Futurama’s intro rendered in 3D is gorgeous
Stop wondering what Futurama‘s intro would look like if it were rendered in 3D and prettied up ten quadrillion percent: it’s here. Well, part of it is anyway, care of Russian animator Alexey Zakharov. He took the spaceship intro to Futurama, references to “Mom’s Old-Fashioned Robot Oil” and all, and applied a suite of computer animation tools (3ds Max, Nuke, Photoshop, After Effects). What you see above is just a mere snapshot into the gorgeous 32-second video we’ve embedded below. Get out your sunglasses, y’all: the future’s so bright, you’re gonna need shades.
[Image credit: Alexey Zakharov]
Filed under: Misc, Software, HD
Via: Sploid
Source: Behance
Why Tesla Motors can’t sell cars in most of the United States
Tesla Motors makes beautiful, quality electric automobiles. Don’t just take it from us; Consumer Reports rated the Tesla Model S the “best overall” car in its 2014 Top Picks report (which includes all non-electric cars as well). Yet, despite Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s ongoing effort to expand his EV empire, state after state in the United States is pushing back. Not because those states are against electronic vehicles, Musk or even Tesla; it’s about the way Tesla wants to sell its cars. Specifically, it’s about money.
WHAT TESLA WANTS
You know how Apple has stores where it sells its computers, tablets, phones and other stuff? “Apple stores?” you ask. Yes, Apple stores. Tesla wants to do that. This is Tesla’s business model:
- Make things.
- Sell those things directly to consumers in stores owned and operated by Tesla.
The first part of that business model isn’t the problem; it’s the second bit. Specifically, Tesla wanting to both own and operate stores — rather, dealerships — in the United States. When it comes to new cars, the concept of “direct-to-consumer sales” is illegal in many US states. Some states are even adding provisions to ban them: This past March, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed into law a bill that specifically makes direct-to-consumer car sales illegal.
WHY THAT ISN’T POSSIBLE
Why do so many states have provisions against direct-to-consumer car sales? Because of the way the car dealership system works. Early in the automotive industry, carmakers needed individual franchise owners to invest and set up a system for consumers to buy vehicles. Without highways, transporting vehicles was difficult. Additionally, cars required far more maintenance early on. Thus, the franchise model was born.
The companies making cars — Ford, GM, etc. — negotiated deals with car dealers. As The New Yorker explained in a 2009 piece, those early deals were weighted heavily against car dealers:
“In 1920, for instance, the US economy went into a deep recession. But Henry Ford kept his factories running at full tilt, and forced thousands of Ford dealers around the country to buy new cars that they had little chance of selling. The dealers knew that if they said no they’d never see a Model T again, so they ate the inventory. A decade later, when the Great Depression hit, Ford and GM used the same strategy to help keep the production lines going. They turned their dealers into a cushion against hard times.”
To protect themselves, car dealers formed associations. Laws were enacted, and it’s those laws — meant to protect car dealers — that are interfering with Tesla’s ability to sell cars directly to consumers. Here’s the logic of the argument against Tesla: If Tesla can sell cars directly to consumers, what stops the rest of the car industry from doing that? That is the heart of this, so let’s be totally clear:
The entire argument against Tesla selling cars directly to consumers is that car dealers might have to face competition from the companies they currently represent.
That’s it. It’s not really about Tesla, or electric cars. It’s about money. It’s an argument against competition that may or may not even manifest in reality.
On the flipside, Tesla could go the franchise route and give in. But should it have to? Shouldn’t Tesla be able to sell its cars directly to consumers? This side of the argument is also about money, no doubt, but there’s a control aspect as well. If Tesla gives in to the franchise model, it also gives in to all the restrictions that come with it. And 50 years of political lobbying have added quite a few restrictions, largely in favor of the franchisee. Tesla doesn’t want anything to do with it. Musk put it succinctly in a March 2014 company blog post:
“The reason that we did not choose to do this is that the auto dealers have a fundamental conflict of interest between promoting gasoline cars, which constitute virtually all of their revenue, and electric cars, which constitute virtually none. Moreover, it is much harder to sell a new technology car from a new company when people are so used to the old. Inevitably, they revert to selling what’s easy and it is game over for the new company.”
WHO IS FIGHTING TESLA?
You’ve likely guessed already, right? It’s the auto dealers associations. Not only is the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) number 19 on the top all-time political donations list, but sales from auto dealers account for about 15 percent of all retail sales in the US (according to 2012 data from NADA). When an industry accounts for more than one-seventh of the country’s total retail sales, that industry has some political clout. When that industry also has a heavy-hitting political lobby arm in Washington, DC, it’s far more powerful.
Last May, when Tesla fought a bill (and won) in North Carolina that would ban direct-to-consumer car sales, North Carolina Automobile Dealers Association President Bob Glaser argued in favor of it to the Associated Press. “It’s a consumer protection,” he said. “And why we say that is a dealer who has invested a significant amount of capital in a community is more committed to taking care of that area’s customers.”
President Barack Obama and Tesla CEO Elon Musk at Kennedy Space Center in 2010
As for the White House, the Obama Administration responded to a We the People petition last Friday afternoon regarding direct-to-consumer car sales. The petition specifically asked President Obama to “allow Tesla Motors to sell directly to consumers in all 50 states.”
Special assistant to the president for energy and climate change, Dan Utech, wrote, “Laws regulating auto sales are issues that have traditionally sat with lawmakers at the state level. We believe in the goal of improving consumer choice for American families, including more vehicles that provide savings at the pump for consumers. However, we understand that pre-empting current state laws on direct-to-consumer auto sales would require an act of Congress.”
Not exactly reassuring, though technically accurate: The White House isn’t able to do much legally without Congress first introducing a bill, passing it and giving it to the president to sign. Obama could, of course, rally for such a bill either in private or public. At the very least, it looks like he’s not doing much in public.
NEXT STEPS
Back in 2010, the Obama Administration helped secure government-backed loans for Tesla to the tune of $465 million. The loan has since been paid and Tesla’s Model S is a success both critically and commercially. But with the threat of a war of attrition as Tesla makes its case from state to state, the next few years will be critical for Musk’s company in the US.
Having created recharging “corridors” along both coasts and enabled coast-to-coast driving with its “Supercharger” centers, it’s easier than ever to own a Tesla car. But will you be able to buy one?
[Image credit: AP Photo/Eric Risberg (lead image), Bill on Capitol Hill/Flickr (Old Chevrolet ad), and AP Photo/Alex Brandon (Musk/Obama)]
What do you think about Tesla’s sales fight?
Filed under: Transportation
Virgin Media customers to get Sky Sports and Movies access on their mobiles in August
As part of its expanded alliance with Sky, Virgin Media said its customers would be getting easier access to movies and sport on the go through Sky’s mobile apps. Today, the cable company’s shed some more light on how the process will work, announcing that you’ll be able to log into Sky’s Sport and Movie apps using your existing Virgin Media credentials from next month (if you’re already a TV subscriber). At launch, only Sky’s iOS apps will support this login option, meaning you’ll have to wait for a future update to enjoy the same content on your Android device. Virgin, however, recently added more HD sports channels to its TV listings and enabled access to Sky’s entertainment channels (not including Sky Atlantic) from its TV Anywhere app, keeping you sweet until that update comes.
Filed under: Home Entertainment
Source: Virgin Media
Facebook’s got a new app and you (probably) can’t have it
Though Facebook’s origins were in exclusivity, serving only college students for some time, the service has since expanded out to billions of people around the world. Today, Facebook’s launching a new approach to exclusivity, and it sounds sadly familiar to reality: “Facebook Mentions” is a new iOS app that only “public figures” can use. What’s a “public figure?” The usual suspects: especially high-profile celebrities, journalists, government officials, and popular brands/businesses. So, the rich and/or famous? Got it.
So, what does the app do? It’s a much more brand-centric approach to using Facebook (which, yes, includes people who are brands unto themselves — Kanye West, for instance). As Recode‘s Facebook-verified Peter Kafka explains it:
- “The emphasis is on posting new messages, photos and videos, instead of reading what your pals have put up.
- There is a Mentions tab that’s supposed to make it easy for stars to see what people are saying about them. It looks strikingly like the ‘@’ tab that Twitter has always had – and also uses the term ‘mentions.’ It is another in a series of moves that are … inspired by Twitter’s playbook.”
It also enables those with access to host live Q&A sessions, as well as streamlining the multimedia sharing aspects of Facebook. You’ve probably seen it in action before: apparently that Dr. Dre/Tyrese celebration video that went live just ahead of the Beats purchase by Apple was through Facebook Mentions.
In so many words, Mentions is a tool designed specifically for people who have assistants to manage their social media profiles. If you’re one of those people (or their assistant) and don’t yet have access, you can download the app and request it right here.
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Software, Mobile, Facebook
Source: iTunes App Store, Facebook
In and out: a look at HTC’s two-year executive exodus
If you get offered a high-level position with HTC, run. At least, that’s the reputation the Taiwan-based manufacturer has unfortunately built over the last two years. Since 2012, no fewer than 22 members of its senior management have left the company. Some took off for personal reasons; others faced criminal charges; and still others moved on to different companies. Many of these exits have been attributed to HTC’s state of health, as the smartphone (and soon to be smartwatch) maker has made costly mistakes and experienced a string of decreasing profits stretching back to the end of 2011. Let’s take a look at each major departure from the beginning until the present day.
April 2012
Just eight months after signing a $300 million deal with Beats Electronics, making it possible for HTC to use the headphone company’s sound profiles in its handsets, CFO Winston Yung — the executive in charge of penning the transaction — was booted from his role and transferred into corporate development. CEO Peter Chou denied rumors that his ouster was related to the deal, despite the fact that HTC sold a huge chunk of its stake just three months later (and the remainder a year after that). Unfortunately, Beats wasn’t the only possible reason why Yung may have been shown the door; HTC’s finances were in a significant downward spiral, something that continues to adversely affect the company today.
As for Yung’s role in corporate development, his contributions (if any) have remained largely private; even his LinkedIn page mentions April 2012 was the end of his HTC career. Yung is now a partner for McKinsey & Company in Hong Kong.
November 2012
HTC announced that CMO John Wang (the brains behind the “quietly brilliant” campaign) would be leaving the company in December, although the process to replace him began the previous March. It didn’t reveal details on what happened. It’s clear, however, that Chou wanted to move his company’s marketing efforts in another direction, since Wang was replaced by Benjamin Ho, a former CMO for Motorola. When Ho began in January, his first assignment was nicknamed “Marketing 2.0,” which focused on mass-market brand outreach and “holistic marketing.”
March 2013
March was a hard month for the UK branch. Just a week prior to the launch of the original HTC One, UK Director Phil Roberson left the company, citing the pressures of work and wanting to spend more time with his wife. (He now works for Vodafone.) Roberson was with HTC for less than two years before being replaced by Philip Blair, VP of product and operations for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The very next week, UK head of sales Michael Coombes and head of marketing James Atkins followed Roberson’s lead. No reason for departure was given at the time, but it wasn’t long before the pair announced that they founded a phone company of their own called Kazam; its website currently offers two Android smartphones and a featurephone.
April and May 2013
The snowball grew and picked up speed shortly after HTC launched the One and the First, its unsuccessful AT&T-exclusive “Facebook Phone.” During this tumultuous time, seven high-profile company representatives parted ways with the company: Chief Product Officer Kouji Kodera, South Asia CEO Lennard Hoornik, Global Retail Marketing Director Rebecca Rowland, Director of Digital Marketing John Starkweather, Global Digital Service head Elizabeth Griffin, VP of Global Communications Jason Gordon and Product Strategy Manager Eric Lin.
After being with the company for three years, Kodera left “to pursue other interests,” according to an official HTC statement; soon afterward he founded a wearable startup called Zero360. Hoornik, who had already been on leave for two months for unknown reasons, joined Dyson the following month. Rowland moved to Microsoft and then Amazon; Starkweather headed to AT&T; Griffin left to work for Nintendo; Gordon is now with an unannounced startup and Lin now works on Microsoft’s Skype team.
The departure of so many big names within the company sparked a number of rumors about unhappy conditions within HTC’s walls. These flames were further fanned by a tweet from Lin, encouraging his former colleagues to follow his lead in leaving the company. Around the same time, a source close to The Verge that said the company was in “utter free fall.”
June 2013
In case those seven departures weren’t enough to arouse suspicion, the company’s COO Matthew Costello stepped down from his position. According to an internal email, Costello stayed on as an executive advisor in Europe, although later that year he came on as COO of Beats; it likely is no coincidence that he was on the company’s board of directors. Curiously, some analysts actually felt that his exit was a good sign for HTC: Bamboo Lin, an analyst from SinoPac Securities, told Bloomberg Businessweek that the company had too many executives, and a moderate streamlining would be beneficial.
August and September 2013
This may have been the biggest sting of the year for HTC, as three of the company’s top designers were arrested (and later indicted) for leaking trade secrets, falsifying expenses and receiving kickbacks from suppliers. VP of Product Design Thomas Chien, R&D Director Bill Wu and Senior Manager of Design and Innovation Justin Huang had been planning to leave the company and start a smartphone maker of their own. The trio leaked plans of the unannounced Sense 6.0 design to an outside partner who they intended to do business with. The men faced millions of dollars in fines and at least 10 years in prison per charge.
Additionally, HTC China President Ray Yam was demoted to a position overseeing the development of emerging business. He’s since moved on to become managing director for Electrolux.
October 2013
After being with HTC for just four months, Global VP of PR and Communications Lorain Wong left the company for personal reasons. Although she agreed to stay on as a consultant for a few months, she has since accepted a role as the CMO of Global Cloud Xchange, which owns a large, private, undersea fiber-optic cable system.
April 2014
The next person to leave the company was Senior VP of Design and User Experience Scott Croyle, who took over for Kodera nearly a year earlier and was responsible for the One M8′s design and hardware development. No official reasons were given. This was a significant blow to the company; given HTC’s attention to design, losing two chief designers in less than a full year didn’t look good, to say the least. HTC claims that this is part of a long-term transition and that Croyle will stick around in a consultancy role and will be focused on “special projects.” According to his LinkedIn page, however, his time with HTC officially came to a close in April.
July 2014
Hold this cat. The latest hits to the company’s senior management took place yesterday, as Ho and President of Engineering and Operations Fred Liu announced their resignation and retirement, respectively. During Ho’s short tenure, he was responsible for HTC’s $1 billion “Here’s to Change” campaign featuring Robert Downey Jr., which our sources tell us led to the exec’s departure. Ho will reportedly remain with the company until the end of the year, though it’ll likely be in a limited capacity.
As for Liu, he’s wrapping up a lengthy 16-year stint with HTC, but he’s not leaving entirely — not yet, at least. Bloomberg reports that he’s simply dropping day-to-day operations and transitioning into a “strategic advisory role.”
Although Liu’s departure could easily be nothing more than retirement, given his tenure, there still seems to be a pattern of saving face by transitioning to smaller roles, a path taken by many other executives who’ve left HTC in the last two years. In fact, one source told The Verge that at least one of the two were “fired in a nice way.”
Wrap-up
Aside from the trio of indictments late last year, the list of departing executives can be split into two camps. Several of them, primarily in design and product management, appear to have left of their own accord, suggesting that they were unhappy with the company’s direction or were wrapped up in other chaotic elements of the business. This doesn’t come as a surprise, since plenty of reports have corroborated this theory in the past year. Several others, mostly in marketing and operations, seem to have been compelled to resign, often shortly after the company’s costliest mistakes: The Beats partnership, the HTC First and the Robert Downey Jr. marketing campaign, to name a few.
On a positive note, this indicates that a cleansing is taking place within HTC’s headquarters; the folks responsible for the company’s biggest blunders in the last two years are no longer there, and bringing in fresh blood is arguably a good thing for most companies — especially those that are experiencing internal strife and financial downturn. On the other hand, can it find enough new talent eager to take on the challenge of jumping on board, given the company’s current struggles? As long as the answer is yes, there’s little reason to suspect that HTC can’t undo its negative reputation and reverse its misfortunes. If the answer is no, however, the company’s in for another couple rough years.
[Image credits: Getty Images]
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, HTC
Formula E racers unite to accelerate EV innovation
A new, high-profile and all-electric motorsport will debut on the city streets of Beijing this September, and it’s called Formula E. While it’s a form of entertainment like any racing series, the championship has a far greater aspiration than just putting on a good show, and that’s to accelerate the development of new technology that can benefit consumer EVs. “The real purpose is to drive innovation… to put the most talented engineers onto a problem and solve it,” Sylvain Filippi, Chief Technology Officer of the Virgin Racing team, told us.
“This is the first series to do anything like this; it’s very unique in the respect,” added Virgin driver Sam Bird while chatting to us on a Formula E test day at the UK’s Donington Park circuit. The teams have only a handful of these days to send their identical cars round the track, and tinker with their setups before the first competitive race. The longer-term goal of Formula E isn’t forgotten even in these precious moments, however.
“In the petrol racing world… it usually takes at least ten years for technology to trickle down to road cars. In the electric car industry we can do that in six months,” Filippi said. Beyond trying to improve all the individual components that make up an electric vehicle, “the overall efficiency of the system” is key. “Most of this is battery-related… and software, which by definition can translate to road cars very, very quickly.”
And it’s not just Virgin Racing that’s committed to delivering new and better technologies for the consumer market. “We are all in agreement… we should not waste energy and resources on developing aerodynamic and chassis technologies, because it’s not needed for the car industry,” Filippi told us of the unwritten arrangement between the ten Formula E teams. “We are going to focus our energy on the power train.”
Reece de Ville contributed to this report.
Filed under: Transportation
Microsoft closing Xbox Entertainment Studios
As part of its massive round of layoffs, Microsoft is closing Xbox Entertainment Studios (XES), the wing dedicated to producing original video content for the Xbox platform. All is not lost however, as Halo: Nightfall, the Spielberg-produced Halo TV series and Signal to Noise (whose first episode chronicles Atari’s rise and fall) will all still continue as planned. We were also told that the studio’s Nancy Tellem along with Jordan Levin and “some” of the XES team will remain on staff and working on the aforementioned in-production programming. In an email today (pasted in full after the break) Xbox head Phil Spencer notes that change is never easy, but he believes the studio closure will help the company “better align with longterm goals.” We’ve reached out to the affected studios about what this means for them and will update this post should we hear back.
Recode’s sources paint a different picture, however, saying that the studio was disorganized and lacked a fully established business model. Both of which turned off any studio partners and thusly complicating securing any more premium content.
“I hope you have had a chance to read today’s mails from Satya. I wanted to take a moment to share a few thoughts on what this means for our team and some of the changes we are making as a result.
In last week’s mail outlining some of the steps towards creating the culture and organization to bring our ambitions to life, Satya called out the strategic importance of Xbox as a strong consumer brand, a creative center for gaming and a leader in bold innovation. Every member of Team Xbox should be incredibly proud of the impact and reach your work has within the walls of Microsoft, with our developer community and most importantly, with consumers.
Microsoft is the productivity and platform company for a mobile-first and cloud-first world, and games are the single biggest digital life category in a mobile-first world. Success in this category, by growing a robust Xbox business, brings additional value to Microsoft. I have stated this before, but for Xbox to be successful, we must remain committed to being a consumer-driven organization with the mission of meeting the high expectations of a passionate fan base, to create the best games and to drive technical innovation.
As part of the planned reduction to our overall workforce announced today and in light of our organization’s mission, we plan to streamline a handful of portfolio and engineering development efforts across Xbox. One such plan is that, in the coming months, we expect to close Xbox Entertainment Studios. I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the accomplishments from the entire team in XES. They have built an impressive slate of original programming and pioneered interactive entertainment on Xbox, such as the innovative reality series ‘Every Street United’ that succeeded in uniting audiences around the globe during the recent World Cup.
I am pleased that Nancy, Jordan and members of the XES team remain committed to new, original programming already in production like the upcoming documentary series ‘Signal to Noise’ whose first installment takes on the rise and fall of gaming icon Atari and of course, the upcoming game franchise series ‘Halo: Nightfall,’ and the ‘Halo’ Television series which will continue as planned with 343 Industries. Xbox will continue to support and deliver interactive sports content like ‘NFL on Xbox,’ and we will continue toenhance our entertainment offering on console by innovating the TV experience through the monthly console updates. Additionally, our app partnerships with world-class content providers bringing entertainment, sports and TV content to Xbox customers around the world are not impacted by this organizational change in any way and remain an important component of our Xbox strategy.
Change is never easy, but I believe the changes announced today help us better align with our long-term goals. We have an incredible opportunity ahead of us to define what the next generation of gaming looks like for the growing Xbox community. I have a great deal of confidence in this team and know that with clarity of focus on our mission and our customers we can accomplish great things together. We already have.
Thank you again for all you do for Xbox.
Phil
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Microsoft
Via: Recode
Snowden reports NSA employees intercept, share private nude photos
Edward Snowden is currently holed up in Russia, but the Guardian recently paid him a visit, and today published an interview today in which the former government contractor discussed numerous privacy violations, including the “routine enough” practice of intercepting nude photos shared privately through email and other means. According to Snowden, NSA employees come across nude photos on a regular basis, but rather than labeling such content as irrelevant, they often pass it along to colleagues. “They turn around in their chair and they show their co-worker. And their co-worker says: ‘Oh hey, that’s great. Send that to Bill down the way.’ And then Bill sends it to George, George sends it to Tom. And sooner or later this person’s whole life has been seen by all of these other people.”
Snowden reports that violations are often overlooked, with management unaware of specific instances due to the weak auditing in place with individual employee computers. In fact, he states that access to such content is seen as a “fringe benefit” of working in a surveillance position. You’ll likely disagree. “The fact that your private images, records of your private lives, records of your intimate moments have been taken from your private communications stream, from the intended recipient and given to the government without any specific authorization, without any specific need, is itself a violation of your rights.” You can see more in this excerpt of Snowden’s Guardian interview. The unabridged version is due to appear tomorrow.
[Photo credit: AP/Pavel Golovkin]
Filed under: Internet
Via: Ars Technica
Source: The Guardian
NVIDIA’s Shield tablet leaks with Tegra Note styling
We’ve been hearing rumblings about NVIDIA’s slate-style Shield successor, and now we have a face to go with the info. Thanks to noted leaker @evleaks, we’re given a glimpse of the gaming tablet’s front side. From the looks of it, speakers line the top and bottom (or left and right in landscape) of the display with what appears to be a front-facing camera as well. All told, the gunmetal gray color scheme drapes a design that resembles last year’s Tegra Note. As far as internals go, previous rumblings point to 7.9-inch screen with 2GB of RAM and a quad-core Tegra K1 CPU, complete with Unreal Engine 4 abilities. What remains to be see is if that controller we got a peek at a while back is an accessory to wrangle traditional controls or if the new NVIDIA slate will also double as a home console for PC title streaming. We shouldn’t’ have to wait long for a proper introduction though, as the company has already hinted that the official reveal will happen before the end of 2014.
Filed under: Gaming, Tablets, NVIDIA
Source: @evleaks
Xbox Live and PlayStation Network are both having issues, but Nintendo Network is fine
Excited to play the Destiny on PlayStation Network? You’re not the only one, and demand as the game’s beta opened its doors today seems to have the service stumbling. A message on the PlayStation Knowledge Center says PSN access is “Intermittently available” so if it’s working, great but don’t be surprised if you notice some odd behavior. Xbox fans shouldn’t be too quick to point fingers though, since besides waiting another week to try out an early version of Bungie’s next big game you may also experience issues with Xbox Live. The Xbox Live Dashboard points out problems for some users signing in or accessing the Video and Music services, but says there is a team working on it and promises another updated within the half hour. Since Nintendo Network appears to be running just fine, we can only assume which culprit is behind this.
Update: The PlayStation Network status has been upgraded to “online” so go forth and beta test freely.
Having Xbox Live connectivity issues on the Xbox One? The proper teams are on it! More updates being posted here: http://t.co/99xfLNeme4 ^AC
– Xbox Support (1-5) (@XboxSupport) July 17, 2014
If you are having issues connecting to PSN, please try again later. Thanks for your patience as we look into it.
– Ask PlayStation (@AskPlayStation) July 17, 2014
Filed under: Gaming, HD, Sony, Microsoft
Via: Joystiq (1), (2)
AIVAnet 