Hulu has had a tumultuous 2013, as it lost founding CEO Jason Kilar in January, then went through the sale process, again, before sticking with its original owners, again. Confirming last week's rumors from Bloomberg and Reuters, the new CEO is Mike Hopkins, most recently head of distribution for ...
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/KlsXyaZZhRI/
It looks like Nintendo's Wii U is finally getting the shot in the arm it needs: according to the latest numbers, the console's sales jumped 200 percent last month. The company points to the Wii U's August price drop and the introduction of a limited-edition Legend of Zelda bundle for the increased ...
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/9-A87c3cjVk/The first time you see this latest picture of Saturn, you'll probably think it's fake. The rings are too perfectly round. The swirling surface of the planet is too smooth. The shadows are too sharp. But it's all real, thanks to the Cassini spacecraft and a Croatian software developer with too much time on his hands.
The image you see below is a brilliant, high definition composite of images that Cassini took when it flew by Saturn on October 10. The 36 shots amounted to 12 taken with a green filter, 12 with blue and 12 with red to approximate true color. It does better than approximate. In the days that followed, Gordan Ugarkovic, the aforementioned Croation software developer, pieced the 36 images into one massive 4000 x 3200 pixel mosaic, and since he's tinkered with space images before, Ugarkovic does a great job smoothing out the seams:
As Slate's Phil Plait points out, the extraordinary detail affords unique looks at the blue-tinged hexagonal polar vortex as well as a white band in the northern hemisphere that appears to be the remnants of a massive storm that rocked the planet last year. The rings are also profoundly well defined from the dark A ring on the outside to the faint C ring in the very middle. The B ring looks like the grooves of a tan-colored record. You can even see how light from the rings is reflected onto the planet's dark side.
Turns out 2013 has been a pretty good year for photographing Saturn. On July 19, Cassini captured this dramatic shot of Saturn and a few of its moons. (Fun fact: Saturn has at least 62 moons in total.) It almost feels like abstract art. [Discover, Slate]
Images via NASA / Gordan Ugarkovic
Intercontinental Group Holdings Limited's Honorary Group chairman Terry Lai and adviser Rigo Jesu will be honored with the CineAsia lifetime achievement award in distribution at this year's convention.
The duo will be recognized at a Dec. 12 awards ceremony set to take place at the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre.
"It is with great pleasure that we are able to honor Terry Lai and Rigo Jesu with the CineAsia 2013 lifetime achievement award in distribution," said Robert H. Sunshine, co-managing director of the annual convention. "Both Terry and Rigo have a long and acclaimed history that makes them a 'tour de force' in distribution, production, content creation, video, gaming and live performances."
Lai established Intercontinental Film Distributors (HK) Limitedin 1969 to produce and export Chinese films around the world. This success led to the establishment of Intercontinental Group Holdings Limited in 1996, which today is an organization more than 400 employees with a turnover in the HK$600 million range. Its businesses include film and video distribution, cinema operations, advertising and promotion services, video games distribution, e-commerce and character products merchandising.
Rigo began his career in entertainment at Capital Artists Limited, where he was promoted to the position of acting general manager in 1973. In 1980, he formed his own company, Jesu International Entertainment Limited, and later joined Intercontinental Film Distributors (H.K.) Limited, focusing mainly on the sourcing of foreign films and introducing them into Hong Kong. In 1985, he shuttered his business to focus on the growth and development of IFDL and its parent, Intercontinental Group Holdings Limited, as managing director. From 2005-11, he served as co-CEO of Intercontinental Group before shifting into the role of adviser.
CineAsia 2013 will take place from Dec. 10-12 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. It will feature screenings of upcoming Hollywood films, sponsored events, timely and informative seminars,and the CineAsia Trade Show.
CineAsia is produced by Prometheus Global Media, owner of The Hollywood Reporter.
The government shutdown has taken a toll on the nation's economy and despite a deal that sidesteps a debt default and restarts the government (at least for a few months), growth forecasts for the last quarter of the year are being scaled back.
Economist Mark Zandi, of Moody's Analytics, has shaved his gross domestic product forecast from 2.6 percent to 2.1 percent for the last three months of the calendar year.
"If the treasury fails to make payments to Social Security recipients and Medicare providers, to bondholders, whoever that may be, it would clearly undermine (investor) confidence and would lay the foundation for the economy going back into recession," Zandi says. "And if this would extend for any length of time, into November, I think the recession we would see would be severe, on par with the Great Recession, the downturn we just went through."
Standard & Poor's says the 16-day partial shutdown cost U.S. taxpayers $24 billion. It reduced its projected fourth quarter growth from 3 percent to 2.4 percent.
"Even with the shutdown of the United States government and the threat of a default coming to an end, the cost of Congress's gridlock has already run well into the billions, economists estimate. And the total will continue to grow even after the shutdown ends, partly because of uncertainty about whether lawmakers might reach another deadlock early next year.
A complete accounting will take months once the government reopens and the Treasury resumes adding to the country's debt. But economists said that the intransigence of House Republicans would take a bite out of fourth-quarter growth, which will affect employment, business earnings and borrowing costs. The ripple from Washington will be felt around the globe."
And The Washington Post writes:
"[The] the biggest failure of the agreement, analysts say, is that it keeps the government operating for only a few months, with a new need to fund agencies and raise the debt ceiling coming in the first five weeks of 2014.
As a result, economists say, consumers and businesses are likely to hold back on spending and investment during the important holiday season, knowing that a similarly economy-shaking political showdown might be right around the corner.
'If people are afraid that the government policy brinkmanship will resurface again, and with it the risk of another shutdown or worse, they'll remain afraid to open up their checkbooks,' Standard & Poor's U.S. chief economist Beth Ann Bovino said in an analysis. 'That points to another Humbug holiday season.'"
In the Federal Reserve's monthly Beige Book report, released on Wednesday, the central bank cited fears that the shutdown would have an impact on consumer and business confidence.
FILE - In this Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012, file photo, Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts speaks at the National Retail Federation's annual convention in New York. Apple said Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013, that Ahrendts, who used technology to drive a remarkable turnaround at Burberry, will take charge of Apple's expansion plans and retail operation, as she will become a senior vice president at the company next spring. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
FILE - In this Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012, file photo, Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts speaks at the National Retail Federation's annual convention in New York. Apple said Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013, that Ahrendts, who used technology to drive a remarkable turnaround at Burberry, will take charge of Apple's expansion plans and retail operation, as she will become a senior vice president at the company next spring. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple is entrusting the elegant stores that help define its brand to Angela Ahrendts, a respected executive who blended fashion sense with technological savvy to establish Burberry as a mark of luxury and success.
The hiring announced Tuesday is a coup for Apple Inc. Besides providing the Cupertino, Calif. company with another sharp mind, Ahrendts should help Apple deflect potential criticism about the lack of women in the upper ranks of its management.
Silicon Valley's long-running reliance on men to make key decisions has come into sharper focus as online messaging service Twitter Inc. prepares to go public. Twitter's closely scrutinized IPO documents called attention to the San Francisco company's all-male board of directors and the presence of just one woman in its executive inner circle.
Apple has one woman, former Avon Products Inc. CEO Andrea Jung, among the eight directors on its board.
Ahrendts will report directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook when she leaves Burberry to join Apple next spring in a newly created position of senior vice president of senior vice president in charge of retail and online stores.
In a memo sent Tuesday to Apple employees, Cook said he knew he wanted to hire Ahrendts from the time the two met in January and realized "she shares our values and our focus on innovation."
Ahrendts telegraphed her admiration of Apple in 2010 when The Wall Street Journal asked her if she was trying to mold Burberry into something similar to other luxury brands in the fashion industry.
"I don't look at Gucci or Chanel or anyone," Ahrendts told the Journal. "If I look to any company as a model, it's Apple. They're a brilliant design company working to create a lifestyle, and that's the way I see us."
Ahrendts' arrival comes at a crucial time for Apple and the stores that serve as the main showcase for its iPhones, iPads, iPods and Mac computers.
Like the rest of the company, Apple's stores aren't doing quite as well as they once were, primarily because tougher competition has forced the company to trim its prices.
For instance, in Apple's quarter ending in late June, average revenue per store declined 9 percent from the previous year to $10.1 million. Even more troubling, the retail division's operating profit for the quarter dropped 19 percent from last year to $667 million. Apple ended the period with 408 stores located in 13 countries.
The stores, which are staffed by nearly 42,000 workers, may have been suffering from a management void. Ron Johnson, a former Target Inc. executive credited for turning Apple's stores into a thriving operation, left the company in 2011 to become CEO of J.C. Penney Co. Johnson's successor, John Browett, left Apple in a management shake-up a year ago. Since then, the stores have been under the management of a lower-level executive and the senior vice president job remained vacant.
This will mark the first time that the Apple's senior vice president in charge of its brick-and-mortar stores also will be in charge of the company's online sales.
In his memo to Apple employees, Cook said he never had met an executive capable of doing both jobs until he got to know Ahrendts.
"She believes in enriching the lives of others and she is wicked smart," Cook wrote.
Ahrendts, 53, proved her ability to galvanize a well-established brand during the past seven years working in London as Burberry's CEO.
Burberry, established in 1856, was growing stale until Ahrendts came along to build upon the popularity of its trench coats by adding more flair and panache to the company's fashion line-up.
To help build buzz, the company brought more technology to the catwalk by streaming its fashion shows through online outlets such as Twitter. The strategy boosted Burberry's sales as Web surfers bought the fancy coats, shoes and bags the company previewed.
In the latest measure of Burberry's success under Ahrendts, the company's quarterly results released Tuesday disclosed that sales rose 14 percent to 1 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) in the first half of this year.
Ahrendts worked closely with Burberry's top creative officer, Christopher Bailey, who will become CEO when she leaves.
Although she is now a prominent fashion figure, Ahrendts comes from humble roots. She grew up in New Palestine, Indiana, which was a city with a population of about 2,000 in her youth. She graduated from Ball State University located about 50 miles from her home town.
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Associated Press writer Danica Kirka in London contributed to this story.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-10-15-Apple-Burberry/id-5313b6b1c1b74af38a7b6436fbf238abApple is cutting back production of its lower-cost iPhone 5C for the fourth quarter, according to sources close to the two Taiwanese companies that assemble the devices. The news gives ammunition to analysts who questioned the company's pricing strategy for the new addition to the iPhone line.
The colorful, plastic encased iPhone 5C debuted in September along with the high-end iPhone 5S, which costs $100 more and comes with the fastest mass-market smartphone chips to date, along with a fingerprint sensor.
STORY: Apple iPhones Go on Sale in China, Posthaste
Apple told its Taiwanese assemblers Pegatron Corp. and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. that it would be cutting shipments of the iPhone 5C in the fourth quarter, sources told the Wall Street Journal.
Pegatron, which the Journal says assembles two thirds of Apple's iPhone 5Cs, was told orders would be cut by less than 20 percent. Hon Hai, which assembles the rest of Apple's 5Cs, was told its orders would be reduced by a third.
Prior to Apple's iPhone release event in September, investors had been anticipating, and arguing for, the company to release a lower-cost model -- with a price tag around $350 -- to compete in developing markets such as China, where the company has been losing market share because many consumers don't have the disposable income for its "affordable luxury" class products. The iPhone 5C was the company's answer to this demand, but analysts were disappointed by the $550-plus price point.
Consumer demand for the gold version of the 5S, however, has outstripped expectations, leading Apple to increase orders for that model.
