Monday, January 25, 2021

Google has threatened to withdraw its search engine from Australia if the Australian government implements a regulation that will require the company to pay for news content

The News Media Bargaining Code proposed by the Australian government would require tech companies (starting with Google and Facebook) to pay certain Australian news outlets for featuring snippets of their content. Google has been lobbying against the proposed law for months. Google Australia and New Zealand VP said that if the law comes into effect “it would give us no real choice but to stop making Google Search available in Australia.” Google published the Australian VP’s statement and a blog post explaining the company’s position. “We don’t respond to threats,” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said. For months, there have been multiple reports published detailing the ins and outs of the conflict between Google and Australia. (The Verge)

Bernie Sanders’ mittens have become the latest must-have fashion accessory

Photographs of the Vermont Senator wearing a colorful pair of fluffy mittens during Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration inspired dozens of viral memes that lit the internet on fire. The mittens were crafted by Jen Ellis, a 42-year-old teacher from Vermont, with scraps of used wool sweaters lined with fleece made with recycled plastic. Ellis, who gifted the mittens to Sanders a couple of years ago, said that although she was flattered that the Senator chose to wear them for the inauguration, she’s overwhelmed by the online furor that her mittens have generated. “There’s no possible way I could make 6,000 pairs of mittens, and every time I go into my email, another several hundred people have emailed me,” she said. (Jewish Insider)

Bernie Money Meme Madness

You know you made a Bernie Sanders meme, or at least laughed at the places the Vermont senator showed up wearing his now-famous Burton jacket and homemade mittens. Caption: Bernie Sanders selling merchandise with famous meme on it, all proceeds go to charity. Sanders has turned this into an opportunity to feed people in need. His campaign store is selling sweatshirts and t-shirts featuring the photo that inspired the memes flooding social media. Both items are made in the U.S. and printed by union members. The sweatshirt currently sold out due to overwhelming demand, but orders can still be placed online. All proceeds go to Meals on Wheels in Vermont. Representatives say it’s a tremendous gift and they couldn’t be more grateful. (WRGB)

Will event companies survive?

This year started on a hopeful note as vaccines were rolled out to the public, but it will be months before life returns to some semblance of normality. Organizations and individuals are already cancelling late-in-the-year events, conferences and weddings, leaving the catering industry in the lurch. Florists, planners and caterers depend upon the event and wedding industries and have had few, if any, opportunities to pivot to new revenue streams like retailers or restaurants. If that doesn’t change soon, many of them will go under, putting their employees and suppliers at risk. (The Washington Post)

The job market continues to stall

Initial jobless claims totaled 900,000 last week, retreating slightly from the previous week and just below Wall Street estimates. Continuing claims also ticked down slightly for the week, falling by 127,000 to 5.05 million. Weekly claims had been recovering after the initial wave of the pandemic, but they started going up again in October as new business restrictions were put in place in an effort to stop the virus. (CNBC)

Navigating high-stress work moments

Conflict is inevitable at work, whether it’s a disagreement over strategy or simply a matter of work style differences. Instead of letting these tense moments stop us in our tracks, researchers from the University of Michigan and Indiana University offer a few ways we can make the most of these high-stress situations. It all comes down to self-regulation, recognizing the stressful moment for what it is, then thinking about how you can respond in a way that advances larger goals and intentions. When we take a moment to reflect, we can transform conflict into an opportunity for meaningful collaboration. (Harvard Business Review)

Google’s parent company Alphabet is shutting down Loon, which used a fleet of AI-powered balloons to provide wireless internet connectivity to remote parts of the world

Loon’s internet balloons, which began as an Alphabet X moonshot project, have been piloted by a novel, machine-designed deep reinforcement learning system. Last year, Loon said its AI-powered flight control system was navigating the stratospheric helium balloons over Kenya, where Loon launched its initial commercial internet service this past summer. After pitting the AI against the human-created system in a 39-day test over the Pacific Ocean, the AI model could keep balloons aloft for longer periods and even devised its own novel navigational moves, prompting Loon to deploy the AI system across its entire fleet. However, X leader Astro Teller said in a blog post today that the project’s commercial viability has taken longer and been much riskier than they hoped, prompting Alphabet to wind down operations over the next few months. A small group of Loon employees will wrap up operations and pilot service in Kenya, where Loon has pledged $10M to help support Internet connectivity, he said. Loon first launched as a moonshot in 2013 and was spun-off as a separate company in 2018; it has raised funds from investors including SoftBank. (Space News)

Are we too connected at work now?

Are workers getting inundated with too many work messages and online meetings? RMIT University researchers say that “the desire to compensate for the lack of physical interaction” during the pandemic has caused “digital overload.” Managers told the researchers they used an average of nine collaboration and chat apps a day, and they reported feeling fatigue from being “always on” to reply to messages. Some tips: Avoid multitasking, share only necessary information with your team and block out timeslots to focus on getting work done. (The Conversation)

Navigating high-stress work moments

Conflict is inevitable at work, whether it’s a disagreement over strategy or simply a matter of work style differences. Instead of letting these tense moments stop us in our tracks, researchers from the University of Michigan and Indiana University offer a few ways we can make the most of these high-stress situations. It all comes down to self-regulation, recognizing the stressful moment for what it is, then thinking about how you can respond in a way that advances larger goals and intentions. When we take a moment to reflect, we can transform conflict into an opportunity for meaningful collaboration. (Harvard Business Review)

Anti-stress biz feeds on our stress

The coronavirus has given us a myriad of reasons to be stressed. To cope, millions have turned to meditation apps. Monthly active users for Calm, Headspace and Meditopia (the top three meditation apps) were up 59% year-over-year in November 2020, according to analytics data. In addition, yearly revenue for the top 100 meditation apps in 2020 topped $1 billion, compared to $514 million in 2018. While business may be thriving, time will tell what, if any, long-term effects these apps will have on users and society as a whole. (Quartz)

COVID sparks real Hollywood drama

The pandemic set off real-life behind-the-scenes drama as Hollywood scrambled to rethink how it does business, with streaming platforms benefiting most from the changes. Various film executives have made calls to “blow up” deals they had made while producers, filmmakers and actors all jockeyed to protect their interests. Under the unprecedented circumstances, corporate parents, including Disney and WarnerMedia, saw their streaming services as the best places for growth. Domestic box-office revenues were an anemic $2.28 billion last year, way down from $11.4 billion in 2019. MGM and Sony both said Thursday that major films from their 2021 lineup will be pushed back, including the latest James Bond movie “No Time to Die.” (The Wall Street Journal)

A test that predicts severe COVID

Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a method to identify patients who are likely to develop severe cases of COVID-19 early on in their diagnosis. The researchers found that increased levels of mitochondrial DNA in a patient’s bloodstream is a warning sign of cell death, a key marker of severe COVID-19. Mitochondrial DNA levels can be measured via blood test in under an hour, with the same equipment used for standard COVID-19 diagnostic tests. Early detection of the most serious cases can help doctors devote resources to those at most risk. (Washington University School of Medicine)

A man in Mobile, Alabama who used social media to plan a robbery and posted photos of himself with a gun pleaded guilty to a federal gun charge

The 19-year-old pleaded guilty to using a firearm during the commission of a felony. He faces a mandatory-minimum sentence of 10 years in prison. The charges arose form a carjacking that occurred on December 22, 2019. According to court records, the victim picked up the young man to negotiate the sale of a 9mm Glock handgun. When they arrived to the man’s house, he and another armed man pointed the barrel of a rifle against the victim’s head while demanding to empty his pockets. The victim then got out of the vehicle and ran away. Investigators got a search warrant for the young man’s Facebook page and found posts that included an exchange of messages with at least two people mentioning the victim. Those messages identified the victim as “the lick,” or target of the robbery, according to court documents. The suspect’s Facebook page showed pictures of him with a different gun that police recovered when they arrested him a day after the robbery. An off-duty police officer initiated the arrest after recognizing the stolen Nissan because of its distinctive description in the police report. (Fox 10)

Monday Comes In Like A Hangover With:

• A Room of One’s Own Day
• Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day (Always Last Monday)
• Florida Day
• Irish Coffee Day
• Macintosh Computer Day
• Opposite Day
• Robert Burns Day