Media update w.1836

Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything – this weeks moto referencing Nike ad with Kaepernick.

Today is the 50th general election in Sweden since 1866 Wiki – meaning tomorrow we’ll have a new distribution in the parliament and possibly a new Prime minister. I’ll write a special statistics note on the election tomorrow so check-in on the website. Here’s the election summary from Sweden.se.

And right now the current betting sites lists the probability of who the next Prime minister could be as Bettingstugan:

Tech & News

• How the tech industry and its investors are making stuff cheaper than ever. Literally trying to convince you to become a loyal customer by under pricing their own costs WSJ.  
• Fortnite reaches 15 million installs on Android without being present on Google Playstore TechCrunch
• Jack Ma said to retire from Alibaba on Monday according to NY Times 
• US Tech stocks were hurt last week as Department of Justice questioned Twitter, Facebook, Google (who didn’t send a senior enough representative according to the DoJ) and its alikes in Senate hearings on how they intend to implement tougher restrictions to make sure foreign governments can’t abuse the platforms Bloomberg  – A quick outcome of the hearings issued by the DoJ reads as follow WashingtonPost
• Nike and Colin Kaepernick ad creates debate in the US here are two versions of the story Fox and CNN and a summary from NYTimes
• Fox | CNN | NyTimes
• Google Chrome celebrates 10 years (Sept 2nd) and now puts focus towards AI and AR solutions VentureBeat
• On the same note Nike is the brand with most followers on their Instagram with 80 M followers, Second place is Victorias Secret. Why is this important – because Instagram is about to build a stand alone app for shopping TheVerge
• DARPA announced an initiative to invest USD 2 Bn in AI research over the next five years TechCrunch| Swedish entrepreneur Alfred Ruth has some contrary opinions on AI DiDigital
• In LA last week I tried and couldn’t NOT notice the Birds, Limes etc that were literally everywhere in Santa Monica and Venice. Literally everywhere. Now Voi is launching in Stockholm. Must say though – it is very convenient. Looking forward to see if it sticks and how it handles the Stockholm winter season… DiDigital

Media

• Bonnier group spins out several companies as it seeks to potentially sell off existing assets and narrow its focus DI
• Northzone confirms investment in Swedish start-up focused on audiobooks in Arabic DiDigital
• Story claiming Apple will make USD 44 Bn from its media play by 2025 Investopedia
• Totally not newsworthy but here’s how to browse Netflix more efficiently unless you use Playpilot LifeHacker
• Content on OTT platforms must have at least 30% local content (European content) within the EU the EU claims Variety
• Expect the above decision to continue to expand on the already highest ever production spend that landed on £2.74 Bn in 2017 in the UK Deadline
• Average of an OTT subscription video service is 30 months overall but market leaders Netflix, Amazon and Hulu
• Spotify starting to sign direct licensing deals with a small number of independent artists NyTimes
• Baidu’s video streaming service have raised USD 100 M in series B-round ChinaMoneyNetwork

Transportation

• How Lyft is pulling ahead in the IPO race against Uber Pitchbook
• Elon Musk smoking weed on live podcast => share price dropped… TheGuardian
• How the Uber CEO have tackled his first year on the job and his competition from Lyft TheWired

XR

• Apple is hiring AR–developers, evidence they are building something AR is stacking up… BGR
• Unity CEO says consumer adoption of VR simply haven’t happened yet UploadVR
• CEO of Unity further says ⅔ of all AR and VR apps are built on Unity VentureBeat

Statistics

Pictures from last weeks visit and spotting of e-scooters in LA