or draw comics, within the new style Marvel
had pioneered, and push the creative
envelope further.”
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WORLDWIDE SUCCESS
The success of The Avengers, and the
introduction of new characters such as Captain
America and Sub-Mariner, certainly didn’t
happen overnight - but did happen faster than
any of the Marvel team were expecting. By
1967, Lee and co-creator Kirby were invited to
appear on a radio program named ‘Will Success
Spoil Spiderman?’ and the pair worked together
until Lee stopped writing comics, publishing
his inal issue of The Amazing Spider-Man (issue
#110) in July, and Fantastic Four (issue #125)
in August of 1972.
Despite leaving the comic book industry almost

ifty years ago, Lee’s legacy lived on, and he
became a igurehead for Marvel Comics in
the years that followed. As well as appearing
on comic book convention boards and panel
discussions, he helped to launch Marvel’s irst
graphic novel, The Silver Surfer: The Ultimate
Cosmic Experience, marking the inal time
he worked with long-term collaborator Kirby,
before moving to California to work on TV and
ilm. Perhaps most interesting of all was that,
like all Marvel employees, Lee had no legal
rights over the characters he had created, and
therefore received no royalties for his work.
Of course, Marvel had entered into Hollywood

just a few short years after Lee became a part
of the company, but it wasn’t until the nineties
when the Marvel Comics franchise really took
of. After the success of Howard the Duck back
in 1986, ilm studios fought over the rights to
create live-action movies set within the Marvel
Cinematic Universe, like X-men, Blade, Spider-
Man, Daredevil, Hulk, Spider-Man 2, Fantastic
Image: Jonathan Alcorn

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Four, X-Men: The Last Stand, Ghost Rider,
Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and later
movies, including The Wolverine, The Amazing
Spiderman, Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man,
Deadpool, Doctor Strange, Logan, Venom, Black
Panther, and the upcoming Captain Marvel, Dark
Phoenix and New Mutants.
Back in 2009, Marvel Entertainment was
purchased by The Walt Disney Co. for an
incredible $4 billion, and since the acquisition,
most of the top-grossing superhero ilms have
featured Marvel characters, including Avengers:
Ininity War, which broke worldwide box oice
records when it hit more than $2 billion
earlier in the year. Speaking to the Chicago
Tribute in 2014, Lee said “I used to think what I
did was not very important. People are building
bridges and engaging in medical research, and
here I was doing stories about ictional people
who do extraordinary, crazy things and wear
costumes. But I suppose I have come to realize
that entertainment is not easily dismissed.”
Combined, Marvel’s movies have generated

more than $30 billion in the Box Oice, but what
brings all of the movies together is the fact Stan
Lee made cameo appearances in each of Marvel
Comics’ ilms, from X-Men back in 2000, where
he played a hot dog vendor, right through to the
recent Deadpool, where he played a strip club
DJ, and Captain America: Civil War, where he
was credited as a FedEx driver. According to
one report, the legend has already ilmed his
cameo appearance in the upcoming Avengers
4 movie, with co-director Joe Russo telling the
BBC that his most recent set of cameos are in
the bag. “We group his cameos together, then
move him from one set to the next and kind
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of get him through his cameos in one day,” he
said. Thousands of fans, including Brian Q from
HatHole, have expressed support for giving
Stan Lee a standing ovation when his Ininity
War cameo is screened.
THE WORLD PAYS ITS TRIBUTES

As one of the world’s most iconic comic book
writers, Stan Lee has left his footprint on some
of the world’s biggest stars - including those
who have found success playing his characters.
Star of Captain America, Chris Evans, said that
“there will never be another Stan Lee. For
decades he provided both young and old
with adventure, escape, comfort, conidence,
inspiration, strength, friendship, and joy,”
and added that “he exuded love and kindness
and will leave an indelible mark on so, so, so
many lives.” His tweet has attracted almost
850,000 likes at the time of writing, a igure that
will no doubt increase as more people pay their
respect to the Marvel Comics luminary.
“He felt an obligation to his fans to keep

creating,” his daughter JC added in a
statement. “He loved his life and he loved what
he did for a living. His family loved him and his
fans loved him. He was irreplaceable.”
Bob Iger, Disney chairman, said “Stan was as
extraordinary as the characters he created.
A superhero in his own right to Marvel fans
around the world, Stan had the power to
inspire, to entertain, to connect. The scale of
his imagination was exceeded by the size of
his heart,” and Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige
added that “Stan leaves an extraordinary legacy
that will outlive us all” and that his “thoughts are
Image: Matt Sayles

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with his daughter, his family, and the millions of
fans who have been forever touched by Stan’s
genius, charisma, and heart.”
DC Comics, long-term Marvel rival, and the

creator of iconic superheroes including
Superman, Batman, The Flash, Wonder Woman,
Green Arrow, Nightwing, Green Lantern, and
Aquaman, also paid respects, writing on
Twitter that Stan Lee “changed the way we look
at heroes, and modern comics will always bear
his indelible mark. His infectious enthusiasm
reminded us why we all fell in love with these
stories in the irst place.”
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EXCELSIOR, STAN
Whether Marvel Comics has been a staple of
your childhood or you’re new to the work of
Stan and co, there’s no denying Lee’s exceptional
talent for telling thought-provoking stories that
not only left us on the edge of our seats, but
made us question everything we thought we
knew about the world of the superhero. From
everyone at AppleMagazine, we thank Stan
Lee for his contributions to entertainment, for
providing us with inspiration, with joy, and with
hope. The world may never be the same without
his visions, but we’re lucky to have witnessed his
craftsmanship and creativity on paper, and on
the big screen. Excelsior, Stan.
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CELEBRITIES
OFFER THANKS,
CONDOLENCES
IN DEATH OF
STAN LEE
Celebrities offer their thanks, remembrances and

condolences in the death of Marvel legend Stan
Lee, who died Monday at age 95.
“Sad, sad day. Rest In Power, Uncle Stan. You

have made the world a better place through the
power of modern mythology and your love of
this messy business of being human...” The “Hulk”
actor Mark Ruffalo, via Twitter.
“Thank you, Stan, for making me not only the

boy I was but also the man I am today. You had
great power and you always used it responsibly,
fostering billions of dreamers who all know
your name — a name written in the stars for all
time. You were not just the literary titan of comic
books, you were our modern day Mark Twain.
I will miss you all my days, my friend and hero.
Excelsior forevermore.” — Filmmaker, comic
book devotee and Stan Lee friend Kevin Smith,
via Instagram.
Image: Richard Cartwright
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Stan Lee, the creative
dynamo who
revolutionized the comic
book and helped make
billions for Hollywood
by introducing human
frailties in Marvel
superheroes such as
Spider-Man, the Fantastic
Four and the Incredible
Hulk, is dead at 95
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“Original and genius are two very overused
words in the world today, but Stan was both.
Add irrepressible and irreplaceable, and you
begin to describe the man. We have all lost a
true superhero. We will greatly miss our friendly
neighborhood Stan Lee.” — Sony Pictures’
Motion Picture Group chairman Tom Rothman,
in a statement.
“I owe it all to you... Rest In Peace Stan...

#MCU #Excelsior #legend #rip #stanlee
#TeamStark” — “Iron Man” actor Robert
Downey Jr., via Instagram.
“We’ve lost a creative genius. Stan Lee was a

pioneering force in the superhero universe. I’m
proud to have been a small part of his legacy
and... to have helped bring one of his characters
to life. #StanLee #Wolverine” — “Wolverine” actor
Hugh Jackman, via Twitter.
“There will never be another Stan Lee. For

decades he provided both young and old
with adventure, escape, comfort, confidence,
inspiration, strength, friendship and joy. He
exuded love and kindness and will leave
an indelible mark on so, so, so many lives.
Excelsior!!” — “Captain America” actor Chris
Evans, via Twitter.
“RIP Stan. Thanks for everything.” — “Deadpool”

actor Ryan Reynolds, via Twitter.
“Stan Lee’s imagination helped spawn a universe
of characters that inspired both kids and
adults around the world for generations. He
has become the driver of an incredible lasting
legacy for our modern pop culture mythology.”
— Marvel cinematic universe directors and
brothers Anthony and Joe Russo, in a statement.
68
Image: Jesse Grant
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Image: Kevin Winter
71
“Onward and upward to greater glory! Excelsior!
Good man, Excelsior!” — “Black Panther” actress
Angela Bassett, via Twitter.
“Thank you Stan Lee for making people who feel
different realize they are special.” — Seth Rogan,
via Twitter.
“I was first interviewed for Stan Lee’s obituary
about 20 years ago. I was happy he defied the
reaper and carried on. With Stan gone, an era
really does come to an end. He was the happy
huckster that comics needed. And he really did
alliterate like that when you talked to him.” —
Neil Gaiman, via Twitter.
“No one has had more of an impact on my career

and everything we do at Marvel Studios than
Stan Lee. Stan leaves an extraordinary legacy
that will outlive us all. Our thoughts are with his
daughter, his family, and his millions of fans.” —
Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige, via Twitter.
“Thank you Stan Lee. For your service in

protecting our freedom and for your creativity
and imagination! You were and will always be a
SUPER HERO!” — Jamie Lee Curtis, via Twitter.
“To Stan Lee: Thank you for making my

childhood so much more exciting with your
astonishing superhero characters. Thank you
for inspiring me to think and dream big. Thank
you for the Hulk, Thor, Fantastic Four and many
others. You will be sadly missed. RIP.” — Gene
Simmons, via Twitter.
“I was a happy little boy lost in the sanctuary of my
Spider-Man comic books, collecting ’em, savoring
each one, the piles of comics stacked high next
to my bed. Thank you Stan Lee, what a creative
whirlwind, wow. Rest In Peace in the divine.
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What an honor it was to help bring one of your
characters to life with my scratchy little voice.”
— Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who voiced
Roller Man in “Stan Lee’s Mighty 7,” via Instagram.
“You gave us characters that continue to
stand the test of time and evolve with our
consciousness. You taught us that there are no
limits to our future as long as we have access
to our imagination. Rest in power! #EXCELSIOR
#StanLee #rip.” — “Black Panther” actor Winston
Duke, via Twitter.
“His contribution to Pop Culture was

revolutionary & cannot be overstated. He was
everything you hoped he would be & MORE. I
loved this man & will never stop missing him.
They say you should never meet a childhood
idol. They are wrong. #RIPStanTheMan.” —
Marvel animated universe alum and “Star Wars”
star Mark Hamill, via Twitter.
“He lives forever through his work. What a giant.

With great power comes immortality.” — Lin-
Manuel Miranda, via Twitter.
“Born before Edwin Hubble discovered the
expanding universe, he ultimately created
an expanding universe of his own - one of
scientifically literate superheroes such as
Spider-Man , The Hulk, Iron Man, & Black
Panther. Stan Lee RIP: 1922 - 2018” — Neil
deGrasse Tyson, via Twitter.
74
Image: Mario Anzuoni
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76
THIS IS HEAVY:
THE KILOGRAM
IS GETTING
AN UPDATE
The kilogram is getting an update.
No, your bathroom scales won’t suddenly

become kinder and a kilo of fruit will still weigh a
kilo. But the way scientists define the exact mass
of a kilogram is about to change.
Until now, its mass has been defined by the
granddaddy of all kilos: a golf ball-sized metal
cylinder locked in a vault in France. For more
than a century, it has been the one true kilogram
upon which all others were based.
No longer.
Gathering in Versailles, west of Paris,
governments are expected on Friday to approve
plans to instead use a scientific formulation
to define the exact mass of a kilo. The change
is expected to have practical applications in
industries and sciences that require ultra-precise
measurements of mass.
And it will mean redundancy for the so-called

Grand K, the kilo that has towered above them
all since 1889.
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A high-precision weight
in use at the International
Bureau of Weights
and Measures.
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Made of a corrosion-resistant alloy of 90
percent platinum and 10 percent iridium , the
international prototype kilo has rarely seen the
light of day. Yet its role has been crucial, as the
foundation for the globally accepted system
for measuring mass upon which things like
international trade depend.
Three different keys, kept in separate locations,
are required to unlock the vault where the
Grand K and six official copies — collectively
known as “the heir and the spares” — are
entombed together under glass bell-jars at the
International Bureau of Weights and Measures,
in Sevres on the western outskirts of Paris.
Founded by 17 nations in 1875 and known by

its French initials, the BIPM is the guardian of
the seven main units humanity uses to measure
its world : the meter for length, the kilogram
for mass, the second for time, the ampere for
electric current, the kelvin for temperature, the
mole for the amount of a substance and the
candela for luminous intensity.
Of the seven, the kilo is the last still based on

a physical artefact, the Grand K. The meter,
for example, used to be a meter-long metal
bar but is now defined as the length that
light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458th
of a second.
“This, if you like, is a moment of celebration
because it’s like the last standard remaining
from 1875 that will finally be replaced by new
innovation,” Martin Milton, the BIPM director,
said in an Associated Press interview. “Everything
else has been recycled and replaced and
improved. This is the last improvement that
dates back to the original conception in 1875. So
81
Although it will no longer
be the gold-standard
definition of a kilogram,
the Grand K and its
copies won’t be freed
from their safe after
the change. Scientists
want to keep measuring
them occasionally to see
whether, over time, their
masses change. “It’s a
82
very interesting historical
experiment,” Milton said.
“We’ve been studying this
thing for 140 years and it’s
going to be interesting to
continue to study it now
we have better ways of
determining whether its
mass has been changing.
We just don’t know
at the moment.”
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that’s a tribute to what was done in 1875, that
it’s lasted this long.”
Only exceedingly rarely, and exceedingly

carefully, have the BIPM’s master kilos been
gingerly taken out so that other kilos sent back
to Sevres from around the world could be
compared against them, to be sure they were
still properly calibrated, give or take the mass of
a dust particle or two.
Although many Americans commonly think of
weight in pounds and ounces, the United States
is officially a kilo country, too: It was one of the
original 17 founders of the BIPM in 1875. The
United States’ primary kilo is called K20 and was
assigned to the country in 1889 by the BIPM,
along with another, K4. One kilo is equivalent to
2.2 pounds.
The U.S. also has six other platinum-iridium

kilos: K79, 85, 92, 102, 104 and 105. They are
all looked after by the National Institute of
Standards and Technology, a branch of the U.S.
Commerce Department.
To verify their mass, K20 and other kilos
from around three dozen other countries
were measured in Sevres against the BIPM’s
master kilos in a painstaking calibration
exercise from 1988 to 1992. K20 was most
recently then measured again at the BIPM
in 2014.
Even as humans argued, fought and slaughtered

each other by the tens of millions in the
20th century, they shared the kilo. The kilo
allocated to China in 1983, as it started to
embrace market reforms that subsequently
turned it into an economic behemoth, was the
first manufactured with ultra-high precision
85
The artisans who forged,
polished and perfected
the International
Prototype Kilo more than
130 years ago worked
with mind-boggling
precision and skill to craft
the platinum/iridium
cylinder. “If we did this
work today, we’d probably
come up with exactly the
same composition. It has
turned out to have really
stood the test of time very
well,” Milton said.
86
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diamond machining. Allocated to Japan in 1894, to Sevres for calibration against the Grand K.
K39 was later ceded to South Korea in 1958. Scientists instead should be able to accurately
calculate an exact kilo, without having to measure
The kilo is “a tribute to man’s ability to
one precious lump of metal against another.
collaborate,” Milton says. “It’s been called a great
work of peace, actually, because it’s one of the Milton says the change will have applications in
areas where all of the states of the world come computing, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals,
together with absolutely the same objective.” the study of climate change and other sciences
where precise measurements are required.
The metal kilo is being replaced by a definition
based on Planck’s constant, which is part of one “The system will be intrinsically correct by
of the most celebrated equations in physics but reference to the laws of science, the laws of
also devilishly difficult to explain . Suffice to say nature,” he said. “We won’t have to depend
that the update should, in time, spare nations on just assuming that one particular object
the need to occasionally send their kilos back never changes.”
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FORD, WALMART
TEST SELF-DRIVING
GROCERY DELIVERY
SERVICE
Ford and Walmart are teaming up to test a self-

driving grocery delivery service.
The pilot program in Florida’s Miami-Dade

County will incorporate Postmates, a logistics
company that operates a network of couriers,
to deliver groceries and more. The vehicles
will collect data on consumer preferences to
help the companies understand what people
want. Ford said that it’ll also look at different
vehicle configurations or modifications that
may be needed to accommodate orders such as
perishable goods, or when a vehicle is making
multiple deliveries on a single trip.
Ford will work with Walmart over the next

couple months to determine what goods it can
feasibly transport and figure out any issues that
may need to be addressed to successfully deliver
orders via self-driving vehicles.
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ACTOR DOUGLAS
RAIN, WHO
SUPPLIED HAL’S
VOICE, DIES AT 90
Canadian actor Douglas Rain, who played

some of Shakespeare’s most intriguing
characters onstage but perhaps is best known
for supplying the creepily calm voice of the
computer HAL in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A
Space Odyssey” has died at 90.
The Stratford Festival said Rain died Sunday of
natural causes at St. Marys Memorial Hospital,
just outside of Stratford, Ontario. He was one of
the festival’s founding company members and
spent 32 seasons performing there, until 1998.
93
His roles at Stratford included playing Claudio
in “Measure for Measure” in 1954, Malvolio in
“Twelfth Night” in 1957, Edgar in “King Lear” in
1964 and Prince Hal in “Henry IV, Part 1’ in 1958,
a play and a role he would return to in 1965 and
would eventually take on the title role in 1966.
But it was the aloof voice of the artificially

intelligent HAL 9000 — the forerunner of
today’s Amazon’s Alexa or Google Home —
where Rain entered the public’s consciousness.
Kubrick had heard Rain’s voice in the 1960
documentary “Universe,” a film he watched
multiple times, according to the actor. Rain
was initially hired to narrate 1968’s “2001: A
Space Odyssey,” but the director chose to go a
different direction.
HAL is the onboard master computer on the

spaceship Discovery 1 but goes rogue. When
astronaut Dave Bowman asks HAL to open the
ships’ pod doors, HAL famously balks. “I’m sorry,
Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that,” the machine
blandly refuses. “This mission is too important
for me to allow you to jeopardize it.”
When the astronauts try to disconnect HAL, he

fights back. During his shutdown, HAL sings
the nursey rhyme “Daisy Bell” and memorably
utters: “I’m afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going.
I can feel it.” The American Film Institute named
HAL the 13th greatest movie villain of all time,
joining a list that includes Hannibal Lecter and
Darth Vader.
Stratford Festival Artistic Director Antoni
Cimolino called Rain one of Canada’s greatest
acting talents and a “guiding light in its
development.” He said the actor’s humanity
shone through in HAL.
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“Douglas shared many of the same qualities as
Kubrick’s iconic creation: precision, strength of
steel, enigma and infinite intelligence, as well
as a wicked sense of humor,” Cimolino said. “But
those of us lucky enough to have worked with
Douglas soon solved his riddle and discovered
that at the center of his mystery lay warmth and
humanity, evidenced in his care for the young
members of our profession.”
Rain attended the University of Manitoba and
studied in London at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre
School. He started out performing radio plays.
From 1974 to 1977, Rain was head of the
English acting section of the National Theatre
School of Canada.
Rain performed at theaters and festivals all over
Canada, including the Shaw Festival, where
he played such roles as Caesar in “Caesar and
Cleopatra” in 1983. He shared stages with such
luminaries as Peter Ustinov, Maggie Smith
and Colm Feore. He was nominated for a Tony
Award in 1972 for his role as William Cecil in
“Vivat! Vivat! Regina!” His other Broadway credits
include “The Golden Age” in 1963 and “The
Broken Jug” in 1958.
Rain is survived by his two sons, David and

Adam, daughter Emma, granddaughter, Salima,
and a daughter-in-law, Asira.
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101
by Jon Turteltaub
Genre: Action & Adventure
Released: 2018
Price: $19.99
Trailer
169 Ratings
Movies
& Rotten Tomatoes
102
TVShows 45 %
The Meg
After a notorious shark once thought

to be extinct attacks an international
research crew and leaves them disabled
at the bottom of the ocean, an expert
deep sea rescue diver must try to save
them and defeat the monster known as
the Megalodon.
FIVE FACTS:
1. It is based on the 1997 novel Meg: A Novel
of Deep Terror by Steve Alten.
2. Filming took place in New Zealand.
3. Steve Alten’s daughter appears as an extra
in the film.
4. Ruby Rose almost drowned on set.
5. In the book, the Megalodon shark is pure
white, but this was too difficult to produce
with CGI, so the filmmakers decided to color
it like a great white shark.
103
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The Meg - Megalodon Best Sacenes | HD
105
Crazy Rich Asians
When native New Yorker Rachel Wu

accompanies her boyfriend to his best
friend’s wedding in Singapore, she learns a
thing or two that he has failed to mention
over the years. Suddenly, she discovers
that she is in a relationship with one of
Singapore’s most sought-after bachelors,
and he happens to come from the wealthiest
family in Asia.
FIVE FACTS:
1. Crazy Rich Asians is based on the 2013
novel of the same name by Kevin Kwan.
2. This movie marks a career shift for Henry
Goulding, who was a TV game show host
by Jon M. Chu
before being cast in the movie by chance. Genre: Romance
Released: 2018
3. A sequel, based on the first sequel to the Price: $19.99
original novel, China Rich Girlfriend (2015) is
expected to be released in 2020.
268 Ratings
4. The blonde wig worn by Awkwafina in the
movie – in the role of Goh Peik Lin – earned
her the on-set nickname “Asian Ellen”.
5. Kevin Kwan turned down Netflix’s $30m
offer to produce the movie to prove that
Asian films are commercially viable.
Rotten Tomatoes
91 %
106
Trailer
107
108
Crazy Rich Asians Movie Clip - Come to Singapore
109
Genre: Alternative
Released: Nov 9, 2018
15 Songs
Price: $11.99
595 Ratings
“Bad Liar”
110
Music
Origins (Deluxe)
Imagine Dragons
The fourth album in just six years from Imagine

Dragons is here. Coming just a year after the
group’s previous album Evolve, Origins is
packed with what seem sure to be further
blockbuster hits, especially in this deluxe
edition featuring three bonus tracks only
available digitally.
FIVE FACTS:
1. Some of the songs were written when
Imagine Dragons had taken time off
their tour.
2. They got their big break when the front
man of the band Train fell sick and Imagine
Dragons performed at a major Las Vegas
festival in their place.
3. The band have called Origins a “sister
album” to Evolve.
4. The band’s name is an anagram made up
of words they refuse to disclose.
5. 2018 marks the group’s 10th anniversary.
111
112
“Burn Out”
113
Experiment
Kane Brown
After an incredible award-winning debut

album, the “Justin Bieber of country” returns
with a second album that continues his
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modern twist.
FIVE FACTS:
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X Factor, but left after producers wanted to
Genre: Country
put him in a boy band. Released: Nov 9, 2018
12 Songs
2. In October 2017, he became the first artist Price: $11.99
to have simultaneous number ones on all
five country charts.
455 Ratings
3. Kane funded his first EP, Closer, through
the crowdfunding site Kickstarter.
4. He found fame by posting covers on
social media.
5. His debut self-titled album won three
American Music Awards, including Favorite
Country Album.
114
“Good as You”
115
116
“Baby Come Back to Me”
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118
WITH
J.K. ROWLING’S
HELP, JUDE LAW
BUILDS A NEW
DUMBLEDORE
When Jude Law met with J.K. Rowling about

portraying the younger version of Albus
Dumbledore, the two discussed how to
rebuild the fan-favorite character from the
“Harry Potter” films.
Law spent an afternoon jotting down notes from

Rowling who talked to him about Dumbledore’s
life before becoming the world’s most powerful
wizard. The British actor walked away with a vote
of confidence from the famed author, alleviating
some pressure on him.
“When the boss says ‘I like you,’ it gives you

a little bit of comfort,” Law said of Rowling,
screenwriter of the “Harry Potter” prequel series
that is based on her 2001 book “Fantastic Beasts
and Where to Find Them.”“You can’t help but
step into something like this, playing a part like
this without feeling a sense of responsibility,
119
120
Eddie Redmayne shares
his excitement about his
first day on set opposite
Jude Law’s Dumbledore,
while Katherine Waterston
says the new movie’s links
to “Harry Potter” are strong.
121
a fear of letting someone down. But when the
creator gives you the thumbs up, it’s a blessing.”
Dumbledore was a Hogwarts headmaster in the

“Potter” franchise commonly known for his silver
hair and long beard, sporting a loose robe. He was
played by Michael Gambon after inheriting the
role from the Richard Harris, who died in 2002.
Law’s youthful version enters in his mid-40s
wearing a three-piece suit with short auburn
hair in the sequel ”Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes
of Grindelwald ,” which will be released Friday.
It’s the second part of a five-film franchise
that started with 2016’s “Fantastic Beasts
and Where to Find Them,” which grossed
$813 million worldwide.
In “Grindelwald,” Law’s character works with
his former student Eddie Redmayne’s Newt
Scamander to thwart the divisive wizard leader
Gellert Grindelwald, played by Johnny Depp. The
film also stars Katherine Waterston, Zoe Kravitz
and Ezra Miller.
For research, Law read several Harry Potter

books that referenced Dumbledore, rather than
solely watching the previous films featuring the
elder character. With the help of Rowling and
director David Yates, they wanted to build from
the “ground up.”
“I was then given the opportunity to create

him without feeling the pressure to mimic or
impersonate or indeed hang the character too
much on past representations by the other
actors,” Law said. “There were certain traits I
wanted to include. I loved his humor, the twinkle
he had. He sees the good in almost everyone. He
has a good heart. But I was able to layer him up
a little more.”
122
Image: Jaap Buitendijk
123
Redmayne said the studio perfectly cast Law
as Dumbledore, who doesn’t necessarily show
his true powers and appears only in about
six scenes — most of which are interactions
with Scamander.
“Being a formidable, formidable actor with great
gravitas and weight and yet at the same time,
he has this kind of playful quality,” Redmayne
said of Law. “And I’ll never forget our first scene,
which was the first time we see each other in
the film. I just saw his back, basically. And the
way he turned around, it was instant. It was
like in one look, he had managed to inhabit
that. I hadn’t had any expectations about
Dumbledore. But somehow it was solidified in
one look.”
The sequel picks up after Grindelwald was

captured by the Magical Congress of the United
States of America with the aid of Newt at the
end of the first film. But the villainous wizard
finds a way to escape custody and assembles a
group of pureblood wizards who support him to
rule over all humans in 1920s Paris.
Law says the film opens the door to many

dramatic paths and explores a more troubled
time in Dumbledore’s life along with his once-
close relationship with Grindelwald.
Rowling announced in 2007 that Dumbledore

is gay after the release of “Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hollows,” the final book in the series.
Some on social media criticized the author’s
decision to unveil and tinker with the beloved
character’s sexuality, but she has defended
her actions.
Law assures the story is more focused on his
character’s complicated relationship with
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125
Image: Rob Stothard
126
Grindelwald from decades ago, rather than
Dumbledore’s sexuality.
“His sexuality doesn’t define him, but the

relationship with Grindelwald does,” Law said. “I
believe, and (Rowling) would agree, that Albus
had many intimate relationships. And the one
he has is the love of his life, which is damaged.
It becomes even poisonous and sends the two
of them in opposite directions. He’s now in his
middle age, around my age 45, and he’s still
recovering from a relationship that he’s trying
to work out from when he was 20. That’s a long
time. I could barely remember what life was like
when I was 20.”
The actor applauded Rowling for being fearless

in creating “layered” and “diverse” characters
such as Dumbledore in a fantasy world with
“escapism and magic.”
“Isn’t it wonderful that we’re in a world where

finally, finally a franchise like this has a great
character and it doesn’t matter. But (Rowling) is
brave enough to put it out there and say ‘Let’s do
this.’ People should be able to handle this. They
can. It’s as we should be.”
Law called his introduction as Dumbledore a

good “warmup” as the franchise progresses.
The actor has a few big films ahead on his plate
including “Captain Marvel” and “Vox Lux,” but is
looking forward to filming the third installment
of “Fantastic Beasts” next summer.
It’ll give Law time to grow his beard.
“Finding all those pieces of him were fun” he
said. “I eased into the part, but the line was
drawn at the end of this one. It’s only going to
get deeper.”
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128
LATEST ‘FANTASTIC
BEASTS’ IS
A MIXED BAG
OF WONDERS
Like the bottomless trunk totted by

“magizoolologist” Newt Scamander, “Fantastic
Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” is a mixed
bag of wonders.
Newt (Eddie Redmayne) can reach into his

suitcase and, like Mary Poppins before him, pull
out just about anything. And it sometimes feels
as though J.K. Rowling — a screenwriter here
for the second time — is similarly infatuated
by her unending powers of conjuring. In this
overstuffed second film in the five-part Harry
Potter prequel series, every solved mystery
unlocks another, every story begets still more.
Narratives multiply like randy Nifflers (one of the
many species of creature in Newt’s bag).
129
The usual problem for spinoffs is their thinness
or their unfulfilled justification — especially ones
that stretch an already much-stretched tale.
(There were eight Potter movies.) But neither are
issues in the two “Fantastic Beasts” films, each
directed by former “Potter” hand David Yates.
Both movies are rooted in purpose. “The Crimes
of Grindelwald,” especially, is an impressively
dark and urgent parable of supremacist
ideology aimed squarely at today’s demagogues
of division. And neither film lacks in density of
detail, character or story.
No, the only real crime of “Gindelwald” is its

sheer abundance. In zipping from New York
to London to Paris (with ministries of magic
in each locale), this latest chapter in Rowling’s
pre-Potter saga feels so eager to be outside the
walls of Hogwarts (which also get a cameo) that
it resists ever settling anywhere, or with any of
its widely scattered characters — among them
Newt, the conscientious dark magic investigator
Tina (Katherine Waterston), the New Yorker no-
maj Jacob (Dan Fogler), Tina’s sister and Jacob’s
sweetheart Queenie (Alison Sudol) and the
haunted former schoolmate of Newt’s, Leta
Lestrange (Zoe Kravitz)
No one does the foreboding sense of a looming

battle better than Rowling. Now, it’s the rise
of Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp), freshly
escaped from prison, who casts a lengthening
shadow over the land. With a blond shock of
hair and a ghostly white face, Grindelwald is
Rowling’s magical version of a white nationalist,
only he believes in the elevation of wizards —
“purebloods” — over those who lack magical
powers, or “no-majes.”
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131
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
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133
It’s 1927 and the dark clouds of fascism are
swirling; World War II feels right around
the corner. In one the movie’s many tricks,
Grindelwald drapes Paris in black fabric, like a
wannabe Christo.
Despite the gathering storm, the pacifist Newt
(Redmayne, cloyingly shy), resists drawing
battle lines. When pushed by his brother
Theseus (Callum Turner), who like Tina is
an “Auror” who enforces magic law, Newt
responds: “I don’t do sides.”
134
The events of “The Crimes of Grindelwald”
will test Newt, just as they will anyone trying
to follow its many strands. The hunt is on
for at least three characters — the missing
Queenie, the on-the-lam Grindelwald and
Credence Barebone (Eza Miller), the
powerful but volatile orphan who spends
much of the film seeking answers to his
identity. He’s the Anakin Skywalker of
“Fantastic Beasts,” whose soul is fought for
by both sides.
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136
If all of this sounds like a lot, it most definitely is,
and that’s not even mentioning Jude Law joining
in as a young Albus Dumbledore, who turns out
to be awfully roguishly handsome under that
ZZ-top beard. But our time here with him is short,
just as it is with so many characters who — to
the film’s credit — we yearn for more of (Fogler’s
Jacob, especially). There is a flicker of a flashback
that hints at a long-ago, maybe-sexual relationship
between Dumbledore and Grindelwald; it would
be the film’s most intriguing revelation if it wasn’t
merely baited for future installments.
Siblings are everywhere in “The Crimes of

Grindelwald.” Just as in the houses of Hogwarts,
Rowling delights in duality and the interplay of
light and dark. Even within the Aurors there are
competing methodologies of law enforcement
to face the growing threat. Newt is carried along
like an avatar of sympathy: he believes that
every beast can be tamed, that every trauma can
be healed.
Rowling’s only source material going into the

“Fantastic Beasts” films was a slender 2001
book in the guise of a Hogwarts textbook. But
she has, with her mighty wand, summoned an
impressively vast if convoluted world, one that’s
never timid in exploring the darkness beneath
its enchanting exterior. And, with Yates again at
the helm, “The Crimes of Grindelwald” is often
dazzling, occasionally wondrous and always
atmospheric. But is also a bit of a mess. Even
magic bags can be overweight.
“Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald,”
a Warner Bros. release, is rated PG-13 for some
fantasy action violence. Running time: 134
minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
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138
CLAIRE FOY
TRADES ELIZABETH
FOR LISBETH
No, “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” isn’t a Spider-

man spinoff about a young woman ensnarled by
Peter Parker. But you’d be forgiven for thinking
the latest, revamped iteration of Stieg Larsson’s
thrillers has some superhero DNA.
This, Lisbeth Salander’s third big-screen
incarnation in nine years, has morphed the
avenging Stockholm hacker into a blander
action hero, complete with a Batman-and-Robin-
like band of white across her eyes. Following
the spikier Swedish trilogy, with Noomi Rapace,
and David Fincher’s menacing and murky “The
Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” with Rooney Mara,
we can almost palpably feel Lisbeth (Claire
Foy this time) being lured out of the shadows
and toward a more mainstream movie realm.
In this latest chapter, Lisbeth strives, like a
Scandinavian 007, to keep a world-threatening
atomic weapons program dubbed “Firefall” out
of the wrong hands. (Are there any right ones?)
139
“The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” directed by
Uruguayan-born Fede Alvarez (“Don’t Breathe,”
2013’s “Evil Dead” reboot), smooths away
some of the rough edges of a saga predicated
on them, resulting in a competent but
indistinguishable thriller. Lisbeth, a volatile
cyberpunk vigilante propelled by her own
demons of abuse, remains a great character in
search of a decent plot.
It’s a shame, too, because a fearsome woman
meting out justice for detestable men is, well,
kind of appropriate right now. In the film’s first
scene — the most comic book-like of them
all — Lisbeth strings up an offending husband
like a fish while gutting his bank account and,
with a few clicks, transferring his savings to his
victimized wife. Batman could do no better.
Such exchanges, though, quickly recede in favor

of a larger conspiracy that ropes in the NSA
(Lakeith Stanfield plays an agent), a Russian
gang called the Spiders (with Claes Bang) and
the Swedish authorities. It begins when Salander
is approached by a former NSA agent (Stephen
Merchant) who built the software program but
who now (only now?) is concerned that the
ability to launch every nuclear weapon on the
planet might actually be a bad idea.
Soon, all manner of bad guys are after him, his
young but brilliant son (Christopher Convery)
and Salander. The investigative journalist
Mikael Blomkvist (Sverrir Gudnason in the
part previously Daniel Craig and Michael
Nyqvist) is around at times but makes little of
an impression.
The story also connects, we sense, somehow to
Salander’s own past, her incestuous father and a
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THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER’S WEB
Official Trailer 2 (HD)
142
sister believed to have died years ago. Snippets
of flashbacks give a window into the scars
beneath Salander’s tattoos, while de rigueur
action set pieces propel the movie slowly along,
as if it forgot to pick up a sense of suspense
along the way. (In one novel twist, Salander,
in mid-car chase, hacks into the other vehicle
and takes control of it. The so-called Internet
of Things may sound the death knell for the
prolonged getaway.)
“The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” penned by

Alvarez, Steven Knight and Jay Basu, is based on
fourth novel in the series and the first written
by David Lagercrantz. (Larsson died in 2004.)
They haven’t done Foy, one of the most exciting
actresses around, any favors in saddling her with
a forgettable international espionage tale. The
superlative cast, generally, is wasted, including
Vicky Krieps, Stanfield and Bang.
But as compelling as Foy is, she’s also missing

a quality that any Lisbeth ought to have, and it
has nothing to do with shedding the primness
of her Queen Elizabeth II for Salander’s jet-
black hair and piercings. The greatest tension in
Larsson’s “Millennium” series is how Salander so
bristles with unease in the world, even while she
expertly manipulates everything in it. No such
conflict is found in “The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” a
commonplace thriller for an uncommon heroine.
“The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” a Columbia

Pictures release, is rated R by the Motion Picture
Association of America violence, language and
some sexual content/nudity. Running time: 115
minutes. Two stars out of four.
MPAA definition of R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying

parent or adult guardian.
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‘GAME OF THRONES’
RETURNING IN
APRIL 2019 FOR
FINAL SEASON
The eighth and last season of “Game of Thrones”

finally has a date with destiny.
HBO said this week that the series will return in

April 2019 with six episodes to conclude its run.
The fantasy series based on the George R.R.

Martin novels has been one of HBO’s most
successful shows.
A video touting the show’s return next year
included clips from seasons past showing
both living and dead competitors for the
crown of Westeros but didn’t give a taste of
the final episodes.
HBO isn’t getting out of the “Game of Thrones”

business. A prequel created by Martin and
writer-producer Jane Goldman is underway,
with Naomi Watts set to star, and other spinoffs
are possible.
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Image: Stephen Lam
146
SMARTPHONE
MAKERS BET
ON FOLDABLE
SCREENS AS NEXT
BIG THING
For the past few years, the smartphone industry

has been searching for a breakthrough to revive
a market mired in an innovation lull and a sales
slump. A potential catalyst is on the horizon in
the form of flexible screens that can be folded in
half without breaking.
Samsung and several rivals are preparing to
roll out such screens to make devices more
versatile for work and pleasure. The foldable
screens could increase display space to the size
of a mini-tablet, but fold like a wallet so they
revert to the size of regular phones. But there are
questions about price and durability.
If the new phones fulfill their makers’ ambitions,

they will become a leap ahead for an industry
whose origins can be traced to the old flip
phones that consumers once embraced as
cool and convenient. Foldable-screen phones,
though, won’t need hinges because they have
continuous displays that can bend.
147
In an indication of how difficult it is to make
a flexible screen that’s also durable, Samsung
first announced plans to build a folding-screen
phone five years ago. It wasn’t until Wednesday,
though, that Samsung finally provided a glimpse
at what it’s been working on.
“We have been living in a world where the size

of a screen could only be as large as the device
itself,” said Justin Denison, Samsung’s senior vice
president of mobile product marketing. “We
have just entered a new dimension.”
Except for a fleeting look at a device he held in
a hand, Denison provided scant information
about the phone. Samsung says it will be ready
to hit the market at some point next year.
Smartphone makers are looking for something
to excite consumers as they replace phones less
often because new models are pricey and aren’t
that much different from their predecessors
beyond slightly better cameras and batteries.
That’s the main reason worldwide smartphone

sales have fallen from the previous year for
four consecutive quarters, according to IDC.
Add it all up, and smartphone sales declined
by 4 percent during 12 months ending in
September. Samsung, the world’s leading seller
of smartphones, suffered a 7 percent decline
in shipments during that period, based on
IDC’s calculations.
But it’s not clear whether flexible-screen phones

will have mass appeal, especially when the
bendy devices are expected to cost more than
$1,000. Royole Corp., a small Silicon Valley
company, is hoping to sell early versions of its
FlexPai foldable-screen phone for $1,300 to
$1,500 once it comes to the U.S. — something
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Image: Michael Liedtke
149
that won’t happen until next year, at the earliest.
For now, it will be available in China starting next
month, at a price equivalent to about $1,300.
While the idea of a device being able to bend
into different shapes may sound good, IDC
analyst Ramon Llamas is skeptical about how
practical and durable they will be. One of the
biggest questions is whether the quality of the
screens will degrade as they get repeatedly
folded. “Are people really going to want to watch
a Netflix show on these devices if there is a
crease down the middle of it?” Llamas said.
Royole said its FlexPai can be bent more than

200,000 times without deteriorating.
Other foldable-screen phones running Google’s
Android software are expected to be available,
too. Huawei confirmed last month that it is
working on a phone with a flexible screen. LG
Electronics is widely expected to unveil one at
the CES gadget show in Las Vegas in January. LG
didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“Everyone has been thinking about the same

question: ‘What’s next? Is there nothing more
from a smartphone?’” Royole CEO Bill Liu said.
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POCKET MONEY
APPS AIM TO
HELP KIDS IN
CASHLESS WORLD
For kids growing up in today’s cashless society,

the piggy bank is going virtual.
Father of two Roland Hall turned to a British

startup’s digital pocket money app because his
kids were still too young to get bank cards from
traditional banks.
With prepaid debit cards linked to the app, Hall’s

kids, aged 8 and 10, can spend their allowance
and chore money by shopping online or by
tapping at contactless payment terminals in
stores. Sound like a recipe for splurging? Not so,
he said.
“When kids have cash they want to spend it

quickly. They want to go to the shops and spend
it on rubbish,” said Hall, an IT project manager.
But an app lets them check their balances
online, “which actually makes them start
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154
thinking about saving rather than getting rid
of the money,” said Hall, who also prefers giving
digital allowances because he never carries cash.
The app, which is called gohenry and expanded
to the U.S. in April, is part of a wave of digital
money apps combined with prepaid cards for
kids as young as six that parents have access to.
They are powerful new money management
and savings tools that replace old-fashioned
piggy banks and account passbooks. Some say
they can help enhance financial literacy even
as the growth of cashless payments upends
traditional notions of money.
Globally, the number of non-cash transactions
rose 11.2 percent to 433 billion in 2015 from
the year before and is forecast to nearly double
by 2020, according to the World Payments
Report by financial services firms Capgemini
and BNP Paribas. Britain, Canada and Sweden
are among the world’s most cashless countries,
according to a 2017 ranking by currency
website ForexBonuses, with widespread use of
“contactless” bank cards that let shoppers merely
tap on payment terminals for small transactions.
In China, where mobile payments rule, Alipay

and WeChat Pay allow teens to hold accounts.
Hong Kong offers a kids’ version of its stored
value Octopus card, based on older technology.
In the U.S., the fragmented banking sector

means most cards still need to be swiped and,
sometimes, require a pin number. Merchants
in big U.S. cities are increasingly going cashless
because they can gather more customer data,
which makes it harder for teens without bank
cards, said Stuart Sopp, CEO of Current, a two-
year-old U.S. fintech startup.
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Image: Kelvin Chan
156
“Parents are willing to pay to solve a problem
that banks are not solving” - helping youngsters
deal with digital money, said Sopp.
Current , gohenry and others such as Britain’s
Nimbl and Osper , Australia’s Spriggy and
Famzoo and Greenlight of the U.S. operate
on similar principles. They typically charge a
monthly or annual fee for prepaid debit cards.
Parents can load money from their bank onto
their own account, set weekly allowance
amounts and spending limits, list chores to
earn extra money, and block certain types of
transactions, like online shopping.
Money is sent to kids’ linked accounts, which
they can use to set savings goals. The Current
app rounds up each transaction and sweeps the
change into a savings account.
Crucially, the apps send instant alerts about

transactions, a feature parents love, said
gohenry CEO Alex Zivoder.
“You give cash to a kid, how do you as a parent

know what he will do with this money?” he said.
Hall said his son, Ralph, 8, uses it to save up

to buy 70 pound ($92) soccer shoes and
PlayStation video games while his daughter
Lilly, 10, saves for shoes or clothing. They
both also save up to buy extras on the video
game Fortnite.
He said he turned to the app because “I want
them to understand what the value of money is.”
The apps are making inroads amid growing
adult uncertainty about how the shift to cashless
payments is affecting children’s view of money.
In one U.K. survey commissioned last year by
Prudential, about 78 percent of teachers and
157
37 percent of parents said it hurt youngsters’
understanding of money.
More than a quarter felt contactless cards

encouraged them to spend more and didn’t
help them develop mental arithmetic skills as
well as handling cash, the poll of 501 parents
found. No margin of error was given.
They’re valid concerns, said Russell Winnard,
head of programs and services at financial
education charity Young Money, a charity, but
he added that apps can help parents explain to
children how money works.
“Young people are seeing less and less cash

transactions, which just means that we have
to be even more careful to talk about what is
happening at each of those stages, because it
has become more abstract,” said Winnard.
Paddy Kelly, another gohenry user, says he started

using it because he was looking for a better way
to help his 8-year-old daughter, Ailish, both save
money and improve her math skills.
She had a piggy bank full of coins but her

younger brother kept emptying it, Kelly said.
He likes the app’s savings feature, which his

daughter has used to set a goal of saving 20
pounds, at 2 pounds per week, with the aim
of buying a pet gerbil. Getting her to figure
out how long it would take to reach that goal
is better than forcing her to do abstract math
questions, which just makes her “irate,” he said.
“It gets her thinking about money in a slightly
smarter way,” said Kelly. “Money is such an
abstract concept, in today’s world it kind of
makes sense” for kids to use digital pocket
money apps, he said.
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159
160
THANK U, NEXT
ARIANA GRANDE
SHALLOW
LADY GAGA & BRADLEY COOPER
WITHOUT ME
HALSEY
HIGH HOPES
PANIC! AT THE DISCO
HAPPIER
MARSHMELLO & BASTILLE
NATURAL
IMAGINE DRAGONS
SOLO
JENNIE (FROM BLACKPINK)
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
SOMEONE I USED TO KNOW

ZAC BROWN BAND
2! 3!
5BTS
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ORIGINS DELUXE
IMAGINE DRAGONS
THE PLATINUM COLLECTION

GREATEST HITS I, II & III
QUEEN
A STAR IS BORN SOUNDTRACK

EXPERIMENT
KANE BROWN
GREATEST HITS
QUEEN
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
THE ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK
QUEEN
LOOK UP CHILD
LAUREN DAIGLE
I’LL BE HOME  EP
JESS AND GABRIEL
SIMULATION THEORY DELUXE

MUSE
THE GREATEST SHOWMAN

ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK
VARIOUS ARTISTS
163
164
CHANCES
BACKSTREET BOYS
AIRPLANE PT.2 JAPANESE VERSION

BTS
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
QUEEN
SICKO MODE FEAT. DRAKE

TRAVIS SCOTT
BREATHIN
ARIANA GRANDE
GIRLS LIKE YOU FEAT. CARDI B

MAROON 5
ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST

QUEEN
WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS

QUEEN
PERFECT SYMPHONY
WITH ANDREA BOCELLI
ED SHEERAN
WE WILL ROCK YOU

QUEEN
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166
WHO ARE YOU NOW?
THE WALKING DEAD, SEASON 9
FRIENDS AND ENEMAS

THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF ORANGE COUNTY, SEASON 13
EYJAFJALLAJÖKULL
MADAM SECRETARY, SEASON 5
SOUTH PEACH
THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF ATLANTA, SEASON 11
HUBERT
THE GOOD DOCTOR, SEASON 2
S.N.A.F.U.
MANIFEST, SEASON 1
THE DEMON
ARROW, SEASON 7
DEMONS OF THE PUNJAB

DOCTOR WHO, SEASON 11
ANYBODY HAVE A MAP?

GREY’S ANATOMY, SEASON 15
BUT FOR THE GRACE

BULL, SEASON 3
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168
BECOMING
MICHELLE OBAMA
PAST TENSE
LEE CHILD
THE RECKONING
JOHN GRISHAM
NINE PERFECT STRANGERS

LIANE MORIARTY
DARK SACRED NIGHT

MICHAEL CONNELLY
THE WOODS
HARLAN COBEN
THIS KISS
MELODY GRACE
FATES AND FURIES

LAUREN GROFF
EVERY BREATH
NICHOLAS SPARKS
BOOK OF THE DEAD

PATRICIA CORNWELL
169
170
EPA SEEKS NEW
TRUCK POLLUTION
RULES; SAYS AIR
WON’T SUFFER
The Trump administration’s Environmental

Protection Agency is proposing to rewrite rules
that limit pollution from heavy trucks but that
the EPA says slow the economy.
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler
argues that new technology can help improve
air quality, noting that the regulation of harmful
nitrogen oxide emissions hasn’t been revamped
since 2000.
EPA officials were to announce the plans

Tuesday but offered few details and said they
were just beginning a regulatory process that
can take years.
“We are doing it because it’s good for the
environment,” said Wheeler, who notes that
the EPA is under no requirement to redo the
regulation. “Our goal is to update our standards
so that we can get these new technologies in
use across the country.”
171
The proposed “Cleaner Trucks Initiative” is
drawing expressions of hope but skepticism
from some environmental groups, especially
because the EPA under President Donald
Trump already has proposed relaxing emissions
requirements for light passenger cars and trucks
by freezing them at 2020 levels.
Andrew Linhardt, the Sierra Club’s deputy
director for clean transportation, said his group
is wary, and it wants to see details. Linhardt said
he would favor the adoption of rules that would
reduce nitrogen oxide emissions but doubts
that the administration wants to do that.
“Unfortunately, this administration and this

leadership of the EPA do not fill us with much
confidence that this will be a real air pollution
reduction measure,” Linhardt said.
Paul Billings of the American Lung Association

said he thinks the idea is encouraging but
depends on exactly what the proposal looks like.
“The devil’s always in the details,” Billings said.

“If they were not to tighten the (nitrogen oxide)
standards, it’d be a bait-and-switch.”
Nitrogen oxides can worsen existing lung disease,

contribute to the development of asthma and
increase susceptibility to respiratory infections.
Since the emissions regulations were last

updated in 2000, regulatory requirements
have been added piecemeal, resulting in
what Wheeler calls “overly complex and
costly” requirements that don’t benefit the
environment. The goal of the regulatory change
would be to root out inefficiencies and perhaps
use onboard diagnostic computers to ensure
compliance over the life of trucks, Wheeler said.
172
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174
The share of overall pollution contributed
by heavy trucks has grown over the years,
especially in urban areas and port cities with
significant truck traffic, said Bill Wehrum,
assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office of
Air and Radiation.
Wehrum said the EPA doesn’t have a proposed

target for setting new nitrogen oxide standards
because it’s at the beginning of a rule-making
process. He said vehicles are now tested for
emissions on a treadmill-like dynamometer,
which might not capture all high-emissions
phases of engine operation. The new
standards could cut emissions during high-
pollution phases, he said.
California already is working on more stringent
heavy truck emissions standards, and new
federal standards could conflict with them.
Wehrum said the EPA isn’t drawing up its
own standards to set up a confrontation with
California, and it will work with the state on the
new regulation.
175
The EPA’s plan to freeze passenger vehicle
fuel economy standards at 2020 levels would
relax a regulation enacted at the end of the
Obama administration. But that plan already
has touched off a legal fight with California and
about a dozen other states that follow its rules.
California wants the requirements to become
progressively more stringent through 2026.
For now, the U.S. and California standards match,

and the auto industry fears they could be split
in two, forcing them to make costly design
changes for California and the other states.
The EPA is still considering the light-vehicle

standards. Its preferred option would freeze
them so the fleet would be required to
average 30 miles a gallon in real-world
driving from 2021 to 2026.
176
177
178
SPAIN CONSIDERS
BAN ON SALE OF
GAS AND DIESEL
CARS BY 2040
Spain’s government is eyeing ambitious steps

to tackle climate change, including a ban on the
sale of gas and diesel cars from 2040.
The government presented a blueprint Tuesday

that foresees an end to state financial subsidies
for fossil fuels and a prohibition on fracking.
The working document, obtained by The

Associated Press, contains plans to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions by 37 percent by
2030 and to feed the national energy grid
exclusively from renewable sources by 2050.
Other European Union countries are assessing

similar groundbreaking measures as they look to
combat climate change.
The minority Spanish government’s goals for
its climate policy will need the support of other
parties to win approval in parliament. It wasn’t
immediately clear when a vote on the measures
might take place.
179
SOFTBANK MOBILE
UNIT TO GO
FOR IPO RAISING
SOME $20 BILLION
Japanese technology company SoftBank Group

Corp. will carry out an initial public offering of
its Japanese mobile subsidiary, set for Dec. 19, in
what will likely be one of the world’s biggest IPOs.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange approved the listing

of 1.6 billion shares of SoftBank Corp. Monday, at
1,500 yen ($13) a share, raising potentially more
than 2 trillion yen ($20 billion).
Founded in 1986, initially running software,
broadband and fixed-line telecommunications
businesses, the company has expanded to
become one of Japan’s top mobile service
providers. It was the first carrier to offer the
Apple iPhone in Japan.
180
Image: Kazuhiro Nogi
181
The parent is investing in a range of companies
globally, including U.S. wireless company
Sprint, British IoT company ARM, Chinese
e-commerce giant Alibaba and U.S. ride-
sharing service Uber.
Recently, SoftBank Group Chief Executive
Masayoshi Son was in the spotlight for his
relations with the Saudi prince after the killing
of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Son has
said denounced the killing. He said earlier this
month that he went to Saudi Arabia to relay his
concerns to the prince.
Son has been partnering with Saudi Arabian

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and about
half of his $100 billion Vision Fund, established
in 2016, comes from the kingdom. The fund
has been investing in various companies, solar
projects and artificial intelligence.
Khashoggi, a 59-year-old columnist for The

Washington Post, was killed at the Saudi
Consulate in Turkey on Oct. 2, although details
are still unclear.
SoftBank is eager to gain cash to fuel its

investments, which include financial-
technology, ride-booking services, as well as
office space sharing WeWork and the Pepper
companion robot.
Even after the listing, the parent owns 63

percent of Softbank Group.
SoftBank’s IPO, which may be expanded to

include more shares to as many as 1.7 billion
shares, could be the biggest ever. Alibaba’s
$25 billion initial public stock offering on Wall
Street in 2014 was the biggest by a Chinese
company. Facebook raised $16 billion in 2012.
Image: Tomohiro Ohsumi

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184
US PANEL
WARNS AGAINST
GOVERNMENT
PURCHASE OF
CHINESE TECH
A congressional advisory panel says

the purchase of internet-linked devices
manufactured in China leaves the United States
vulnerable to security breaches that could put
critical infrastructure at risk.
In its annual report this week, the U.S.-China

Economic and Security Review Commission
warns of dangers to the U.S. government
and private sector from a reliance on global
supply chains linked to China, which is the
world’s largest manufacturer of information
technology equipment.
China’s push to dominate in the high-tech
industry by 2025 already is a sore point with
Washington and a contributing factor in trade
tensions that have seen the world’s two largest
economies slap billions of dollars in punitive
tariffs on each other’s products this year.
185
The U.S. also has had long-running concerns
about state-backed cyber theft of corporate
secrets, something that China agreed to
stop in 2015. But the bipartisan commission
highlights the potential security risks to the
United States by China’s pre-eminence in the
so-called internet of things, or IoT, which refers
to the proliferation of physical devices that
have sensors that collect and share data and
connect to the internet. Such devices could
be everything from household appliances like
refrigerators and air conditioners to warehouse
delivery systems, smart traffic signs and
aerial drones.
“The scale of Chinese state support for the IoT,

the close supply chain integration between the
United States and China, and China’s role as an
economic and military competitor to the United
States creates enormous economic, security,
supply chain, and data privacy risks for the
United States,” the report says.
The commission, which does not set policy

but can make recommendations to Congress
and the U.S. administration, is warning that
the potential impact of malicious cyberattacks
through such systems will intensify with the
adoption of ultra-fast 5G networks that could
quicken data speeds by up to 100 times.
“The lax security protections and universal

connectivity of IoT devices creates numerous
points of vulnerability that hackers or malicious
186
Image: Luis Gene
187
188
state actors can exploit to hold U.S. critical
infrastructure, businesses, and individuals at
risk,” the report says.
The United States has already taken some
steps to restrict the use of Chinese-made high
technology. For example, it has restricted
government procurement from Chinese
tech giants Huawei and ZTE, which deny
their products are used for spying by China’s
authoritarian government.
In June, the Defense Department suspended

the purchase of all commercial, off-the-shelf
drones until a cybersecurity risk assessment
strategy was established. In 2017, U.S. customs
authorities alleged that drones produced by
Chinese company DJI, which has dominated
the U.S. and Canadian drone markets, likely
provided China with access to U.S. critical
infrastructure and law enforcement data. DJI
denied the allegation.
The commission is calling for Congress to
push for assessments by U.S. government
agencies on their supply chain vulnerabilities.
It says the U.S. government depends on
commercial, off-the-shelf products, many of
them made in China, for more than 95 percent
of its electronics components and information
technology systems.
Large U.S. telecommunications providers also
rely on global supply chains dominated by
Chinese manufacturers. Although they do not
source directly from Huawei and ZTE, major U.S.
telecommunications providers rely on other
foreign 5G network equipment suppliers that
incorporate Chinese manufacturing in their
supply chains, the report says.
189

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AppleMagazine - truePDF 16.november.2018

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STAN LEE: REMEMBERING

FROM AUDIBLE TO WHOLE THIS IS HEAVY:

YELP’S SHARES TAKE A BEATING AFTER REVENUE MISS 28

WITH UBER EATS’ FAST GROWTH COMES POTENTIAL FOR PROFIT 32

LAB AIMS TO ENCOURAGE YOUTH TO PURSUE MITCHELL TECH INDUSTRY 38

CELEBRITIES OFFER THANKS, CONDOLENCES IN DEATH OF STAN LEE 64

FORD, WALMART TEST SELFDRIVING GROCERY DELIVERY SERVICE 90

ACTOR DOUGLAS RAIN, WHO SUPPLIED HAL’S VOICE, DIES AT 90 92

LATEST ‘FANTASTIC BEASTS’ IS A MIXED BAG OF WONDERS 128

‘GAME OF THRONES’ RETURNING IN APRIL 2019 FOR FINAL SEASON 144

SMARTPHONE MAKERS BET ON FOLDABLE SCREENS AS NEXT BIG THING 146

POCKET MONEY APPS AIM TO HELP KIDS IN CASHLESS WORLD 152

US PANEL WARNS AGAINST GOVERNMENT PURCHASE OF CHINESE TECH 184

Amazon is hard to escape.

Whether you’ve bought shoes at Zappos,

Besides Amazon.com, it also owns several

It has created its own shops, too. There are

Its physical locations had revenue of $13 billion

VIDEO GAMES, AUDIOBOOKS AND MORE

Amazon, which started as an online bookstore

The company has more than 610,000

Amazon could have picked a struggling city

New York is the nation’s ﬁnancial and media

Arlington is directly across the Potomac River

Amazon said it will spend $5 billion

The new outposts won’t appear overnight.

Virginia state Sen. Adam Ebbin, a Democrat

Not everyone was pleased.

“Oﬀering massive corporate welfare from

Shares of Yelp Inc. took a beating Thursday (08)

Yelp’s stock was down $12.50, or 29 percent, to

CEO Jeremy Stoppleman blamed the

Yelp posted proﬁts of $15 million, or 17 cents

In three years, the Uber Eats restaurant

A: Certainly younger generations use it more.

Q: What kind of range do you serve from a

Q: Is Eats a proﬁt-making entity?

All of it is possible due to the Smart Lab at

Principal Justin Zajic started looking into

“We discovered we were having problems

“The students come in and set a goal to create

Students interested in coding can explore the

“You have a character on the screen and the

“It helps children learn how to do stuﬀ on their

Every sixth-grader can register for the exploratory

The school had been awarded a state grant of

Just as he was making a name for himself,

After several years in the Army, Lee returned

They quickly followed up the success of the

Despite leaving the comic book industry almost

Of course, Marvel had entered into Hollywood

Image: Jonathan Alcorn

Combined, Marvel’s movies have generated

THE WORLD PAYS ITS TRIBUTES

“He felt an obligation to his fans to keep

Image: Matt Sayles

DC Comics, long-term Marvel rival, and the

Celebrities oﬀer their thanks, remembrances and

“Sad, sad day. Rest In Power, Uncle Stan. You

“Thank you, Stan, for making me not only the

“I owe it all to you... Rest In Peace Stan...

“We’ve lost a creative genius. Stan Lee was a

“There will never be another Stan Lee. For

“RIP Stan. Thanks for everything.” — “Deadpool”

“No one has had more of an impact on my career

“Thank you Stan Lee. For your service in