Ap p l em a ga zine issue 286 april 21 2017 by mimimi946

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STAR WARS CELEBRATION: THE PHENOMENON RENEWED

INFLUENCE GAME: TELECOM LOBBYING MUSCLE KILLS PRIVACY RULES

KIDS PREFER THE TV FOR THEIR VIEWING, BUT LOVE OTHER DEVICES

40 FACEBOOK WANTS TO AUGMENT YOUR REALITY

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THE iPHONE OF CARS? APPLE ENTERS SELF-DRIVING CAR RACE 08 NETFLIX ON THE VERGE OF HITTING 100 MILLION SUBSCRIBERS 28 EX MICROSOFT CEO STEVE BALLMER OFFERS FACTS ON GOVERNMENT 36 MICROSOFT SAYS USERS ARE PROTECTED FROM ALLEGED NSA MALWARE 50 GALAXY S8: MORE SCREEN AND ELEGANCE, BUT A HEFTY PRICE TAG 72 COMPUTER PIONEER ROBERT W. TAYLOR DIES AT 85 80 YAHOO BOWS OUT AS PUBLIC COMPANY WITH REVENUE SHRINKING 86 VINYL MUSIC GIVES RECORD STORES A BOOST IN A DIGITAL WORLD 92 BOX OFFICE TOP 20: ‘FAST 8’ SNAGS GLOBAL DEBUT RECORD 118 $19.8 BILLION AIRWAVES AUCTION MAY MEAN BETTER CELL SERVICE 136 PHONES AND SOCIAL MEDIA TURN CONSUMERS INTO WHISTLEBLOWERS 140 FANTASY SPORTS COMPANIES FOLD AS LEGISLATIVE BATTLE RESUMES 148 JOHN GLENN HONORED WITH LAUNCH OF SPACE STATION SUPPLY SHIP 156 PRINCE WILLIAM SPEAKS WITH LADY GAGA ON MENTAL HEALTH 162 CALIFORNIA UTILITY LAUNCHES FIRST HYBRID POWER SYSTEMS 178 GOOGLE EARTH INVITES YOU TO ‘GET LOST’ EXPLORING THE PLANET 182 FACEBOOK TARGETS 30,000 FAKE FRANCE ACCOUNTS BEFORE ELECTION 188

TOP 10 APPS 98 iTUNES REVIEW 102 TOP 10 SONGS 168 TOP 10 ALBUMS 170 TOP 10 MUSIC VIDEOS 172 TOP 10 TV SHOWS 174 TOP 10 BOOKS 176

THE iPHONE OF CARS? APPLE ENTERS SELF-DRIVING CAR RACE

Apple is joining the fiercely competitive race to design self-driving cars, raising the possibility that a company that has already re-shaped culture with its iPhone may try to transform transportation, too. Ending years of speculation, Appleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s late entry into a crowded field was made official with the disclosure that the California Department of Motor Vehicles had awarded a permit for the company to start testing its self-driving car technology on public roads in the state. The permit covers three vehicles - all 2015 Lexus RX 450h hybrid SUVs - and six individual drivers. California law requires people to be in a selfdriving car who can take control if something goes wrong. 9

APPLE GOES MOBILE ... IN A NEW WAY Apple confirmed its arrival in the self-driving car market, but wouldn’t discuss its intentions. Its interest in autonomous vehicle technology, however, has long been clear. The Cupertino, California, company pointed to a statement that it issued in December. “ Apple is investing heavily in machine learning and autonomous systems,” the company said then. “There are many potential applications for these technologies, including the future of transportation.” Apple released that statement after Steve Kenner, a former Ford Motor executive who is now Apple’s director of product integrity, notified federal regulators of the company’s interest in self-driving cars in a letter. Like others, Apple believes self-driving cars could ease congestion and save millions of people who die annually in traffic accidents often caused by drunk or distracted motorists. Self-driving cars could also be a lucrative new market. And Apple has been searching for its next act for a while, one that will take it beyond its mainstay phones, tablets and personal computers.

A NEXT BIG THING Although iPhone’s ongoing popularity has helped Apple remain the world’s most valuable company, the company hasn’t had a breakthrough product since the 2010 debut of the iPad, currently in the throes of a three-year sales slump. The dry spell has raised doubts as to whether Apple lost some of its trend-setting magic with the death of co-founder Steve Jobs in 2011. Apple will be vying against 29 other companies that already have California permits to test self-driving cars. The list includes major automakers, including Ford, General Motors, BMW, Volkswagen and Tesla, as well as one of its biggest rivals in technology, Google, whose testing of self-driving cars has been spun off into an affiliate called Waymo. Since Google began its work on self-driving vehicles eight years ago, Waymo’s fleet of selfdriving cars has logged more than 2 million miles on the road. That means Apple has a long way to catch up in self-driving technology. But it has often been a follower in markets that it eventually revolutionized. It wasn’t the first to introduce a digital music player, smartphone, or tablet before its iPod, iPhone and iPad came out.

DEEP POCKETS With $246 billion in cash, Apple also could easily afford to buy technology that accelerates its development of self-driving cars. There has been recurring speculation that Apple might eventually acquire Tesla, which has a market value of about $50 billion. Neither Apple nor Tesla has given any inkling that they’re interested in joining forces, though. Speculation about Apple’s interest in expanding into automobiles began swirling in 2015 amid media reports that the company had begun secretly working on building its own electric car under the name project “Titan.” Apple never confirmed the existence of Titan, which is now believed to be dead.

INFLUENCE GAME: TELECOM LOBBYING MUSCLE KILLS PRIVACY RULES

The telecom industry’s lobbying muscle pushed a consumer privacy measure to a swift death in Congress. Republicans struck down Obama-era rules that would have imposed tight restrictions on what broadband companies such as Verizon, AT&T and Comcast could do with their customers’ personal data. Digital-rights and consumeradvocacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation supported keeping the rules. But they were outmatched by telecom trade groups and lobbyists. “These guys spend a fortune in D.C., they’re very plugged in on the Hill and this was clearly their priority,” said Craig Aaron, the president of consumer-advocacy group Free Press. 17

Former AT&T lobbyist Steve Billet, now on the faculty at George Washington University, said the telecom industry’s willingness to spend big on lobbying marks “the difference between them and the Electronic Frontier Foundation guys.”

ROLLING IN THE CASH The overall lobbying tab for telecom services and telephone companies exceeded $123 million in 2016, the money-influence research group Center for Responsive Politics says. That makes them among the top-spending industries in Washington. By contrast, some of the most active privacy and consumer groups on the other side spent just over $1 million, according to the nonpartisan group’s data. The lobbying on both sides goes far beyond privacy. Other issues on the agenda included immigration, taxes, cable boxes and cybersecurity. But the disparity in the spending totals shows that when it comes to politics, industry can wield a lot of power with its pocketbook. Telecom has also given more in political contributions to the House Republicans who voted to repeal the rules (about $138,000 on average over their careers) than to the 15 Republicans who voted to keep them ($77,000), according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In the Senate, the Republicans who voted to undo broadband privacy received more from telecom ($369,000) than the Democrats who voted to keep the rules ($329,000). Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who heads the House subcommittee on communications and technology, received more than $125,000 18

Image: Danny Johnston

from telecom for the 2016 elections, while the ranking Democrat, Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania, got about $88,000. In the Senate, Jeff Flake, R.-Ariz., chairman of a privacy and technology subcommittee, received some $59,000, compared with nearly $27,000 for the ranking Democrat, Al Franken of Minnesota. To be sure, money does not guarantee a favorable vote. Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the second-highest ranking Democrat in the House, received more than $1.3 million from telecom over his career and nearly $190,000 for the 2016 election. Yet he joined every other voting Democrat in opposing the industryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s repeal efforts.

GETTING HEARD The repealed rules would have required companies to get customersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; permission before offering marketers a wealth of information about them, including health and financial details, geographic location and lists of websites visited and apps used. Republicans and industry officials complained that the restrictions would have unfairly burdened internet providers, as advertising rivals such as Google and Facebook donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to abide by them. The rules had been scheduled to take effect later this year. Congress used an obscure 20-year-old law to scrap this and numerous other regulations that Republicans consider costly, burdensome or excessive. President Donald Trump signed the privacy repeal into law early this month.

Image: Ralph Freso

Image: Andrew Harrer

Although this repeal came as part of a broader deregulatory rush, the money that large corporations and their employees are able to spend on lobbyists and give to lawmakers helps get such issues on the agenda. Individuals concerned about privacy would probably chat with an intern or low-level aide; corporate executives giving a lot of money would have lawmakers’ ears at fundraising events, if not on Capitol Hill. Same goes for lobbyists for those companies. “It’s the classic story where the side with more money has more influence here,” said Dallas Harris, a policy fellow at Public Knowledge, which organized a campaign against the privacy repeal. Comcast and Verizon did not respond to emailed questions. AT&T, when asked about lobbying’s role in the repeal, pointed to a blog post saying its privacy protections have not changed. The cable trade group NCTA said it doesn’t comment on specifics of lobbying.

A BIGGER FIGHT Internet service providers and the rest of the telecom industry also had help. Groups representing the online advertising and broader consumer technology industries also wanted the rules gone. Google itself criticized them before the Federal Communications Commission approved them last year. This wasn’t the net neutrality fight of 2014, when telecoms squared off against tech companies. “I don’t know that the ISPs themselves could have gotten the attention this issue got,” said Bennett Ross, a telecom lawyer at Wiley Rein, which has a large telecom industry practice that’s home to many former government staffers. “I think it absolutely helped to have a number of different constituencies coming to Congress and saying this is a problem.” Plus, Free Press’ Aaron said, “There were no citizens raising their voice saying this was a great idea. The lines were dropped pretty clearly here and Congress went with the companies. This was one of those instances that there wasn’t an industry counterweight.” Expect fiercer lobbying - and more spending as Republicans target a repeal of net neutrality rules, which prohibit ISPs from favoring their services over rivals. That battle is being waged at the FCC’s offices as well as Congress.

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NETFLIX ON THE VERGE OF HITTING 100 MILLION SUBSCRIBERS

Netflix is on the verge of surpassing 100 million global subscribers, a testament to how much the video streaming service has changed the entertainment landscape since its debut a decade ago. The company will reach that milestone this weekend if its projections are correct. Netflix made the prediction with the release of its firstquarter earnings. The service added nearly 5 million subscribers during the first three months of the year, and will end March with 98.7 million customers in roughly 190 countries. 29

THANK THE SMARTPHONE Over the past decade, “what really did it for Netflix was the explosion of phones and tablets that allowed people to watch video everywhere,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter. “But Netflix clearly had a vision before those devices became so ubiquitous.” About 51 million of Netflix’s subscribers are in the U.S. By the end of this year, Piper Jaffray analyst Michael Olson expects the majority of the company’s subscribers to be overseas. Netflix ended March with nearly 48 million subscribers outside the U.S. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings called the 100 million subscriber mark “a good start” in a letter reviewing the company’s first-quarter results. The understated reaction reflects Hastings’ ambition to build the world’s largest video channel. The company’s progress toward reaching that goal has helped drive Netflix’s stock price progressively higher during the past five years, a stretch that has seen the video service add 72 million more subscribers. Netflix currently has a market value of about $63 billion. Its stock rose $1.67 to $148.92 in Monday’s extended trading, even though subscriber growth during the first quarter came in slightly below management forecasts.

STILL CHASING HBO For all its success, Netflix still has a ways to go to catch up with HBO, the popular pay-TV channel that has served as its role model. HBO has 134 million subscribers worldwide, including viewers paying for an internet-only version of the channel that was inspired by Netflix’s success. Other cable channels also are offering internetonly options as more viewers, especially younger people, eschew traditional TV packages and subscribe to streaming services instead. The trend has confronted Netflix with more competition in the battle for household entertainment budgets. Netflix so far has answered the challenge by spending heavily on original shows such as “Stranger Things” and “House of Cards” and selling its service at a relatively low price. Netflix’s subscriptions range from $8 to $12 per month, with the most popular option at $10. “The model works from a consumer perspective because it is such a good value,” Pachter said.

WILL NETFLIX RAISE PRICES? But Pachter and other analysts wonder how long Netflix will be able to hold the line on price as its programming costs rise in tandem with its appeal to a more diverse international audience. Movie and TV studios typically also demand more money as more people subscribe to channels to in an effort to make as much as possible off their content. As it is, Netflix expects to spend about $6 billion on programming this year. Netflix hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t given any inkling it will raise prices again. It lost some long-time U.S. subscribers after their rates went up by as much as $2 per month last year. Netflix had previously frozen prices for millions of subscribers at 2014 levels. But if it wants to keep investors happy, the company will eventually have to improve its relatively low profit margin. The Los Gatos, California, company earned $178 million on revenue of $2.6 billion in the first quarter. Analysts predict Netflix will make $482 million on revenue of more than $11 billion for the entire year. A costly international expansion has depressed Netflixâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s profits. Netflix had piled up $1.5 billion in operating losses on its international operations until the first quarter, when its streaming service outside the U.S. posted an operating profit of $43 million. But the company expects to lose another $28 million internationally in the current quarter.

EX MICROSOFT CEO STEVE BALLMER OFFERS FACTS ON GOVERNMENT

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has created a new organization to analyze government spending and revenue to make it easier to understand. He says he created USAFacts because he was frustrated he couldn’t find a single source that combined all the relevant local, state and federal numbers. Ballmer gathered a group of data specialists that spent nearly three years compiling the information for its first reports, which are available online at www.USAFacts.org. The reports will be updated periodically. “I’m a numbers guy, and I think the appropriate role of numbers is to help take complicated situations and simplify them for people to understand,” Ballmer said. 37

The former Microsoft executive said he wants to provide clear information on government spending, adding that he hopes it will be easier to discuss divisive issues if everyone can agree on the basic facts. “When reasonable people, who may disagree, can look at the same data, it’s easier for them to grow closer together,” Ballmer said. Already, Ballmer said he has been surprised by some of the numbers, such as the fact that more than 23 million people work for the government. He announced the effort Tuesday in a speech at the Economic Club of New York. The USAFacts team includes economists, writers and researchers who produce the reports. Academic experts from Stanford University, the University of Pennsylvania and Lynchberg College also helped. Ballmer, who bought the Los Angeles Clippers after retiring from Microsoft in 2014, told the New York Times that he has invested roughly $10 million in USAFacts so far, and he’s willing to continue spending several million dollars a year on it.

Image: Lucas Jackson

KIDS PREFER THE TV FOR THEIR VIEWING, BUT LOVE OTHER DEVICES

Grace Ellis has never known a time when you needed a TV to watch TV. The North Attleboro, Massachusetts, fifth-grader watches shows like “Liv and Maddie,”‘’Jessie” and “The Lodge” on her laptop, iPad and phone. “Sometimes I watch TV in the car,” she says. “I have ballet every day, so I watch on the way.” She has a TV in her bedroom that isn’t hooked up to cable but is perfect for watching DVDs. And the family’s flat-screen has advantages of its own. 41

“It’s much bigger,” Grace explains, “and on the couch, it’s comfier.” Ever since freckle-faced puppet Howdy Doody ushered in children’s television nearly 70 years ago, each new generation of viewers has been treated to a growing bounty of programs on a mushrooming selection of gadgetry. But nothing compares to the current wave: “The generation coming up now is used to having everything at their fingertips,” says Stacey Lynn Schulman, an analyst at the Katz Media Group. Why not? From birth, theirs has been a world of video digitally issuing from every screen. And for them, any of those screens is just another screen, whether or not you call it “TV.” “When they love a (show), they love it in every form and on every platform,” says Nickelodeon president Cyma Zarghami. This keeps the bosses at each kids’ network scrambling to make sure that wherever children turn their eyes, that network’s programing will be there. Even so, it may be surprising that children nonetheless watch most television on, well, a television. As in: old-fashioned linear, while-it’sactually-airing telecasts. A new Nielsen study finds that in the fourth quarter of 2016, viewers aged 2-11 averaged about 17 hours of live (not time-shifted) TV each week. Granted, that’s a drop of about 90 minutes weekly from the year before. But by comparison, kids in fourth quarter 2016 spent about 4½ hours weekly watching video content on other devices. 42

Image: Bob D’Amico

“Linear TV is still the lion’s share of where kids’ time is spent,” says Jane Gould, senior vice president for consumer insights for Disney Channel. “But it’s important for us to be in all the OTHER places where they are, as well.” One reason: Those other outlets can pave the way for a new program’s arrival on linear TV. Gould points to “Andi Mack,” an ambitious comedy-drama that debuted on Disney Channel on April 7. Weeks before it landed there, the series could be sampled on digital platforms including the Disney Channel app, Disney.com, Disney Channel YouTube, iTunes, Amazon and Google Play. Count Grace Ellis among the legions of kids whose attention was snagged by this megabuildup. When “Andi Mack” premiered, Grace was one of the 9 million TV viewers who tuned in.

When “Sesame Street” premiered on PBS back in 1969, it joined a bare handful of TV shows (chief among them “Captain Kangaroo” and “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood”) devoted to uplifting their young audience. Nearly a half-century later, “Sesame Street” is going strong. “PBS is still at its core,” says Sesame Workshop COO Steve Youngwood. So is TV overall, as demonstrated by the series expanding to HBO a year ago. TV currently accounts for 40 percent of its viewership. But “Sesame Street” has never stopped adapting to an evolving media landscape that today finds 18 percent of its audience viewing on tablets, 14 percent on mobile phones and 25 percent on other streaming devices and computers. That includes YouTube, where its program content has been a presence for some time. Now it’s getting special focus with the launch of Sesame Studios, which Youngwood describes as “a separate production unit specifically for that platform. We want to harness the power of YouTube to educate kids just like we harnessed the power of TV 50 years ago.” A half-century ago “streaming video” was an unimagined wonder. But today’s TV landscape has been upended by this technology, and by major streaming-video outlets like Hulu, Amazon and Netflix as they aggressively vie for kids’ (as well as everybody else’s) attention. Netflix famously doesn’t disclose viewership figures. But according to Andy Yeatman, 46

director of global kids content, “About half of our members around the world watch kids’ content on a regular basis. So it’s a very large, engaged audience. “Between new and returning series last year, we added 35 new seasons of kids’ originals,” he says. Similar expansion is projected this year. In a bygone era with just a handful of TV channels, kids could count on finding shows aimed at them only on Saturday mornings and weekday afternoons. Nickelodeon’s Zarghami pegs 2013-14 as the most recent turning point for kids TV, “when the landscape seriously shifted,” she says, with streaming-video-on-demand providers gaining a real foothold and supplemental devices like tablets and mobile taking off. Today, Nick has six on-demand platforms, “and we went from 500 new episodes in a season to close to 700 this season,” she says. In short, kids are flooded with just-for-them content from every direction. But even that’s not enough. “What they really look for is, to be surprised,” says Disney Channel’s Gould. “That’s the real challenge: How do we surprise and delight them?” Schulman of the Katz Media Group has her own prediction for where the next round of surprises might be waiting. “Virtual reality has been hard to get off the ground, but kids are all about immersive experiences,” she says. When VR is ready for them, “that’s probably going to be the next big thing.”

MICROSOFT SAYS USERS ARE PROTECTED FROM ALLEGED NSA MALWARE

Up-to-date Microsoft customers are safe from the purported National Security Agency spying tools dumped online, the software company said last weekend, tamping down fears that the digital arsenal was poised to wreak havoc across the internet . In a blog post , Microsoft Corp. security manager Phillip Misner said that the software giant had already built defenses against nine of the 50

Image: Timothy A. Clary

12 tools disclosed by TheShadowBrokers, a mysterious group that has repeatedly published NSA code . The three others affected old, unsupported products. “Most of the exploits are already patched,” Misner said. The post tamped down fears expressed by some researchers that the digital espionage toolkit made public by TheShadowBrokers took advantage of undisclosed vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s code. That would have been a potentially damaging development because such tools could swiftly be repurposed to strike across the company’s massive customer base. Those fears appear to have been prompted by experts using even slightly out-of-date versions of Windows in their labs. One of Microsoft’s fixes, also called a patch, was only released last month. “I missed the patch,” said British security architect Kevin Beaumont, jokingly adding, “I’m thinking about going to live in the woods now.” Beaumont wasn’t alone. Matthew Hickey, of cybersecurity firm Hacker House, also ran the code against earlier versions of Windows. But he noted that many organizations put patches off, meaning “many servers will still be affected by these flaws.” Everyone involved recommended keeping up with software updates. “We encourage customers to ensure their computers are up-to-date,” Misner said.

There is always abundant excitement generated when the first trailer for an upcoming Star Wars movie goes public. Surely enough, the Internet lapped it up when a roughly twominute preview of Stars Wars: The Last Jedi was screened at this year’s annual Star Wars Celebration event and posted online. At that convention held from April 13 to 16 in Orlando, a lot - and not just from the trailer - was revealed about the film. So, what can we expect it to add to the Star Wars franchise?

LOTS OF DARKNESS AND RED, PLUS CARRIE FISHER The trailer was brief but provided more than enough scenes to whip Star Wars fans into a fervor. The Force Awakens lead character Rey appears on the island where we saw her meeting Luke Skywalker at the end of that film, there are what look like pod racers leaving trails of red gas, and the Millennium Falcon soars through the sky in striking style. Also unveiled at the event was the film’s poster, in which Luke is cast in red hues, and Rey dramatically holds her lightsaber up skywards. Various figures involved in making The Last Jedi - including director Rian Johnson, Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy and screen stars Daisy Ridley, Mark Hamill and John Boyega - were in attendance and revealed further details. Ridley hinted that her character, Rey, could develop a somewhat uneasy relationship with Luke, explaining that “Rey has a certain expectation of Luke. And as a lot of people know, it’s difficult when you meet your heroes because they might not be what you expect.”

As also reported by Variety, Boyega confirmed that his character, Finn, will be in The Last Jedi despite having ended The Force Awakens injured. It looks like we can even expect Finn’s bromance with Poe, played by Oscar Isaac, to grow. “Poe is my boy, there’s always a new adventure to go on,” Boyega insisted. The cute little droid BB-8 is also back, to the enthusiasm of directorscriptwriter Johnson - who, Kennedy said, “writes amazingly fierce and independent women”. On the subject of “amazingly fierce and independent women,” while the late Carrie Fisher will indeed appear heavily in The Last Jedi as General Leia Organa, she won’t be in Episode IX. In January, the creative team reacted to Fisher’s death of a month earlier by reworking the film to accommodate her absence. So, now is a good time to recall her life and work by watching the video tribute to her also aired at Star Wars Celebration, as The Guardian reports.

Image: Gustavo Caballero

CARRIE FRANCES FISHER 1956 - 2016

A Tribute To Carrie Fisher

WHAT ELSE HAPPENED AT 2017’S STAR WARS CELEBRATION? There’s certainly pressure for The Last Jedi to impress following the very well-received The Force Awakens. While, for the new installment, J. J. Abrams has exited the director’s chair, Johnson evidently has the ability to seamlessly pick up where his predecessor left off. The new man’s credits include the critically acclaimed sci-fi thriller, Looper. Furthermore, reports of what else went down at this year’s Star Wars Celebration, which took place at the Floridabased Orange County Convention Center, show what kind of legacy and fan following the new adventure could help spark. At the event, it was also revealed that the animated series Star Wars Rebels would end with its next - and fourth - season, but also establish narrative connections with last year’s film Rogue One and the classic A New Hope. Meanwhile, the upcoming game Star Wars: Battlefront II will bridge the stories of Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. There was especially exciting news about the Star Wars features that Disney intends to add to its Florida and California parks... Visitors to those parks will be able to not only enjoy a ride on the Millennium Falcon but even form the “flight crews” and so pilot the ship, according to The Verge. Outside the Falcon, they will also be able to participate in a whole new world that the Lucasfilm Story Group and Walt Disney Imagineering have made especially for the parks. Decisions made by visitors in one of the park’s areas will impact their meet-ups with characters in another part of this fresh world. 63

Nannarhara Lobo, 32

It’s continuing the impressive form of Star Wars in theme parks. Disney’s Hollywood Studios already feature the attraction ‘Star Tours - The Adventures Continue,’ which lets participants join a 3D, motion-simulated flight through space to visit well-known Star Wars settings. This attraction also integrates multiple narrative combinations to ensure that, each time you join the ride, you can enjoy a unique adventure. Disney could take extensive inspiration from ‘Star Tours - The Adventures Continue’ for the aforementioned expansions that are coming up.

ARE YOU, TOO, A TEAM COSPLAYER?

Seena and Malgus from The Old Republic. Son Alexander Cosplay as Darth Malgus

Plenty of people also played dress-up for Star Wars Celebration - and, thanks to CNET, you can readily view a gallery of many of those people. So, there were fans sporting the looks of classic figures including Han Solo and Leia during her princess youth, but also newer characters including Rey, Finn and Kylo Ren. Also represented were lesser-known Star Wars characters like Darth Revan - of Knights of the Old Republic - and... Darth Strages. That character, if the name doesn’t rekindle any memories, was entirely made up by a cosplayer, who carried both a lightsaber and a katana to complete the look. There was hardly a shortage of lightsabers allaround at the event - and this situation hinted at how much the cosplay scene has come to indicate the Star Wars franchise’s power. That’s before we even start considering the monetary value, which is utterly immense. The whole Star Wars franchise has been estimated to have amassed $42 billion in sales, reported 65

The Telegraph last May. That would have put it ahead of any other entertainment franchise in this respect; the Harry Potter and James Bond franchises were thought to have made a combined $33 billion from films, books, and toys. Fortune has reached the $42 billion figure by adding up a variety of data, including both actual and estimated data, from a range of sources. In a detailed breakdown published in December 2015, the site has pegged the franchiseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s box office takings at $7.3 billion,

home entertainment sales at $5.749 billion, toys and merchandise at $17 billion, video games at $4.28 billion, intellectual property at $4 billion and miscellaneous revenue at $3.65 billion. Fortune explicitly cites books, licensing fees, and the Star Wars collectiblesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; resale market as included with the figure for other income.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Official Teaser

GLANCES AT BOTH THE PAST AND THE FUTURE On its Facebook page, Star Wars Celebration had posted, back in October, a short video providing a sample of the kind of events that have previously occurred at Celebration. The video was meant to serve as a teaser of what could be expected at the 2017 event - and, if you ended up missing that event, you shouldn’t overly fret. This is because, on that abovementioned Facebook page, Celebration has posted an array of videos showing some of the happenings. We particularly like the footage of the 501st TROOP-athalon Games, where Stormtroopers were very much in abundance. Meanwhile, if you’re simply looking forward to The Last Jedi, rest assured that it’s slated for theatrical release on December 15 - and that’s closer than it probably feels like at the moment. “We’re in post-production,” Johnson informed the crowd at Celebration as he updated them on his team’s progress with the film. He explained: “We’re still editing, but we’re very far along.” Far, far along, in a galaxy far, far away...

by Benjamin Kerry & Gavin

GALAXY S8: MORE SCREEN AND ELEGANCE, BUT A HEFTY PRICE TAG

Samsung’s new Galaxy S8 phone is stunning. But its $100 price hike is hard to swallow. That’s how much extra you’ll shell out for the S8, which starts shipping Friday for about $750 - $100 more than the iPhone 7 and last year’s Galaxy S7 when it launched. A larger sibling, the S8 Plus, goes for about $850. True, the S8 phones come with several refinements that, totaled up, are indeed worth more than $100. But it’s hard to recommend an all-frills phone when many cheaper phones do just fine. The S8 is for those who want elegance and are willing to pay for it.

SCREENS TO THE EDGES After spontaneous fires that forced the recall of the Galaxy Note 7 , Samsung is playing it safe on the battery and subjecting the S8 to tighter inspections. 73

Instead, it’s pushing the boundaries - so to speak - on the phone’s display. Samsung minimized the phone frame and got rid of a physical home button to free up space for an “infinity display,” a screen that seems to flow right into the phone’s curved left and right sides. The 5.8-inch S8 and the 6.2-inch S8 Plus both have nearly 15 percent more display space than last year’s comparable models. But the phones themselves aren’t wider. In fact, the phones feel more comfortable thanks to sides that curve around to the back; last year’s curved S7 Edge model feels boxy by comparison. The bigger screen fits more lines of text, but doesn’t necessarily make video more immersive. While video on YouTube and Facebook gets automatically adjusted to fill the space, Netflix and Hulu movies just leave wasted black space on all four sides. You can tinker with that manually - but for $100, you shouldn’t have to.

ALL ABOUT THE BATTERY The S8 and S8 Plus have more physical space inside, but Samsung used it to give the battery more breathing room while keeping its capacity roughly the same as last year. Though a larger display drains the battery faster, my tests of streaming video found that the new phones consumed power more slowly than last year’s models. And even with constant use - taking photos, watching video and playing music and podcasts - the new phones still made it to bedtime with power to spare. Samsung credits software and chip improvements.

UNLOCKING THE PHONES Like the doomed Note 7, the S8 has an iris scanner to let you unlock the phone by looking at it - at least in theory. But you have to swipe the screen first and position it from your face at just the right distance. I’m sure Samsung, a South Korean company, meant no offense, yet I was ticked off when the phone instructed me, an Asian-American, to “open eyes fully.” Oh, and the scanner doesn’t work if you’re wearing glasses. The fingerprint scanner was faster and more convenient for unlocking the phone. But you have to be careful not to smudge the adjacent camera lens by mistake now that the scanner has been moved to the back.

FIRE THE ASSISTANT Samsung is introducing a digital assistant called Bixby, but voice features intended to rival Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri aren’t ready yet. (Voice dictation does work with a reminder feature, though.) Bixby will also highlight appointments, trending stories and app suggestions, much as existing features on iPhones and other Android phones already offer. One promising feature aims to provide translations and product information using the phone’s camera. It’s like the Firefly feature on Amazon’s derided Fire phone , and it makes the same types of dumb mistakes - it identified a can of Diet Coke as four other sodas instead. And the translation tools were incomplete at grabbing passages and failed to automatically detect the language you’re translating from.

CALCULATING THE VALUE Samsung throws in a pair of AKG premium headphones, valued at about $100. My ears weren’t good enough to discern a difference, but it’s nice to get headphones when many phone makers have stopped including them. The phone also comes with 64 gigabytes of storage, which frequently jacks up the price of other phones by $100. Those curved edges? Those also previously cost an extra $100. The S8 seems like a bargain for only $100 over the S7 at launch. But do you really need these goodies? The main camera on the S8 is about the same as last year’s, so you can still get amazing photos with the S7 . (You can pick one up these days for as little as $576.) There’s speculation that Apple will come out with a pricier, feature-rich iPhone for its 10th anniversary this year - but it’s expected to update the existing iPhone 7 line as well. Those who can’t live with yesterday’s technology won’t be disappointed with the S8. But for everyone else, Samsung could have also offered a lowerpriced alternative with fewer goodies.

COMPUTER PIONEER ROBERT W. TAYLOR DIES AT 85

Robert W. Taylor, who was instrumental in creating the internet and the modern personal computer, has died. He was 85. Taylor, who had Parkinsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s disease, died Thursday at his home in the San Francisco Peninsula community of Woodside, his son, Kurt Taylor, told the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. In 1961, Taylor was a project manager for NASA when he directed funding to Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute, who helped develop the modern computer mouse. Taylor was working for the Pentagonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1966 when he shepherded the creation of a single computer network to link ARPA-sponsored researchers at companies and institutions around the country. 81

Image: Dai Sugano

Taylor was frustrated that he had to use three separate terminals to communicate with the researchers through their computer systems. ARPANET, as it was known, evolved into the internet. As Taylor predicted, the limited communications tool morphed into a system that supplies people with fingertip access to everything from encyclopedias to investment advice. A few years later, Taylor went on to work at the Xerox Corp.’s famous Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC, where he was oversaw a team that helped create the Alto, a pioneering personal computer. The Alto supplied each researcher with an individual workstation instead of sharing time on a room-sized mainframe. It was designed to use a graphical user interface, which enabled the user to command the device through icons, windows and menus instead of typing text commands in computer language. The technology inspired Microsoft’s Windows software and the Apple computers. Taylor’s engineering team also helped develop the Ethernet and a word processing program that became Microsoft Word. “Any way you look at it, from kick-starting the internet to launching the personal computer revolution, Bob Taylor was a key architect of our modern world,” Leslie Berlin, a historian at the Stanford University Silicon Valley Archives project, told the New York Times. In 1999, Taylor was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. In 2004, he and other PARC researchers were awarded 83

the Draper Prize from the National Academy of Engineering for development of â&#x20AC;&#x153;the first practical networked personal computers.â&#x20AC;? In the 1990s, Taylor ran the Systems Research Center in Palo Alto for Digital Equipment Corporation. The lab helped create AltaVista, one of the first internet search engines. Taylor retired in 1996. In addition to Kurt, he is survived by his sons Erik and Derek and three grandchildren.

Image: Marcio Jose Sanchez

YAHOO BOWS OUT AS PUBLIC COMPANY WITH REVENUE SHRINKING

Yahoo is bowing out as a public company with its revenue still declining, a chronic problem that culminated in its sale to Verizon Communications. Despite the revenue downturn, Yahoo fared better during the first three months of the year than analysts had anticipated - a low bar that was another sign of how far the internet pioneer has fallen during the past decade. The results released Tuesday will mark the final quarterly report of Yahooâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 21-year history as a publicly traded company unless the Verizon deal unexpectedly falls apart. Yahoo expects the $4.5 billion sale to close in June before the end of the second quarter. The dealâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s final price reflects a $350 million markdown that Yahoo gave Verizon to compensate for the damage caused by two different security breaches that resulted in personal information being stolen from more than 1 billion Yahoo user accounts. 87

After Verizon takes over, Yahoo’s $8 billion in cash and valuable stakes in two Asian internet companies - Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan - will be turned over to a newly created company called Altaba. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer won’t be part of Altaba, and she isn’t expected to join Verizon to oversee the Yahoo email and other digital services being sold. If she doesn’t have a job, Mayer will receive a $23 million severance package. Mayer, a former Google executive who has been Yahoo’s CEO for nearly five years, defended her track record in a statement accompanying the first-quarter numbers. “I’ve never been more proud of the improvements we’ve made to the business and the value we’ve delivered to our shareholders,” Mayer said. Yahoo’s stock has tripled during Mayer’s reign, but the run-up was driven by the company’s stake in Alibaba, which is China’s e-commerce leader and boasts a market value of $278 billion. The Sunnyvale, California, company invested in Alibaba before Mayer’s arrival. Mayer had hoped to turn around Yahoo, but instead oversaw further erosion even while investing heavily in mobile applications and video. She couldn’t solve a problem that dogged Yahoo for most of the past decade - how to get a larger piece of the digital advertising sales that increasingly have been flowing toward Google and Facebook, a pair of companies that once were smaller than Yahoo. After subtracting ad commissions, Yahoo’s revenue totaled $834 million in the first quarter, a 3 percent decrease from last year. In the first full quarter of Mayer’s tenure, Yahoo’s revenue after ad commissions stood at $1.1 billion. 88

Image: Laurent Gillieron

Yahoo earned $100 million, or 10 cents per share, in the first quarter, rebounding from a loss of $99 million, or 10 cents per share, last year. If not for certain accounting items unrelated to its ongoing business, Yahoo said it would have earned 18 cents per share, topping the average estimate of 16 cents per share among six analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research. 90

Image: Bloomberg

VINYL MUSIC GIVES RECORD STORES A BOOST IN A DIGITAL WORLD

Record stores have not only survived the onslaught of pirated music, digital downloads and online streaming services. They’re now growing in numbers. Several hundred indie music retailers have opened in the past five years in the U.S. thanks largely to the resurgence of vinyl records, industry officials say. “Stores are popping up in small towns. There’s enough vinyl business to support them. You have a lot of young entrepreneurs who are seeing this opportunity,” said Wes Lowe from Alliance Entertainment Corp., the nation’s largest wholesale distributor of compact discs, DVDs and vinyl record albums. That gives music lovers something to cheer as Record Store Day celebrates its 10th anniversary Saturday in stores from Maine to California. The annual event pays homage to the neighborhood music store, the place where people have long gathered to thumb through vinyl records or cassette tapes. Back in the 1970s, every community had at least one of them, but 93

hundreds went out of business at the onset of the digital music revolution. The number of independent record stores leveled off at about 2,000 before growing over the past five years to a number thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s closer to 2,400, Lowe said. The resurgence in vinyl sales is helping. A new generation is enamored with old-school vinyl albums and turntables, joining older listeners who grew up with record albums and audio purists who prefer the full, warm sound of albums to modern compressed digital audio files. Sales of vinyl albums have grown from fewer than 1 million records a year in 2005 to more than 13 million in 2016, according to Nielsen Music. And money is being invested in expanded production capacity. Grammy-winning singer, songwriter and producer Jack White got into the act by launching a vinyl pressing plant earlier this year in Michigan. Record Store Day got off to a raucous start with heavy-metal band Metallica in San Francisco in 2008, but the story begins off the beaten path with an indie record store chain operator in faraway Maine. Chris Brown from Bull Moose Music hatched the idea in 2007 for an event that started the following year with 200 stores and has grown to 1,600 participating record stores on Saturday. New vinyl releases are a hallmark of the event. This year, tributes to two stars who died in 2016 include several 12-inch extended mix hits from Prince and a first-tune release of a demo album used to promote David Bowie before he became famous. Others include Elton Johnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reissue of his favorite concert recording dubbed â&#x20AC;&#x153;17-1194

70”; a live recording from The Doors; a flexi-disc from Emerson, Lake and Palmer with cuts from “Brain Salad Surgery;” and Toto’s “Africa” pressed on an album shaped like the continent. There’s also the second annual Record Store Crawls, a 12-date tour by Warner Music that will escort participants by bus to local record stores. It kicks off Saturday in New York and will also visit Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Performers include Savoire Adore, Craig Brown Band, Angelica Garcia and others. Brown doesn’t think it’s any coincidence that the growing popularity of vinyl records coincided with the creation of an annual event to celebrate stores with vinyl. “They call it the ‘vinyl resurgence’ but it started with Record Store Day,” Brown said. Almighty Music Marketing, a market research firm in California, estimates that more than 500 stores have opened since 2010, and believes the trend will continue. Its president, Vince Hans, added that part of the growth is independent stores filling gaps left by the closings of big box retailers. The new stores aren’t always conventional. These days, there are combo stores selling comics and records. And there are even restaurants and bars selling records. “You have to innovate to be successful now,” said Michael Kurtz, Record Store Day co-founder and president of the largest coalition of independent record stores.

Online: http://www.recordstoreday.com http://www.recordstorecrawl.com 96

#01 – YouTube By Google, Inc. Category: Photo & Video / Free Requires iOS 8.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

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The Founder The Founder tells the true story of how struggling salesman Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) met Mac and Dick McDonald who were running a burger operation in Southern California in 1950. Kroc saw this as a franchise potential and pulled the company from the brothers to establish a billion-dollar empire.

FIVE FACTS: 1. The McDonalds restaurants in the movie were built from scratch in parking lots as the crew was unable to find any existing restaurants that matched the desired look of the film. by John Lee Hancock Genre: Drama Released: 2017 Price: $14.99

2. The screenplay for this film was featured in the 2014 Blacklist, a list of “most liked” unmade scripts of the year. 3. The Weinstein Company paid $7 million for the distribution rights.

52 Ratings

4. In the movie, Ray and Ethel don’t appear to have any children, but in real life, they had one daughter. 5. The Coen brothers wanted to direct the film but had to turn it down because of conflicts with Hai, Caesar! (2016)

Rotten Tomatoes

% 103

104

The Founder Movie CLIP Milkshake (2017)

105

Lion After five-year-old Saroo gets lost on a train that takes him away from his family, he ends up thousands of miles away in Kolkata. He survives living on the streets before ending up in an orphanage and being adopted by an Australian couple. Although he grows under the protective care of his adoptive parents, his chance meeting with some fellow Indians reawakens his desire to find his lost mother and brother, and he embarks on a journey to do so.

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Trailer

by Garth Davis Genre: Drama Released: 2016 Price: $14.99

112 Ratings

Rotten Tomatoes

% 107

Lion Featurette - Nicole Kidman

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“Imagine”

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Music

PTX, Vol. IV â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Classics Pentatonix Pentatonix is an a cappella group from Arlington, Texas best known for winning the third series of the NBC show The Sing-Off in 2011. This is the fifth extended play album by the group and marks a departure from their typical sound with a focus on rock, blues and country music.

FIVE FACTS: Genre: Pop Released: Apr 07, 2017 7 Songs Price: $5.99

384 Ratings

1. Pentatonix has won three Grammy Awards and were the first a cappella act to win Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella in 2015 and 2016 and won the Best Country Duo/Group Performance in 2017. 2. Formed in 2011, they won the third season of NBCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Sing-Off. 3. They have a cameo role in the movie Pitch Perfect 2 as the Canadian team competing against the Barden Bellas. 4. The group has shown their support for The Trevor Project; a non-profit organization focused on suicide prevention efforts amongst the LGBTQ community. 5. Pentatonix appeared on Sesame Street in February 2014.

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“Bohemian Rhapsody”

113

Pure Comedy Father John Misty This is Josh Tillman’s third album as Father John Misty and is a 13 track long complaint about politics, religion, entertainment and war. Although some songs are wordy and cynical, such as ‘Leaving L.A,’ he doesn’t fail to execute them in a way that puts him in contrast with the likes of Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson.

FIVE FACTS: 1. Tillman is a former member of bands including Saxon Shore, Fleet Foxes, and Har Mar Superstar and has made contributions to albums by artists such as Beyonce, Lady Gaga, and Kid Cudi. 2. He grew up as an Evangelical Christian in Rockville, Maryland. 3. Tillman suffers from severe depression and anxiety and currently self-medicates with micro-doses of LSD. 4. He has always been vague about his transformation into Father John Misty, and when asked about it, he paraphrases Philip Roth “It’s all of me and none of me, if you can’t see that you won’t get it.” 5. His music videos are always produced like mini-films, exploring the old Hollywood feeling that his music evokes.

114

Genre: Alternative/Rock Released: Apr 07, 2017 13 Songs Price: $9.99

“Pure Comedy”

108 Ratings

115

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“Ballad Of The Dying Man”

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BOX OFFICE TOP 20: ‘FAST 8’ SNAGS GLOBAL DEBUT RECORD

“The Fate of the Furious,” the eighth movie in the “Fast and the Furious” series may have fallen short of $100 million in North American theaters, collecting $98.8 million, but it still solidified its spot as the biggest global opener of all time with $532 million worldwide. The previous record-holder, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” launched with $529 globally in 2015. Domestically, “Fast 8” is the second-highest opener of the series, behind 2015’s “Furious 7,” which opened to $147.2 million - a number many attributed to increased interest in the film following the death of star Paul Walker before the film was finished. Holdovers populated the rest of the top five at the box office, with “The Boss Baby” in second with $16 million and “Beauty and the Beast” in third place with $13.7 million. 118

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The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, 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:

“The Fate of the Furious,” Universal, $98,786,705, 4,310 locations, $22,920 average, $98,786,705, 1 week.

“The Boss Baby,” 20th Century Fox, $16,012,349, 3,743 locations, $4,278 average, $116,793,579, 3 weeks.

“Beauty and the Beast,” Disney, $13,705,122, 3,592 locations, $3,815 average, $454,720,873, 5 weeks.

“Smurfs: The Lost Village,” Sony, $6,714,300, 3,610 locations, $1,860 average, $24,945,059, 2 weeks.

“Going In Style,” Warner Bros., $6,288,402, 3,076 locations, $2,044 average, $23,318,880, 2 weeks.

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“Gifted,” Fox Searchlight, $3,079,308, 1,146 locations, $2,687 average, $4,449,330, 2 weeks.

“Get Out,” Universal, $2,985,945, 1,424 locations, $2,097 average, $167,615,960, 8 weeks.

“Power Rangers,” Lionsgate, $2,814,175, 2,171 locations, $1,296 average, $80,527,923, 4 weeks.

“The Case For Christ,” Pure Flix, $2,758,271, 1,386 locations, $1,990 average, $8,485,975, 2 weeks.

10.

“Kong: Skull Island,” Warner Bros., $2,707,371, 2,018 locations, $1,342 average, $161,284,775, 6 weeks.

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“Ghost In The Shell,” Paramount, $2,463,906, 2,135 locations, $1,154 average, $37,087,189, 3 weeks.

12.

“The Zookeeper’s Wife,” Focus Features, $2,023,845, 1,057 locations, $1,915 average, $10,626,800, 3 weeks.

13.

“Logan,” 20th Century Fox, $1,937,295, 1,415 locations, $1,369 average, $221,656,574, 7 weeks.

14.

“Your Name,” FUNimation Films, $736,113, 290 locations, $2,538 average, $3,372,170, 2 weeks.

15.

“The Shack,” Lionsgate, $654,814, 1,048 locations, $625 average, $56,078,874, 7 weeks.

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16.

“Life,” Sony, $632,193, 605 locations, $1,045 average, $28,591,649, 4 weeks.

17.

“Colossal,” Neon Rated, $462,869, 98 locations, $4,723 average, $616,344, 2 weeks.

18.

“The Lego Batman Movie,” Warner Bros., $376,681, 344 locations, $1,095 average, $173,818,349, 10 weeks.

19.

“Their Finest,” STX Entertainment, $346,779, 52 locations, $6,669 average, $460,569, 2 weeks.

20.

“Split,” Universal, $281,095, 128 locations, $2,196 average, $137,827,505, 13 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.

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Image: Justin Sullivan

FACEBOOK WANTS TO AUGMENT YOUR REALITY

Facebook wants you to sit in your bedroom wearing a headset and take a virtual vacation with faraway friends and family. Or use your smartphoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s camera to spruce up your dinky apartment, at least virtually. The promise of augmented and virtual reality was a big focus of Facebookâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s annual conference for developers on Tuesday. CEO Mark Zuckerberg kicked off the gathering of programmers and other tech folks by talking about augmented reality tools he envisions on Facebook. 129

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Augmented reality involves the overlay of computer-generated images into real-world surroundings. Zuckerberg said new phonebased applications might let you create a three-dimensional scene from a single twodimensional photo or splatter the walls of your house with colorful digital art. (You’d see the digital additions by looking “through” your phone at the augmented physical world.)

MAKING CHORES MORE INTERESTING Facebook executives stressed that the technology is still in its early stages, and that the “journey to the future of augmented reality is just 1 percent finished,” as Deb Liu, vice president of platform and marketplaces, put it. Zuckerberg envisions the marriage of augmented reality and Facebook’s camera feature enabling people to make even mundane chores, like doing the dishes, look entertaining with digital effects. Of course, it could also result in people staring into their smartphones even more intently as they marvel at an alternate reality instead of their actual surroundings. “Over time, I think this is going to be a really important technology that changes how we use our phones,” Zuckerberg predicted. Facebook also launched a virtual world, called Facebook Spaces, designed to let users of its Oculus Rift VR headset hang out with avatar versions of their friends in a virtual world. It’s the first time the company has connected the Rift to its social network in a meaningful way, though it’s a development Zuckerberg hinted at when the company bought Oculus back in 2014 for $2 billion. Image: Albert Gea

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COMING YOUR WAY ... EVENTUALLY While the new tools and features are impressive, analyst Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research cautioned that that “most of them won’t be in users’ hands anytime soon.” That’s especially true for the Spaces app, since relatively few of Facebook’s 1.9 billion members are using Oculus’s VR headset, which sells for about $500 and requires an expensive computer to make it work. But Facebook could still have the edge on rivals such as Snapchat, which also launched some augmented reality features on Tuesday, likely to coincide with Facebook’s news. “Facebook has the resources to move fast in this area and the audience to spread those features much more widely than Snapchat,” Dawson wrote in a brief research note. Snap representatives did not immediately respond to an email for comment on Tuesday afternoon. Facebook’s focus on smartphones over hightech glasses or headsets makes sense given how familiar they are, said Gartner analyst Brian Blau. “People already have cameras and are used to having fun and being creative with them,” he said. “This will give people a chance to experience augmented reality in a way that isn’t so scary or off-putting.” Until the past year or so, it seemed like it would be at least another decade before augmented reality would have a chance to become a widely used technology, said Ficus Kirkpatrick, Facebook’s director of engineering.

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Image: Noah Berger

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But advances in image and object recognition, along with the ubiquity of smartphone cameras, “has put us on the course to bring augmented reality,” Kirkpatrick said in an interview.

CHATTING WITH COMPANIES Facebook also announced a bevy of updates to Messenger, its increasingly independent messaging app. Messenger head David Marcus claims the app has become the de facto “white pages” of messaging, since people can find and chat with friends without knowing their phone number. Now, Messenger wants to do the same for businesses, creating a “yellow pages” of sorts that let companies communicate with their customers. Messenger will also let people chat with outside businesses as a group. That would, for instance, allow groups of friends to share Spotify playlists or to make a restaurant reservation through OpenTable that keeps everyone on the same page. The idea is simplify what might otherwise require a flurry of texts and sharing of links.

CLEVELAND MURDER Zuckerberg also briefly addressed a tragedy that took place Monday, when a man posted video of a murder on Facebook. That raised questions about Facebook’s ability to monitor gruesome material on its site. The Facebook founder said his company has “a lot of work” to do on this front.

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Image: David Ramos

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$19.8 BILLION AIRWAVES AUCTION MAY MEAN BETTER CELL SERVICE

Consumers could see more competition and better mobile service after the end of a big U.S. government auction transferring airwave rights from TV broadcasters to companies interested in wireless networks. The biggest spenders in the Federal Communications Commissionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s $19.8 billion auction were T-Mobile with $8 billion, satellite TV company Dish at $6.2 billion and Comcast with $1.7 billion. The nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s airwaves regulator ran the auction to help wireless networks keep up as people spend more time on smartphones. The biggest bidders in the last auction, in 2015, were AT&T ($18.2 billion) and Verizon ($10.4 billion). 136

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T-Mobile says its winnings will give its network more oomph against industry heavyweights AT&T and Verizon. The company “just cleaned up,” its CEO, John Legere, tweeted . The company has racked up new subscribers in recent years and helped tug AT&T and Verizon into offering unlimited plans again. Comcast, meanwhile, plans to launch a mobile service for its customers this year that will initially use Verizon’s network. Dish has long been amassing airwaves and has said it will build a wireless network. Wall Street analysts suggest the end of the auction will lead to more merger discussions between telecom companies. Restrictions placed on companies involved in the auction made it difficult for them to discuss deals. The auction, which started last year, will pay out $10 billion to 175 TV broadcasters that sold off their licenses. Those broadcasters go off the air or move to new channels. Other stations will be affected, too, and roughly 1,000 will have to move channels over the next few years. Consumers may have to rescan their sets to get them. About $7.3 billion of the money raised by the auction goes to offset the federal deficit.

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PHONES AND SOCIAL MEDIA TURN CONSUMERS INTO WHISTLEBLOWERS

Look out, Corporate America. Customers armed with smartphones and video cameras are watching when you screw up. The viral video of a ticketed passenger dragged forcefully off a United flight is only the latest example of bad behavior exposed in the age of social media. In February, Uber came under fire after a driver posted video of CEO Travis Kalanick berating him. Earlier, a Comcast technician was shown in a video sleeping on a customerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s couch, and an audio recording chronicled one manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s herculean efforts to drop Comcast service; they are among the embarrassing customer complaints that ultimately forced improvements . FedEx had to respond after video showed a driver carelessly throwing a package with a computer monitor over the front gate. Beyond the corporate sphere, smartphone videos of police brutality have prompted protests and investigations. 141

Not long ago, such incidents might have gotten a mention on the local news at most, and quickly disappeared. But smartphone cameras and social media have democratized information and shifted power to consumers. Companies can no longer sweep complaints under the rug. “That’s something a lot of companies just don’t get,” said Paul Argenti, a professor of corporate communications at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. “Companies still operate as if they can hide things and make believe something didn’t happen.”

REWRITING THE PLAYBOOK Companies can’t eliminate embarrassing gaffes entirely, but can learn from past blunders to minimize the damage. It starts with training. Employees need to be ready to react when a situation gets dramatic and companies should emphasize that anything employees do could be recorded. That’s especially true for transportation, fast-food and other companies with a lot of employees who interact directly with large numbers of customers. Running through hypothetical scenarios helps. “Have a couple things planned, what we should do if ‘x’ happens and what we should do if ‘y’ happens,” said Lakshman Krishnamurthi, a Kellogg School of Management marketing professor. On-site employees need to be given more power to respond to avoid escalating an incident, especially one that might be recorded. 142

FedEx Guy Throwing My Computer Monitor

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In United’s case, for instance, even if employees were following the rules for seeking volunteers to give up seats, they should have been able to read the situation and increase the financial incentives for volunteers rather than drag a passenger off a flight. “You need rules, but you need to be flexible and adapt,” Argenti said.

BLOCK AND TACKLE Once a video is out there, the standard PR-crisis response remains the same as it always has: Work swiftly to correct the situation in the eyes of the public. “Apologize, talk about why it happened, and say it will never happen again,” Argenti said. United CEO Oscar Munoz eventually apologized, but not for two days and after first blaming the customer and airport security. And once a video goes viral, companies have to cede control of the narrative. “When the video is out there, don’t try to countermand what the video says,” said Herman Leonard, a professor of business administration at Harvard. In the past, companies had hours or days to respond to a crisis. Now, companies must respond immediately, before a scandal spins out of control on social media. For example, when Domino’s Pizza employees posted a YouTube video of workers defacing sandwiches in 2009, the employees were quickly fired, the store was inspected and the CEO apologized. That helped mitigate some, if not all of the damage.

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Similarly, after TV cameras shot video of rats scurrying through a KFC/Taco Bell in Manhattan, parent company Yum closed 10 of its New York City restaurants and hired a leading rat expert to review the company’s standards.

LESSONS (NOT) LEARNED In 2009, musician Dave Carroll had a guitar he checked destroyed during a flight. At first United said Carroll wasn’t eligible for compensation, which caused a frustrated Carroll to write a song and book about it, both called “United Breaks Guitars.” Carroll’s online video of his song was so popular that “Time” named it one of the top viral videos of 2009. It became a business case study of how social media can harm a company’s image. If the lesson from that episode was to be more responsive to customers, United didn’t learn it. “It was ‘United Breaks Guitars ,’ now it’s ‘United Breaks People,’” said Richard Levick, a crisis management consultant. Despite the newfound empowerment from social media, however, consumers have one thing against them: a short memory. They may remember the incident, but brand names fade and consumers will soon move on to the next PR flap, branding consultant Laura Ries said. This limits the changes companies must really make before moving on. “Soon people won’t remember which company was the offender. They’ll think, ‘Was it Delta, or American? I’m not sure. It was one of the airlines,” she said. “People do tend to have short memories. There’s going to be another company that has some disaster like this.” 146

United Breaks Guitars

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FANTASY SPORTS COMPANIES FOLD AS LEGISLATIVE BATTLE RESUMES

The daily fantasy sports industry has sharply contracted since the online games offered by companies such as FanDuel and DraftKings sparked court and legislative battles across the United States last year. More than two-thirds of companies that existed this time last year have shuttered, changed focus or joined with competitors, according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, the industry’s lobbying arm. Among the most prominent examples is the proposed merger between the industry’s two largest companies - Boston’s DraftKings and New York’s FanDuel. That deal, which was announced late last year, is currently being reviewed by the Federal Trade Commission. At least three notable companies - Fantasy Aces, FantasyHub and FantasyUp - shuttered while still owing players money, prompting other operators to assume their assets and pledge to make customers whole. 149

Many smaller operators have also quietly folded. At peak last year, 118 member companies offered some form of paid fantasy sports contest, the trade association said. Of those, 81 are no longer offering contests or their status is unknown. The legal chaos and uncertainty that befell the industry starting with the 2015 NFL season has driven away investors, making it impossible for many startups to continue to raise the financial capital to survive, said Peter Schoenke, the trade association chairman. The uncertainty also shook out companies not offering much new or distinctive from the competition, added Daniel Barbarisi, author of “Dueling With Kings,” an inside look at the industry’s rise and fall released last month. “Everyone thought (daily fantasy sports) was the next gold rush,” he said. “It couldn’t sustain that level of speculative growth, especially from small operators. Now that the barrier to entry is higher, I’m not surprised at all to see many of them falling by the wayside.” The legal landscape, meanwhile, remains unsettled, and the industry is again engaged in a costly, state-by-state legislative push. Roughly half of all U.S. states have seen proposals introduced to legalize and regulate the industry. Arkansas has so far passed new legislation, joining 10 other states from prior years: Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, Tennessee and Virginia.

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Lawmakers in other states will become receptive to the proposals as they see how the regulations are working in other states, said Marc La Vorgna, a spokesman for DraftKings and FanDuel. “The evidence is there for legislators,” he said. “Any uncertainty around the impact of these laws has been removed.” Indeed New York, one of a handful of states that impose a tax on daily fantasy sports, says it took in nearly $3 million in revenues in the first months of its new law. DraftKings and FanDuel are again “investing heavily” in state legislative efforts, La Vorgna said, declining to provide specific tallies for lobbying costs and political donations this year. The trade association is spending “very little” on direct lobbying this year, said Schoenke, also declining to provide specifics. During last year’s legislative push, DraftKings, FanDuel and the trade association spent at least $500,000 on lobbyists and its employees donated roughly $380,000 to political campaign committees at the state government level, according to the most recent data collected by the National Institute on Money in State Politics in Helena, Montana. That was a big jump from 2015, when the industry wasn’t quite in the crosshairs of regulators. The three entities accounted for at least $275,000 in lobbying and donations that year, up from at least $18,000 in 2014, the institute’s data shows. Some of the laws being considered this year may hasten the industry’s consolidation, said Ted Kasten, who has advised several daily fantasy sports startups. 152

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Some states are considering imposing costly licensing fees and other regulatory hurdles that smaller operations complain could put them out of business. Ryan Huss, co-founder of Syde Fantasy Sports, said he and his partners ended their fantasy sports contests and shifted the company’s focus after their home state of Virginia started requiring a $50,000 registration fee. “The fees seem like more of a deterrent than anything else,” he said. “Only the largest operators can truly afford to pay them.” Despite the consolidation, demand for the games still appears healthy. From 2015 to 2016, the total amount of entry fees paid by players grew 4 percent to about $3.3 billion and net revenues for companies rose about 15 percent to $350 million, according to the California-based gambling research firm Eilers & Krejcik Gaming. New startups are still emerging, just nowhere near the levels to replace the ones closing down, Schoenke said. Some new companies say they’re in a better position to succeed than their predecessors. Teague Orgeman, co-founder of Starting 11, a Minneapolis-based daily fantasy soccer site hoping to launch soon, says his company’s contest will be more innovative than what’s already out there. And, as a practicing attorney, he’s prepared to navigate the ever-changing regulatory landscape. “We see opportunity, not the flip,” Orgeman said. “We think regulation is a good thing long-term for industry. It really wasn’t a deterrent.” 154

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JOHN GLENN HONORED WITH LAUNCH OF SPACE STATION SUPPLY SHIP

John Glenn’s trailblazing legacy took flight Tuesday as a cargo ship bearing his name rocketed toward the International Space Station. An Atlas rocket provided the late morning lift to orbit, just as it did for Glenn 55 years ago. The commercial cargo ship, dubbed the S.S. John Glenn, holds nearly 7,700 pounds (3,500 kilograms) of food, equipment and research for the space station. It’s due there Saturday, two days after the arrival of two fresh astronauts. NASA’s shipper, Orbital ATK, asked Glenn’s widow, Annie, for permission to use his name for the spacecraft, following his December death. Glenn, an original Mercury 7 astronaut, became the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962. He launched again in 1998 aboard shuttle Discovery 157

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at age 77, the oldest person ever in space. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery two weeks ago. “It is clearly a chance one more time to show John Glenn’s name emblazoned in space,” said Frank Culbertson, a former astronaut who now heads Orbital ATK’s space systems group. Glenn was a courageous, pioneering leader who always promoted space and set a good example, Culbertson noted. “And I hope that putting his name on the space station is an inspiration to the next generation to aspire to do similar things, push the boundaries,” he said. Besides supplies, the capsule contains a banner showing Glenn in his orange space shuttle launch suit - it’s the first thing the station astronauts will see when they open the craft as well as memorabilia for his family. Because the launch was delayed a month by hydraulic problems at the pad and on the rocket, no Glenn family members were able to make it to Cape Canaveral, according to Culbertson. Orbital ATK - one of NASA’s prime delivery services for the space station, along with SpaceX - normally uses its own Virginia-based Antares rockets to launch its Cygnus cargo ships, named after the swan constellation. But it opted for the United Launch Alliance’s bigger Atlas V rocket in order to carry up a heftier load. A new, larger greenhouse is flying up, along with equipment needed for a spacewalk next month. “Looks like we nailed the orbit once again,” said Vern Thorp, a manager for the rocket maker. NASA’s 360-degree video streaming of the launch - the first such attempt for a live 159

broadcast - didn’t go as well. Something went wrong moments before liftoff, and the video skipped over the actual rising of the rocket from the pad. NASA said it would try again, perhaps on an upcoming SpaceX delivery mission. Mission Control beamed up the launch broadcast for the three astronauts at the space station, which is orbiting 250 miles (about 400 kilometers) high. The American, Russian and Frenchman will be joined Thursday by another American and Russian who will take off from Kazakhstan. SpaceX and Boeing are developing new capsules that could fly U.S. astronauts to the space station as early as next year. Boeing’s Starliner capsule will fly on the Atlas V. It was the last launch commentary for NASA spokesman George Diller, who is retiring next month after 37 years. His was the voice at liftoff for the final space shuttle flight, by Atlantis, in 2011, as well as the send-off of the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990 and all five Hubble-servicing missions - hundreds of rocket launches in all. “We’re really, really going to miss hearing your golden voice on console during launch, George,” said Kennedy Space Center’s director, Robert Cabana, patting him on the back. Diller said his time at the space agency has been a “heck of a ride.” “I couldn’t do better if I’d been riding a rocket.”

Online: NASA Orbital ATK 160

Orbital ATKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cygnus Cargo Spacecraft Launches to the ISS

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PRINCE WILLIAM SPEAKS WITH LADY GAGA ON MENTAL HEALTH

Prince William has enlisted Lady Gaga in his campaign to persuade people to be more open about mental health issues. The heir to the British throne released a video in which he speaks with the pop star via FaceTime. Lady Gaga, who last year spoke out about her struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder, places the call from her kitchen in California, and William answers at his desk in Kensington Palace. “It’s interesting to see and hear from you how much having that conversation . has really made a difference to you,” William said in the video. “It’s so important to break open that fear and that taboo which is only going to lead to more problems down the line.” The conversation is part of the latest blitz by the young royals as they campaign to end the stigma associated with mental health issues. 163

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William and his wife, the Duchess of Cambridge, along with his brother, Prince Harry, have made mental health a focus of their charitable work. It comes a day after the Daily Telegraph published an unusually candid interview with Harry. The 32-year-old prince acknowledged that he spent nearly 20 years “not thinking” about the death of his mother, Princess Diana, and that he only got help after two years of “total chaos.” Though the royal family has toiled for years for hundreds of charities, the work on mental health represents something of a departure in part because of the taboo long associated with psychological issues. It can be seen as an extension of the work of Diana, who among other things shook the hand of an HIV-positive man during the height of the Aids crisis. “She created the new template, the new orthodoxy,” said Ellis Cashmore, a visiting professor of sociology at Aston University and the author of “Elizabeth Taylor: A Private Life for Public Consumption.” “She was rewriting the script of the royals for the future.” Mental health charities are flatly thrilled. Comments from the royals gain immediate attention - particularly when they offer tantalizing revelations about their private lives. But mostly the comments show that it is normal to seek assistance when going through tough times. The Campaign Against Living Miserably, or CALM, said research shows that men particularly have trouble telling others when they feel depressed. 165

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“Prince Harry sharing how he needed support to cope with losing his mother shows both how normal it is to go through a tough time and how much opening up can help,” CEO Simon Gunning said in an email. “Hearing public figures say they’ve felt better after opening up can help chip away at feelings of embarrassment, meaning more guys will seek support when they need it.” Lady Gaga brings even more attention to the cause. She told Prince William in the video that talking more openly about mental health would let people feel like “we are not hiding anymore.”

“Even though it was hard, the best thing that could come out of my mental illness was to share it with other people and let our generation, as well as other generations, know that if you are feeling not well in your mind that you’re not alone and that people that you think would never have a problem, do,” she said. William also applauded grime musician Stormzy for talking about his battle with depression in the publication CALMzine. “There may be a time and a place for the ‘stiff upper lip’, but not at the expense of your health,” William said in CALMzine.

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THAT’S WHAT I LIKE

Bruno Mars

STAY

Zedd & alessia Cara

BODY LIKE A BACK ROAD

saM Hunt

SOMETHING JUST LIKE THIS

tHe CHainsMokers

ISSUES

Julia MiCHaels

SHAPE OF YOU

ed sHeeran

SIGN OF THE TIMES

Harry styles

THE CURE

lady GaGa

SAY YOU WON’T LET GO

JaMes artHur

BROKEN HALOS

CHris stapleton

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THE SEARCH FOR EVERYTHING

JoHn Mayer

รท (DELUXE)

ed sHeeran

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK)

Various artists

MOANA (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK)

Various artists

PTX, VOL. IV - CLASSICS

pentatonix

24K MAGIC

Bruno Mars

TROLLS (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK)

Various artists

MOANA (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK) [DELUXE EDITION]

Various artists

TRAVELLER

CHris stapleton

SING (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK DELUXE)

Various artists

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DIE WITH YOU

BeyonCé

THAT’S WHAT I LIKE

Bruno Mars

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

pentatonix

THE FIGHTER (FEAT. CARRIE UNDERWOOD)

keitH urBan

SHAPE OF YOU

ed sHeeran

24K MAGIC

Bruno Mars

CHAINED TO THE RHYTHM (FEAT. SKIP MARLEY)

katy perry

FOREVER COUNTRY

artists of tHen, now & foreVer

CAN’T STOP THE FEELING! (ORIGINAL SONG FROM DREAMWORKS ANIMATION’S “TROLLS”)

Justin tiMBerlake

HALLELUJAH

pentatonix

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GOOD MORNING BITCHES

rupaul’s draG raCe, season 9 (unCensored)

IN THE AIR TONIGHT

Grey’s anatoMy, season 13

THE DECISION

sCandal, season 6

MABEL

Better Call saul, season 3

IT GIRL, INTERRUPTED

tHe real HousewiVes of new york City, season 9

PARTY LINES

desiGnated surViVor, season 1

I HEAR YOU KNOCKING

tHe oriGinals, season 4

CROSSBREED

tHe aMeriCans, season 5

THE SEPARATION AGITATION

tHe BiG BanG tHeory, season 10

KANIEL OUTIS

prison Break, season 5

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THIRTEEN REASONS WHY

Jay asHer

THE BLACK BOOK

JaMes patterson & daVid ellis

KATHERINE OF ARAGON, THE TRUE QUEEN

alison weir

FIRESIDE

Jeffery deaVer

THE BOOK CLUB MURDERS

leslie naGel

BIG LITTLE LIES

liane Moriarty

TROPHY WIFE

alessandra torre

CALL THE NURSE

Mary J. MaCleod

ONE PERFECT LIE

lisa sCottoline

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

B a paris

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CALIFORNIA UTILITY LAUNCHES FIRST HYBRID POWER SYSTEMS

A California utility has launched unique systems combining a hybrid battery and gas turbine to produce and store electricity for use during hot summer months and other times when power demand soars. The new Hybrid Electric Gas Turbines are the first of their kind in the world, officials with Southern California Edison and manufacturer General Electric said during an event Monday near Los Angeles. Edison President Ron Nichols said the twin systems that went online March 30 operate somewhat like a hybrid car - drawing first on the battery, then switching over to the gas turbine if power demands spike. 179

Energy output is combined between turbines and new 10-megawatt lithium-ion battery storage units. As a result, the systems do not burn fuel when they’re on stand-by, significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And they can be turned on immediately to push power into the grid to compensate for outages or increased demand. “The battery is there at the flick of a switch,” Nichols said. The systems are running in Norwalk and Rancho Cucamonga at plants built to provide extra juice following an especially hot summer that strained the grid. The utility is exploring adding the hybrid systems to three other similar plants. “You don’t always get an opportunity to take an existing facility, add some new technology to it, and enhance the value and reduce the cost to customers,” Nichols said, calling the new systems “win-win.” The systems will help balance energy supply and demand, especially during evening hours when solar power production drops as customers return home and turn on lights and appliances. California has committed to derive 50 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. The installation of the hybrid systems is a major step toward that goal, according to Tom Doughty of the California Independent Systems Operator, which manages the state’s grid. Doughty said the hybrid technology introduces crucial flexibility into the state system. “The variability of one technology, or one plant, can be mitigated or managed by others,” he said, calling the new system “a thing of beauty.” 180

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GOOGLE EARTH INVITES YOU TO ‘GET LOST’ EXPLORING THE PLANET

Google Earth is getting a revival, as the 3-D mapping service reorients itself to become more of a tool for adventure and exploration. A central feature in the new Google Earth is Voyager. Google has partnered with such groups as the BBC and NASA to add video clips, photos and text narratives to three-dimensional representations of particular locations. The Jane Goodall Institute, for instance, lets you journey to spots in Tanzania that inspired its founding chimpanzee expert. You can also get overlays of chimpanzee ranges and compare imagery from 2005 and 2014 to see the effects of forest restoration efforts. The producers of “Sesame Street” show off Muppets from co-productions around the world; 183

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the map shows where the Muppets live and offer stories about the region and its culture. Separately, a new “I’m Feeling Lucky” feature takes you to a location selected at random. Google Earth is highlighting some 20,000 lesser-known destinations - the kinds of places locals might frequent or know about, such as the Indonesian island of Bunaken, part of a national marine park. Google Earth used to be the place to go to for satellite views and 3-D images stitched together from aerial fly-bys. A software download was required, limiting its use. Google Maps has incorporated many of those features, making Google Earth even less necessary. Tuesday’s update is about giving you a reason to use Google Earth again. Google says that while Maps is about getting you to a destination, Earth is about immersing you there, or “getting lost.” With the update, Google Earth now works on Google’s Chrome browsers for desktops. It still requires an app for phones and tablets because of the heavy graphics involved; Google is rolling out updates for Android, but there’s no Google Earth app for iPhones or iPads yet. Some older features will still require a software download on desktops. That includes maps of Mars and the moon through a partnership with NASA. Google also announced an update to a virtualreality version of Google Earth. It now works with Facebook’s Oculus Rift, not just the HTC Vive. But it won’t work with cheaper, phonebased VR systems, such as Google’s Daydream and Samsung’s Gear VR. 186

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FACEBOOK TARGETS 30,000 FAKE FRANCE ACCOUNTS BEFORE ELECTION

Facebook says it has targeted 30,000 fake accounts linked to France ahead of the country’s presidential election, as part of a worldwide effort against misinformation. The company said last week it’s trying to “reduce the spread of material generated through inauthentic activity, including spam, misinformation, or other deceptive content that is often shared by creators of fake accounts.” It said its efforts “enabled us to take action” against the French accounts and that it is removing sites with the highest traffic. Facebook and French media are also running fact-checking programs in France to combat misleading information, especially around the campaign for the two-round April 23-May 7 presidential election. 188

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European authorities have also pressured Facebook and Twitter to remove extremist propaganda or other postings that violate European hate speech or other laws. Facebook ramped up its efforts against the spread of false news and misinformation on its service in December, a month after the U.S. presidential election. The company said at the time that it will focus on the “worst of the worst” offenders and partner with outside fact-checkers and news organizations to sort honest news reports from made-up stories. It was accused of allowing the spread of false news in the months leading up to the U.S. election, which critics said may have helped sway the results in favor of Donald Trump. Since December, the company has broadened its efforts beyond the U.S. Last week, it launched a resource to help users spot false news in 14 countries including the U.S., France and Germany. It’s a notification, available for a few days, that leads users to a list of tips for spotting false news and ways to report it. Facebook’s other efforts include participating with other companies and tech industry leaders to establish a “news integrity” nonprofit organization to promote news literacy and increase the public’s trust in journalism. A nascent Facebook Journalism Project, meanwhile, is a lofty effort to work with news organizations to develop products, provide tools for journalists and generally promote trust in news.

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