After overwhelmingly going virtual in 2020, major groups are committing increasingly to holding in-person conferences this year, our survey found, despite the lingering pandemic threat and as vaccination deployments must race to keep up with evolving COVID-19 variants. Public health experts said in interviews that large in-person gatherings might prove safe by summer, but much will hinge on vaccine rollouts and the virus trajectory.
Despite more than a 30%-plus jump in video streaming in 2020, as consumers ratcheted up their viewing time during stay-at-home orders, there’s still a large revenue opportunity in transactional video, Eddie Cunningham, Universal Pictures & Warner Media president-Studio Distribution Services (S.D.S), told a virtual Digital Entertainment Group Expo Wednesday.
General Motors is positioning its new BrightDrop e-commerce fulfillment startup as a “greener and more efficient platform for commercial customers to deliver the things we want, while delivering better cities,” Travis Katz, the subsidiary’s president-CEO, told a Bank of America virtual investor conference Monday. With e-commerce demand soaring, “consumers are increasingly saying they want their packages delivered without harming the environment,” said Katz, a former Trip.com and News Corp. executive.
Americans are feeling “good” but cautious, said a Tuesday Resonate report, citing a survey fielded Feb. 22-March 10, after 107 million COVID-19 vaccines had been administered. The number of people worrying about pandemic health consequences to an "extremely large extent” dropped by 2.7 percentage points from early February to 16.4%. Those “completely likely” to get a vaccine rose 19.2% from November and 3.1 points from February to 45.7%, it said. About 38.2% were slightly to very likely to get a vaccine; 16.1% were not at all likely to get one vs. 17.3% last month and slightly over 20% in December.
Lawyers for the roughly 3,700 Section 301 complaints inundating the U.S. Court of International Trade reached consensus on picking the first-filed HMTX Industries-Jasco Products action as the sole sample case in the massive litigation, and on seating 15 among their ranks for the plaintiffs’ steering committee, said HMTX-Jasco counsel Akin Gump in the lawyers’ “coordinated proposal” (in Pacer) Friday. Though plaintiffs “cannot guarantee 100% agreement on every issue on behalf of every single counsel,” they are “not aware of any objection to this proposal after repeated consultations and opportunities for review,” it said.
Universal Electronics Inc. executives pointed to LG’s UEI home dashboard as an example of its vision combining home entertainment and smart home on a Friday investor webcast. The dashboard -- viewable on smart TVs and second screens -- displayed TVs, Bluetooth surround speakers and connected appliances, as the remote control maker looks to capitalize on the growing smart home market, a $4 billion opportunity, via its Nevo Butler gateway and QuickSet software.
Most consumers need to be educated on what 5G is and what it can do for them, said Verizon Consumer Group CEO Ronan Dunne at a Fierce Wireless virtual event. It means new uses, first for business and then consumers, he said. Most of the focus Monday was on open radio access networks. Vodafone expects the first commercial deployments this year, said Santiago Tenorio, network architecture team head.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., will introduce legislation, potentially this week, to amend Communications Decency Act Section 230 liability protections, giving consumers the ability to sue when harmed by illegal online content, she said Monday (see 2009240062). Her Online Consumer Protection Act will be part of the discussion when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testify Thursday before House Commerce Committee members (see 2103190054), said Schakowsky during an event hosted by Common Sense Media and the Real Facebook Oversight Board.
Amazon’s score last week in NFL long-term media rights distribution agreements is a “big win” for the tech giant, LightShed Partners wrote investors Friday. The long-term media distribution rights agreements with Amazon, CBS, ESPN/ABC, Fox and NBC take effect in 2023 and run through 2033, said the NFL Thursday.
The FTC needs to review past agency antitrust analysis to determine where tools have been misused and what predictions have been incorrect, acting Chair Rebecca Kelly Slaughter told the House Antitrust Subcommittee Thursday. She responded to Chairman David Cicilline, D-R.I., and ranking member Ken Buck, R-Colo. Those lawmakers' opening remarks questioned FTC's reported reluctance in 2013 to pursue an antitrust lawsuit against Google, despite a recommendation from agency investigators.