Apple’s magazine subscription service is starting to take shape. The tech giant is expected to announce the service at a March 25 press event. Analysts also expect the iPhone maker to unveil a TV streaming service that will compete more directly with Netflix and Hulu. Read more…
Category: Technology
Chinese news agency Xinhua’s first female artificial intelligence (AI) news presenter signals a threat to human news readers.
Other reading:
The Fight to Be a Middle-Aged Female News Anchor: “The average age of the anchors who lost their jobs was 46.8, while their replacements averaged 38.1 years. In one case, the difference was more than two decades,” reporter Steve Cavendish writes in the New York Times.
Older women on US television send subliminal message, Gillian Tett writes in the Financial Times.
Fewer Americans rely on TV news; what type they watch varies by who they are, according to Pew Research Center.
% of U.S. adults who get news on each TV segment
| 2017 | 2016 | |
| Local TV | 37% | 46% |
| Network TV | 26% | 30% |
| Cable TV | 28% | 31% |
% of U.S. adults who get news often on each platform
| 2018 | 2016 | |
| TV | 49% | 57% |
| News website | 33% | 28% |
| Radio | 26% | 25% |
| Social media | 20% | 18% |
| Print newspapers | 16% | 20% |
Fitbit is testing a rewards program as the maker of wearable fitness trackers debuts four lower-priced devices. Read more…
AT&T’s managerial shakeup at its WarnerMedia unit marks one of the first times in recent memory that media industry job cuts aren’t happening at an embattled publisher. Read more…
Percentage of Streaming Viewers Who Use Another Subscriber’s Account
| Group (Birth Years*) / Service | Netflix | Amazon Prime Video | Hulu |
| Millennials (1981-1996) | 18.1% | 17.7% | 20.0% |
| Generation X (1965-1980) | 8.9% | 12.7% | 16.7% |
| Baby Boomers (1946-1964) | 10.9% | 19.5% | 17.8% |
| Total | 15% | 16.5% | 19.2% |
Source: CordCutters.com survey of 1,127 people using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk; 50.9 percent of survey participants were men, and 49.1 percent were women. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 81 with a mean of 37 and a standard deviation of 11.9. Respondents were disqualified from the survey if they didn’t use a video streaming service.
*Birth years from Pew Research Center.
Pandora debuted a tool called Pandora Stories that lets creators make playlists that combine music tracks with their audio commentary. Read more…
Apple, Samsung, Fitbit and Fossil’s combined share of the smartwatch market will slide to 47% of global shipments by 2023 from an estimated 58% last year, per a forecast from Juniper Research. Read more…
Google and Facebook Worsen Media Bias
Google and Facebook have gained editorial influence over the press with content guidelines for participation in advertising services, writes Mark Esptein in the Wall Street Journal.
The Stark Political Divide Between Tech CEOs and Their Employees
Media outlets have failed to differentiate the people who own the industry from the people who work in it is causing the media to misread the rising wave of rank-and-file rebellion, write Moira Weigel and Ben Tarnoff in the New Republic.
Amazon’s extensive relationship with the NSA, FBI, Pentagon and other surveillance agencies in the west is multi-faceted, highly lucrative and rapidly growing, writes Glenn Greenwald in the Intercept.
UK Cairncross Report
Online news sites need ‘code of conduct’, says UK media review
Technology groups should be forced by a new regulator to ensure their platforms distribute quality news, according to a U.K. government report. “As long as tech giants continue to completely dominate the market it’s difficult to see how a sustainable financial footing for journalism can be achieved,” Tom Watson, Labour’s shadow culture secretary, said.
Public funds should be used to rescue local journalism, says report
Dame Frances Cairncross’s report on ways to support high-quality journalism in Britain concluded there should be a public investigation into the dominance of Facebook and Google in the advertising marketplace.
Facebook this month will add a feature to its app and website that lets users see how their contact information is used for ad targeting. Read more…
Other reading:
Germany to restrict Facebook’s data gathering activities
How Facebook’s Tiny China Sales Floor Helps Generate Big Ad Money
Delay, Deny, and Deal Flow: Two New York Times Reporters Cash in on Seven-Figure Facebook Opus
Apple’s Next Move: Be More Like Microsoft
“Samsung announced Monday that Apple’s iTunes software—and the video library it lets people make purchases from—will be available on its smart TVs. In addition, these TVs will support AirPlay 2, Apple’s wireless standard that allows Apple’s iPhones and other devices to stream content directly to those TVs. That was followed by a flurry of AirPlay 2 announcements from other TV makers including LG, Vizio and Sony. In December, Amazon announced that Apple Music was coming to Echo speakers.” – Christopher Mims, The Wall Street Journal
Apple’s Tim Cook maintains optimism despite iPhone sales slide
“A total of more than 900 million iPhones were in active use at the end of 2018, Apple revealed on Tuesday, up 75 million or 9 percent over the past year. Ben Bajarin, analyst at Creative Strategies, said that the statistic — which Apple has never disclosed before — was ‘much bigger than most people thought.’” – Tim Bradsaw, The Financial Times
Apple Is Planning 3-D Cameras for New iPhones in AR Push
“Apple plans to launch iPhones with a more-powerful 3-D camera as soon as next year, stepping up the company’s push into augmented reality, according to people familiar with the plans. The rear-facing, longer-range 3-D camera is designed to scan the environment to create three-dimensional reconstructions of the real world.” – Mark Gurman and Debby Wu, Bloomberg News
Apple Plans Bigger Video Presence As ‘The Bundle Breaks Down’
Apple CEO Tim Cook “outlined a handful of ways in which Apple plans to play in that space, including the Apple TV device, selling third-party video subscriptions, and original content.” – Alex Weprin, Media Daily News