Is there a 'dark side' to Amazon drones, Google robots?

I've got Amazon.com drones in my future.I use Amazon's Prime delivery service for everything from rechargable batteries to art books to beef jerky, and so I was quite taken aback when CEO Jeff Bezos showcased a drone delivery system called Prime Air on 60 Minutes this past weekend. The idea is that packages below five pounds could be delivered straight from Amazon distribution centers to customers within 30 minutes using drones.

For now, it seems like half pipe dream, half pseudo-marketing: As many have observed, it probably wasn't a coincidence that the 60 Minutes segment aired on Sunday ahead of Cyber Monday, the busiest online shopping day of the year -- a good time for Amazon to be in the news.

Since Sunday's show, media coverage of Bezo's plan has overwhelmingly focused on the technical and logistical aspects of Prime Air.

For example, will the FAA be okay with all these drones flying around? Are they safe enough to fly around crowded cities and neighborhoods? And can Amazon economically operate what would be a presumably large fleet of drones?

And Amazon's not the only one in this game. The Verge reported that United Parcel Service is researching delivery drones, too.

Additionally, we learned this week that Google acquired seven robotics companies, which, according to a New York Times report, "are capable of creating technologies needed to build a mobile, dexterous robot."

Source: usatoday

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Padora Following Script that could keep crushing shorts

I'm not sure why I let this stuff bother me so much. I guess, at the end of every hard-earned day ... if I expect to still find some reason to believe, I need to cue up Springsteen and then call out financial media injustice. This time with respect to Pandora.

It's a shame to see Seeking Alpha, the site that provided me and so many of my friends and colleagues with an excellent platform to learn and grow from, devolve into a sweatshop for uninformed and poorly-researched "Short Ideas."

There's a "contributor" to Seeking Alpha who stands out among the handful who constantly publish bearish Pandora proclamations. This person only rises from the pack because his short theses do not stand up to even the lightest journalistic eyeball or most casual edit.

I presume Seeking Alpha has stopped using editors because the ones I worked with between 2011 and 2012 would have never let this sort of tripe get past them.

In "Quoth the Raven's" most recent Pandora piece, he tells us that ...

Clearly, the active listeners have started to hit some type of plateau ...

He makes this case void of any context whatsoever beyond what he can pull from his clearly uninformed and shamefully opportunistic perch.

Source: thestreet

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Macy's Bloomingdale's to open to downtown Miami Worldcenter

Miami’s cachet as an international shopping Mecca is taking a quantum leap forward.

Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s unveiled plans to open new stores at Miami Worldcenter, the outsized, mixed-use project planned for downtown’s Park West district, which is west of Biscayne Boulevard across from AmericanAirlines Arena.

Macy’s Inc., the parent of both retailing heavyweights, expects by late 2016 to open a 195,000-square-foot Macy’s and a 120,000-square-foot Bloomingdale’s, anchoring three levels of retail comprising another 425,000 square feet.

The Forbes Company and Taubman Centers Inc., two prominent regional mall developers, formed a joint venture to develop the urban mall on a 10-acre site it is acquiring from Miami Worldcenter Associates.

Miami Worldcenter Associates, headed by Nitin Motwani and Art Falcone, is the master developer overseeing the redevelopment of some 27 acres of prime downtown property that currently includes parking lots, night clubs, an art house and a tech accelerator. Earlier development efforts had stalled during the real estate crash, but the venture has since gained momentum.

The working name for the shopping center is The Mall at Miami Worldcenter.

“Our hopes are to break ground in late 2014,” said Nathan Forbes, managing partner of Forbes, based in Southfield, Mich.

Source: sfgate

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NBC's 'The Sound of Music Live'

Few people would mistake the Long Island commuter town of Bethpage (elevation: 105 feet) for the Austrian Alps. But on a vast soundstage in an anonymous industrial park about 45 minutes from Manhattan sits a gently sloping, man-made hill that will double for one of that country's scenic peaks on Thursday.

That's when NBC unveils "The Sound of Music Live!," a three-hour televised version of the 1959 Rodgers & Hammerstein musical featuring country music megastar Carrie Underwood in the iconic role of free-spirited nun-turned-governess Maria.

On a recent afternoon the "American Idol" winner, looking mildly rebellious in black skinny jeans and a Rolling Stones T-shirt, wandered through the ersatz landscape, rehearsing the titular opening number as Beth McCarthy-Miller, one of two directors on the show, watched the action on a flat-screen monitor about 50 feet away. They were in the middle of a long day of camera-blocking, the painstaking process by which cast and crew work out the precise choreography of the upcoming live telecast.

Source: latimes

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Why Drone Delivery Won't Replace the UPS Guy

When Jeff Bezos, the C.E.O. of Amazon, told “60 Minutes” this week that his company was experimenting with having drones deliver its packages, he seemed to be conjuring up a future in which fleets of flying …

United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS), currently valued at $94.43B, started trading this morning at $101.46.

During today’s session, UPS traded between $101.46 to $102.08 with the price of the stock fluctuating between $72.58 to $103.04 over the last 52 weeks.

UPS shares are currently priced at 21.37x this year’s forecasted earnings, which makes them relatively inexpensive compared to the industry’s 35.55x earnings multiple for the same period.

And for income investors, the company pays shareholders $2.48 per share annually in dividends, yielding 2.40%.

Consensus earnings for the current quarter by the 27 sell-side analysts covering the stock is an estimate of $1.43 per share, which would be $0.11 better than the year-ago quarter and a $0.00 sequential decrease. In looking at the bigger picture, the full-year EPS estimate of $4.76 would be a $0.23 improvement when compared to the previous year’s annual results.

The quarterly earnings estimate is based on a consensus revenue forecast of the current quarter of $15.11 Billion. If realized, that would be a 3.71% increase over the year-ago quarter.

Source: jutiagroup

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Nelson Mandela dead at 95

Nobel laureate and human rights campaigner spent 27 years in prison.Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid icon who became the first president of a democratic South Africa, passed away Thursday at his home in Johannesburg after a prolonged lung infection. He was 95.

South African President Jacob Zuma announced that Mandela, "the founding president of our democratic nation, has departed," adding that he "passed on peacefully."

"Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father," Zuma said.

"Our thoughts are with the millions of people who embraced Mandela as their own and who saw his cause as their cause.… This is the moment of our deepest sorrow.”

Mandela will be accorded a state funeral, Zuma said, and national flags will be lowered to half-mast.

"We saw in him what we seek in ourselves. And in him we saw so much of ourselves," he said. "Nelson Mandela brought us together and it is together that we will bid him farewell."

Mandela's respiratory problems in recent years may have been connected to his imprisonment, when he contracted tuberculosis after working in a prison quarry. He had been in hospital in recent months.

Mandela was a prominent international figure for more than half a century, first as a leading human rights campaigner in South Africa and then as the world's best-known political prisoner.

Source: cbc

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Actor Walker died from multiple injuries in crash

"Fast & Furious" actor Paul Walker died from multiple injuries in a weekend car crash, the Los Angeles County coroner said on Wednesday, as Universal Pictures suspended production of the seventh installment in its lucrative car racing film franchise.

Walker, 40, was a passenger in a fiery one-car crash on Saturday in Santa Clarita, California, about 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles, that also killed 38-year-old driver Roger Rodas.

The coroner said Walker's death resulted from "traumatic and thermal injuries." While the coroner did not elaborate, thermal injuries are heat-related and are commonly burns.

Universal, owned by Comcast Corp, said filming of the big-budget action movie has been put on hold for an unspecified amount of time as it decides how to continue production without Walker.

"At this time we feel it is our responsibility to shut down production on 'Fast & Furious 7' for a period of time so we can assess all options available to move forward with the franchise," Universal Pictures said in a statement.

The film, which began production in September, is currently scheduled to be released in theaters on July 11, 2014.

Source: reuters

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