CATEGORIES

MUSIC TV: TAKING SHOTS AT MTV WITH NEW DIGITAL TV STATION

In an unexpected move, Apple announced in late October that it would launch Apple Music TV, a new 24-hour curated live stream of chart-topping music videos, designed to encourage more consumers to subscribe to its Apple TV+ streaming service.

SOCIAL MEDIA CEOS GET EARFUL ON BIAS, WARNING OF NEW LIMITS

With next week’s election looming, the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google were scolded by Republicans at a Senate hearing for alleged anticonservative bias in the companies’ social media platforms and received a warning of coming restrictions from Congress.

MEDIA ELECTION PLANNERS PREPARE FOR A NIGHT OF MYSTERY

This coming weekend, CNN’s Sam Feist will distribute to his staff copies of the testimony news executives gave to Congress when they tried to explain how television networks got 2000’s disputed election so spectacularly wrong.

HALLOWEEN IN 2020: SOME FUN WITH DEATH AND FEAR, ANYONE?

The setting: a rolling patch of Pennsylvania farmland, about 15 miles from the little town where “Night of the Living Dead” was filmed. The moment: Halloween season 2020, a moonlit Friday night.

BORAT IS BACK, AND THIS TIME HE FITS RIGHT IN

Since Sacha Baron Cohen first appeared as his Kazakh journalist on “Da Ali G Show,” Borat Sagdiyev has been remarkably consistent. The accent is the same. The gray suit is still rumpled. “Nahce” and “Mah Wahfe” regularly exude from him with a mangled melody. Borat hasn’t changed in the last 20 years. But America has.

ASTEROID SAMPLES ESCAPING FROM JAMMED NASA SPACECRAFT

A NASA spacecraft is stuffed with so much asteroid rubble from this week’s grab that it’s jammed open and precious particles are drifting away in space, scientists said.

Australian Says Watchdog Considers Its Own Google Antitrust Case

Australia’s competition watchdog will consider its own antitrust case against Google, the commission chairman said this week after the U.S. Justice Department sued the company for abusing its dominance in online search and advertising.

A New Set Of Shopping Tips In The Pandemic

Now, shopping looks much different.

US SPACECRAFT TOUCHES ASTEROID SURFACE FOR RARE RUBBLE GRAB

A NASA spacecraft descended to an asteroid Tuesday and, dodging boulders the size of buildings, momentarily touched the surface to collect a handful of cosmic rubble for return to Earth.

AN ELECTRIC HUMMER? BATTERY POWERED TRUCKS HEAD TO SHOWROOMS

General Motors is among them, and this week its GMC brand introduced a new electric Hummer pickup, with a high-end version due in showrooms sometime in the fall of next year.

DC DEBUTS SMARTPHONE-BASED COVID-19 EXPOSURE ALERT SYSTEM

The nation’s capital has become one of the first jurisdictions in the country to employ a new COVID-19 notification system, a joint GoogleApple venture that delivers alerts to people’s phones, notifying them that they may have been exposed to the coronavirus.

HOMEPOD MINI: HUGE COMPUTATIONAL AUDIO IN A LITTLE PACKAGE

HomePod was introduced to much fanfare in 2018, but it was a smaller, more affordable smart device that consumers were crying out for.

‘SESAME STREET' LAUNCHES A PODCAST TO HELP EDUCATE KIDS

What has more letters than the alphabet? That’s easy: The post office.

NETFLIX REPORTS A SUMMER SLUMP IN SUBSCRIBER GROWTH

Netflix’s subscriber growth slowed dramatically during the summer months after surging in the spring fueled by pandemic lockdowns that corralled millions of people in their homes.

HOW GOOGLE EVOLVED FROM ‘CUDDLY' STARTUP TO ANTITRUST TARGET

In Google’s infancy, co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin reviled Microsoft as a technological bully that ruthlessly abused its dominance of the personal computer software market to choke off competition that could spawn better products.

FORTUNES OF CHINA'S INTERNET TYCOONS SOAR AMID PANDEMIC

Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, held onto his status as China’s richest tycoon this year as surging demand for online shopping and other services during the coronavirus pandemic swelled the fortunes of internet entrepreneurs, according to a survey released this week.

Global Watchdog Proposes Tax Overhaul For Big Tech

A global economic watchdog this week proposed an overhaul of international tax rules to make sure big tech companies pay their dues and warned that failure to adopt it would make the economic recovery from COVID-19 harder.

Airbnb Requires Hosts To Commit To Enhanced Cleaning

Airbnb said it will require hosts to comply with enhanced cleaning procedures as part of its effort to reassure guests and local officials during the coronavirus pandemic.

JPMORGAN, CITI PROFITS IMPROVE AMID SIGNS OF RECOVERY

Two of the nation’s biggest banks — JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup — said that their profits improved markedly over the summer, as the U.S. economy tried to bounce back from the coronavirus shutdowns that were imposed earlier this year.

TWILIO BUYS SEGMENT FOR $3.2B AS DEMAND FOR CLOUD TECH BOOMS

Twilio is buying customer data start-up Segment in a stock deal valued at about $3.2 billion as demand for cloud technology surges during the pandemic.

THE PROMISE OF 5G WIRELESS SPEED, HYPE, RISK

A much-hyped network upgrade called “5G” means different things to different people.

iPHONE 12 PUSHING FURTHER THAN EVER BEFORE

Despite a month-long delay due to COVID-19 supply chain issues, the virtual announcement of this year’s iPhone range did not disappoint.

MALCOLM JENKINS STARTS VENTURE CAPITAL FUND WITH NFL PLAYERS

Malcolm Jenkins has teamed with fellow NFL players to launch a venture capital fund.

WALMART TO SPREAD OUT DEALS TO AVOID BLACK FRIDAY CROWDS

Walmart says it will spread out its traditional one-day Black Friday deals over three weekends in November in an effort to reduce crowds in its stores during a pandemic.

DISNEY REORG TO FURTHER BOLSTER COMPANY'S FOCUS ON STREAMING

Disney said that it is reorganizing its business units to focus even more on streaming.

IBM TO SPIN OFF $19B BUSINESS TO FOCUS ON CLOUD COMPUTING

IBM says it is breaking off a $19 billion chunk of its business to focus on cloud computing.

Boeing Says Pandemic Will Cut Demand For Planes For a Decade

Boeing is lowering its expectations around demand for new planes over the next decade as the coronavirus pandemic continues to undercut air travel.

Airnbnb Blocking Some Rentals Over Halloween To Halt Parties

Airbnb will prohibit one-night rentals over Halloween weekend as part of its ongoing effort to crack down on party houses.

MICROSOFT PLANS $1 BILLION DATA CENTER VENTURE IN GREECE

Microsoft has announced plans to build three data center sites in greater Athens, providing a badly needed investment of up to $1 billion to the Greek economy which has been hammered by the pandemic.

NOBEL PRIZES AND COVID-19: SLOW, BASIC SCIENCE MAY PAY OFF

While the world wants flashy quick fixes for everything, especially massive threats like the coronavirus and global warming, next week’s Nobel Prizes remind us that in science, slow and steady pays off.