Apple CEO Tim Cook talks to an employee at a solar farm in Hanstholm, Denmark. | Photo by Christoph Dernbach / picture alliance via Getty Images
A new report compares climate initiatives by Apple, Dell, Google, HP, Microsoft, and Nvidia. Apple’s far from perfect, but so far, it’s ahead of the pack, according to today’s report.
It’s the only company among the six tech giants that has set targets for its suppliers to switch to renewable energy. “Other brands need to send similarly clear signals to their suppliers,” Gary Cook, global climate policy director for the nonprofit Stand.earth that published the report, said in a press release.
To be sure, a completely separate report published by a different environmental group last week casts some doubt on Apple’s recent carbon neutral claims. Stand.earth’s new report, however, puts Apple’s broader climate initiatives in perspective by...
Laker legend-turned-actor Rick Fox has a new passion: sustainable concrete. | Image: Partanna
A new house in the Bahamas is built with an alternative concrete that sucks CO2 out of the air. It’s a home that’s supposed to help in the fight against climate change, and the plan is to build 999 more like it.
That’s the slam dunk NBA Lakers legend-turned-actor Rick Fox is working toward now on the small island nation where he grew up. Fox is the CEO and co-founder of the sustainable building materials startup Partanna that unveiled its first home today. If they’re successful in the Bahamas, the goal is to make its alternative concrete an everyday building material that could cut down pollution from construction.
“I shut down my entire career that was in Hollywood to pursue and create [climate] solutions,” Fox tells The Verge. “I had...
The Victrola Stream Onyx turntable wirelessly transmits audio to Sonos speakers. | Image by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Yes, it’s sad that Amazon’s fall Prime Day event is over, but the future — and even the present — still looks bright for deal hunters. Black Friday is just over a month away, after all, and some of the best Prime Day deals are still hanging around. Right now, for example, you can pick up the Victrola Stream Onyx turntable from Amazon, Best Buy, and direct from Victrola for a record low of $399.99 ($200 off).
Save for a few differences when it comes to materials and color, the Stream Onyx is similar to the $800 Stream Carbon we tested last year. Like the Carbon, the belt-driven turntable can wirelessly transmit audio to Sonos speakers, which gives users the unique ability to stream vinyl straight to their entire Sonos system without the...
God bless Mark Hamill and his willingness to still say this after nearly 50 years. | Image: State Department / Screenshot
The first thing we see is the planet Earth, floating in space like the beautiful marble it is before plunging through a wormhole and racing across space. We emerge in a well-lit California living room in front of an older man with a graying goatee and a familiar voice.
“Hello, I’m Mark Hamill,” he says. “The guy who played ‘Luke’ in all those Star Wars movies.”
As if we needed to be reminded. Hamill is lending his famous face and voice to the US State Department for a series of videos about — what else? — space. The six-part series, which is now live on the State Department’s website, touches on a variety of space innovations, such as microbes, astronauts staying fit in space, maintaining muscle mass, advancing robots that track...
Fostering Innovation Within a Thriving Ecosystem Supporting 3.5 Million Global Users
PHOENIX, AZ – October 4, 2023 – Crexendo, Inc.(NASDAQ:CXDO) (“Crexendo” or the “Company”), an award-winning premier provider of cloud communication platform and services, video collaboration, and managed IT services, today announced the lineup of sponsors for its upcoming annual User Group Meeting (“UGM”). This year’s sponsor list reflects the largest and most diverse partner ecosystem in Crexendo®‘s history and promises to be a landmark gathering of industry leaders, influencers, and visionaries.
Crexendo®‘s NetSapiens Platform UGM is an annual event that brings partners together from the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia to share insights, best practices, and innovation while fostering collaboration and knowledge-sharing. The Company’s NetSapiens Platform partner community supports a rapidly growing base of over 3.5 million users globally, and the event has become one of the cornerstone experiences for thought leaders within the cloud communication industry.
This year’s event will be held in Scottsdale, Arizona, from October 16 to 19. The multi-day experience will include engaging keynote presentations, dynamic panel discussions, immersive workshops, and high-impact networking opportunities.
A selection of the record 40+ sponsors participating in this year’s event are listed below, representing the widest and most diverse grouping in the event’s history. Sponsors will be actively participating in the event, providing domain expertise and expert views through discussions and demonstrations.
Event Sponsor: HP | Poly
Platinum Sponsor: Rev.io, TelCloud, CallCabinet, Ozonetel, Yealink and Ruckus Networks
“Our UGM provides a collaborative forum for industry leaders, influencers, experts, and enthusiasts to dive into cutting-edge trends and advancements in cloud communication and customer experience technologies,” said Jeff Korn, CEO of Crexendo®. “We are excited to have such a robust and diverse group of partners supporting this year’s gathering. Their involvement highlights our collective commitment to driving innovation and delivering exceptional solutions in the cloud communication space. Together, we are shaping the future of cloud communication technology.”
For more information about Crexendo®‘s NetSapiens platform, please visit this link.
About Crexendo®
Crexendo®, Inc. is an award-winning premier provider of cloud communication platforms and services, video collaboration, and managed IT services designed to provide enterprise-class cloud solutions to any size business. Our solutions currently support over three and a half million end users globally. To learn more about Crexendo®, visit www.crexendo.com.
Introduction of IntelePeer. AI and Company’s AI Hub reflect Company’s advances in AI
Dania Beach, FL – October 2, 2023 –IntelePeer, a leading provider of AI-powered communications automation solutions, introduces its new website: IntelePeer.ai created to align with its strengthened commitment to leading the communications automation market with best-in-class generative AI solutions. Additionally, the Company introduces its new AI Hub for facilitating the secure integration of AI technologies and customer data into its suite of Smart products to enhance customer interaction automation and workflow capabilities exponentially.
“This evolution reinforces our strategic direction as AI being foundational to all our products and solutions moving forward,” said IntelePeer CEO, Frank Fawzi. “The contact center of the future will be radically different as businesses look to decrease their cost of labor by incorporating more AI-powered solutions into their customer service environments. We have witnessed firsthand the benefits of integrating AI into existing corporate systems, and by transitioning to IntelePeer.ai and introducing the IntelePeer AI Hub, we situate ourselves as the ideal partner to help our customers execute their AI vision.”
The AI Hub is a one-stop-shop for IntelePeer’s team of engineers, CX experts, and partners, allowing them to quickly ingest customer data, test and deploy AI-driven communications automation solutions for the Company’s customers. AI Hub users helps the rapid building and deployment of bots to handle both inbound and outbound communications, fulfilling specific business needs. Key features include:
Omnichannel bot building and testing functionality,
secure and private customer data and information ingesting capabilities,
an AI modeling and testing environment,
embedded third-party AI platforms, including Azure’s OpenAI,
integration with IntelePeer SmartFlows a low-code platform for building communications and AI workflows,
security and compliance frameworks, and
performance monitoring capabilities.
“The AI Hub acts as a catalyst for the innovation of more advanced and efficient communications automation solutions and deployments by harnessing the power of AI technologies to optimize processes, enhance customer experience, and drive business growth for our customers while lowering the cost of doing business,” continued Fawzi.
“We are living through a once-in-a-lifetime moment in history driven by AI, and the team at IntelePeer is excited to be at the forefront of this revolution,” concluded Fawzi.
For information about IntelePeer products and services, visit: www.intelepeer.ai.
IntelePeer simplifies communications automation through advanced AI-powered solutions, helping businesses and contact centers reduce costs, enrich the customer experience, and accelerate ROI. Its AI-driven Communications Automation Platform works seamlessly within existing business software and infrastructure, enabling brands to automate complex processes quickly and effortlessly. Built for business users, IntelePeer’s vendor-neutral platform leverages world-class generative AI and analytics, empowering businesses to proactively resolve potential pain points and maintain context across channels and throughout the orchestrated customer journey.
Intermedia delivers exceptional value for customers, enabling more connected and engaged business to happen across the globe
SUNNYVALE, CA – October 3, 2023 – Intermedia Cloud Communications, a leading provider of intelligent cloud communications and collaboration solutions – including voice, video, chat, contact center, email, file management, archiving, productivity applications, and more – to businesses and the partners that serve them, today announced the expansion of free international calling to up to 33 countries for North America-based Intermedia Unite® users. This expansion aims to offer greater flexibility and cost-savings to businesses with global commercial relationships, enabling easier connections in a hybrid work world while enhancing overall engagement and productivity.
Named the Best Overall Business Voice-over-IP system (VoIP) by PC Magazine, Intermedia Unite is the cloud-based communication and collaboration solution that helps businesses achieve more productive, efficient employee collaboration and deliver more informed and responsive customer care and support. Backed by 99.999% uptime service level agreements (SLAs) and 24/7 J.D. Power-certified technical support, Unite users enjoy voice, video conferencing, team chat, file sharing and backup, as well as call queues, active call routing, contact directories, and many more contact center features. All are delivered and experienced on one highly reliable, secure, and deeply integrated platform.
With this latest development, users in North America will be able to place free outbound calls to up to 33 countries (depending on the version of Unite that is licensed by the user). This expansion will be implemented based on users’ licenses, ensuring seamless access to international communication options without incurring extra charges.
With the expansion of free international calling, Intermedia enables:
Cost-Savings for Businesses: With the ability to place free calls to an extensive range of countries, businesses can substantially reduce their communication expenses;
Easier Connectivity to Customers and Partners Across the Globe: As organizations grow, this expansion provides a seamless and cost-effective means for North American businesses to connect and communicate with colleagues, clients, and partners across the globe; and
Increased Engagement and Productivity: By removing communication barriers, businesses can foster better collaboration and engagement among teams, resulting in enhanced productivity and more efficient workflows.
Intermedia Cloud Communications is committed to providing innovative solutions that empower businesses with advanced communication capabilities. The company’s dedication to meeting the evolving needs of its customers is exemplified in this strategic move to expand free international calling.
“We are thrilled to offer our North America-based Intermedia Unite users the opportunity to place free calls to more people around the world through our expanded free international calling zone,” said Mark Sher, Senior Vice President of Product Marketing at Intermedia. “At a time when it seems everything is getting more expensive and businesses are spending more, Intermedia is committed to providing more value for our customers. This enhancement reinforces our focus on delivering cost-effective and efficient communication solutions that align with the changing landscape of the modern workplace.”
The expanded free international calling zone is scheduled to be rolled out to eligible users starting today. Calls to premium phone numbers (fixed or mobile) and other high-cost areas in the countries included in the free international calling zone will not be free and will be charged on a pay-per-use basis. To learn more about the changes to Intermedia’s free international calling zones, visit https://www.intermedia.com/products/unite/details/pbx-phone-system.
About Intermedia
Intermedia is a cloud communications company that helps over 135,000 businesses connect better – through voice, video conferencing, chat, SMS, contact center, business email and productivity, file sharing and backup, security, archiving, and more – from wherever, whenever. We strive to eliminate the need for multiple communications service providers with a seamlessly integrated portfolio of intelligent communications and collaboration solutions, including our flagship product, Intermedia Unite®, all delivered through one highly reliable and secure platform. With month-to-month contract options, one monthly bill, and one intuitive point of administrative control, and having been certified by J.D. Power for excellence in technical support seven times, Intermedia is committed to providing enterprise-grade products to businesses of all sizes through a simple, Worry-Free ExperienceTM.
As a partner-first company, Intermedia goes to work for over 7,500 channel partners by providing a comprehensive set of programs, resources, and support to help them grow their revenue and maximize their success. Programs include our Customer Ownership Reseller (CORE™) model – which enables partners to resell, package, and manage Intermedia’s solutions as if they were their own, while benefiting from highly attractive economic terms and maintaining ownership of their customer relationships – as well as agent models. Intermedia is also proud to be the exclusive cloud communications platform provider for NEC, a leader in global market share for unified communications with an estimated 80+ million business phone users worldwide.
The new Model Y for China looks a lot like the old one. | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge
Tesla's China arm announced in a WeChat post Sunday morning that it released a new Model Y with design and performance tweaks that keeps the same starting price as before (via Reuters). The new car follows the company’s release of the revamped "Highland" Model 3 in China, which also hit Europe early last month.
According to Tesla’s Chinese website, the Model Y now has a 0–100km/h time of 5.9 seconds, which Bloomberg notes in a report is slightly faster than before. The car gets new wheels and an ambient LED lighting strip in the dash, like the refreshed Model 3.
Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge
If you squint, you can see the new LED strip along the front.
The car starts at 263,900 yuan (about $37,000), and...
Satya Nadella appears in DC for US v. Google. | Image: Getty Images
On the stand in US v. Google, the Microsoft CEO said he’d do just about anything to make Bing better. Google’s lawyers said he should have been doing that for decades.
Clearly keen to not miss another opportunity to show how they’re slowly turning into Comcast, Netflix this week indicated they’d be pushing yet another price hike in the wake of the recently successful writers’ strike:
“Netflix is planning to increase the cost of its streaming service yet again, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The streamer will reportedly issue the price hike a “few months” after the Hollywood actors strike ends, which could happen in the coming weeks.”
The financial compensation writers were demanding was a pittance compared to Netflix’s ongoing earnings, so this is likely just a lazy opportunity to blame writers for the price hike the company was probably already planning. According to the WGA, the cost of their new contract will amount to just 0.2 percent of Netflix’s annual revenue.
The increase comes on the heels of an unpopular price hike the company implemented last year. It also comes shortly after the company’s decision to start nickel-and-diming users who share passwords with friends and family members, something Netflix openly supported until a saturated market forced the company to start chasing its tail in the never-ending quest to please Wall Street.
The unyielding quest by streaming companies to endlessly jack up prices as their product catalog shrinks and the overall quality deteriorates is the exact doom loop that traditional cable giants have been stuck in for the last fifteen years. Impatient Wall Street wants its improved quarterly returns at any cost, forcing most of the streaming companies to start nickel-and-diming their users at every opportunity.
Amazon recently announced it would be charging Prime users (who already pay $140 annually) an additional $3 a month just to avoid ads. Disney recently announced it would be following Netflix’s heels and cracking down on password sharing. Then there’s whatever nonsense the jumbled mess of detritus created by the pointless Time Warner Discovery merger is up to on any given week.
There’s still a bit of runway for these companies in terms of the consumer perception of value, but it’s becoming pretty clear they’re just going to keep pushing their luck until that relationship ultimately breaks. That will open the door wider for the streaming industry to be disrupted by Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok in the same way Netflix once disrupted Comcast.
Figma announced its Figma for Zoom app at Zoomtopia 2023 yesterday, which will enable teams to collaborate on Figma design files or a FigJam whiteboard via Zoom.
As a result, users will not need to share their screens or switch tabs, instead gaining increased interactions and face-to-face collaboration.
Zoom users will be able to install the new Figma for Zoom app from the Zoom marketplace on October 16, 2023.
The all-in-one product development design platform lets teams view, present, and comment on design files in real-time using Zoom.
Figma calls its design platform a “faster, more efficient way of working”, saving users time with powerful tools that reduce the manual tasks that can otherwise hamper progress.
For example, its fully responsive auto layout feature means users will not need to spend their time and energy manually resizing.
It also helps to automatically create consistency with design systems by standardising styles, components, and variables.
Amongst other capabilities, Figma Design can customise workflows, integrate tech stacks like Microsoft Teams and Asana, and it is accessible through both a browser and mobile app.
FigJam Integration
Figjam is an online whiteboard, which can be used for brainstorming ideas and other visual collaboration. Teams can now create a FigJam file within Zoom to hold meetings and workshop their ideas face-to-face.
Open sessions can also be initiated in FigJam to allow anyone within the meeting to participate, whether or not they have an account.
What is Figma?
Figma is a vector graphic editing software company, co-founded in 2012 by the current CEO of Figma, Dylan Field. Field, who reportedly dropped out of Brown University to work with start-ups, has grown Figma’s value to $10 billion, based on the company raising $200 million at a funding round in 2021.
In 2022, Adobe entered into a definite merger agreement to acquire Figma for roughly $20 billion in cash and stock.
At the time, Shantanu Narayen, Chairman and CEO of Adobe, expressed his optimism for the acquisition: “Adobe’s greatness has been rooted in our ability to create new categories and deliver cutting-edge technologies through organic innovation and inorganic acquisitions.
“The combination of Adobe and Figma is transformational and will accelerate our vision for collaborative creativity.”
The deal has recently come under scrutiny as the UK antitrust regulator announced an in-depth probe of the deal in July this year.
The previous month the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) had warned that the Figma buyout could “stifle innovation”, and lead to a reduced choice for designers and higher costs for companies using Adobe and Figma’s tools.
Adobe refused to make any changes to appease the regulator’s concerns, however, and the CMA has until December 27 to complete its investigation.
Even in orbit, no dumping rules apply. | PM Images/Getty Images
The FCC is cracking down on space litterbugs, starting with Dish Network.
We are surrounded by trash, and the Federal Communications Commission is trying to do something about it.
Since we’re talking about the FCC, which regulates communications and airwaves, we’re not talking about the more well-known trash in the oceans and on the ground. This is the garbage way, way up in the sky: space debris, an ever-increasing problem thanks to all of the things we shoot up into the air, much of which won’t come back down anytime soon. Included in this category — and under the FCC’s purview — are communications satellites.
The FCC doled out a first-of-its-kind fine to Dish Network for failing to uphold a debris mitigation plan for its EchoStar-7 satellite. Dish will now pay $150,000 and implement various measures to ensure that its other satellites don’t meet the same fate. The penalty may be a sign of things to come, both the increased scrutiny from the FCC and the need for it, due to the rapidly growing amount of space debris up there.
FCC Enforcement Bureau chief Loyaan A. Egal heralded the move as a “breakthrough,” saying in a statement that it made “very clear the FCC has strong enforcement authority and capability to enforce its vitally important space debris rules.”
This comes a few months after the agency established a dedicated Space Bureaucharged with overseeing space-based communications. Previously, this was done by an International Bureau, which has now been split into the Space Bureau and the Office of International Affairs. It also comes as satellites have become a more viable and common means of accessing the internet, thanks in part to Elon Musk’s Starlink, which brought high-speed, lower-latency internet to the most remote locations in the world and the front lines of Russia’s war in Ukraine. With its network of thousands of small satellites in low orbit, it’s also brought concerns about light pollution, crowding, and trash.
As orbits get more crowded with junk that can’t be controlled or moved out of the way, it becomes more likely that this debris will collide with stuff that isn’t trash. As Vox’s Rebecca Heilweil noted in 2021 after Russia shot down an old satellite with a missile, spreading debris everywhere:
These shards are spinning at incredibly fast speeds and risk hitting active satellites that power critical technologies, like GPS navigation and weather forecasting. Space debris like this is actually so dangerous that national security officials are worried it could be used as a weapon in a future space war. ...
These risks have only heightened concerns that we’re far from solving the space junk problem, especially as private companies and foreign governments launch thousands of new satellites into orbit — inevitably creating even more space junk.
It’s estimated that there were at least 100 million pieces of space debris larger than a millimeter surrounding the Earth. There are far fewer ways to clean it up. While the area around the Earth is vast, making collisions unlikely for now, it’s only getting more crowded up there, especially in the lower orbits that Starlink satellites occupy, which also have less free space.
But notably, the FCC’s first space debris enforcement action wasn’t taken against SpaceX, the company that belongs to notoriously rule-flouting Musk, but an older company with older satellite technology. The Dish satellite in question was launched in 2002, and the debris mitigation plan dates back to 2012. The satellite reached the end of its life last year, and the plan was to use its last remaining fuel to move 300 kilometers, or about 190 miles, above its current orbit. But Dish miscalculated how much fuel was left and was only able to get the satellite 122 kilometers, or a piddly 75 miles, above that orbit.
Dish’s satellite differs from Starlink’s much newer satellites in several ways. First of all, it’s a lot bigger: The EchoStar-7 weighed just over 9,000 pounds at launch, while Starlink satellites weigh between 575 and 1,750 pounds. The EchoStar’s 20-year life span is also longer. Starlink satellites average about five to seven years, after which they’re moved into the atmosphere to burn up into very small particles, which hopefully isn’t dangerous to us but about which scientific research is lacking.
Different types of satellites also have very different orbits. Starlink satellites create an interconnected web over the Earth in a relatively low orbit about 350 miles above us. That means the time it takes to send signals between them and the planet is shorter, allowing for low latency times. Dish’s satellites are much higher up — 22,000 miles above Earth — and move with the rotation of the planet to stay in the same spot at all times.
All this means that Dish only needs a few satellites to cover one area, but the latency time is too long to support streaming, gaming, and video conferencing (this particular satellite was for TV broadcasting). That also puts them too high up to simply steer themselves down into the atmosphere to burn up like Starlink’s satellites. Instead, they move up into a “graveyard orbit,” out of the path of functional satellites, where they’re left to float around in space for hundreds of years.
With the FCC ready, willing, and able to regulate the inner and outer reaches of space, Starlink may well be heading for a collision of its own. Not with space junk, but with a government agency and regulations. Those are two things Elon Musk doesn’t care for (unless he’s getting a subsidy that keeps his business afloat), so it will be interesting to see just how closely Starlink followed the agreements it made with the FCC to be allowed to throw thousands of satellites into the sky.
Dish told Vox in a statement that the FCC did not find that its satellite “poses any orbital debris safety concerns,” adding that it “has a long track record of safely flying a large satellite fleet and takes seriously its responsibilities as an FCC licensee.”
As for that $150,000 penalty, while it may be the first of its kind, it’s also peanuts to Dish, which had a net income of nearly $1 billion in 2022.
Stockholm, Sweden and Atlanta, GA, USA – September 28, 2023 – Cloud communications leader Sinch and one of North America’s largest and most trusted membership organizations, AAA, are partnering to expand chat capabilities for individuals requesting roadside assistance. These changes will allow those stranded in remote areas to seamlessly connect with AAA for help.
Yearly, millions of Americans are at risk of having need of road assistance while not being nearby a cellular network.
On Sept. 12, AAA announced that users of the newly announced iPhone 15 line up, as well as iPhone 14 users can now get access to Roadside Assistance via satellite utilizing AAA services. As one of North America’s largest and most trusted membership organizations, AAA responds to approximately 30 million calls for roadside assistance annually and serves more than 63 million members.
Sinch, which has been an official Apple Messaging Service Provider since 2018, will serve as the software provider making it seamless for AAA agents to be in near-live contact with motorists and localize them using satellite connection. This new option to contact AAA will relieve millions of Americans a year from fear of needing to have road assistance while not being nearby a cellular network.
“We are thrilled to further partner with AAA to leverage our industry-leading customer communication cloud to bring two-way conversational experiences to people precisely when they need it most,” said Sinch CEO Laurinda Pang. “We are able to combine our long experience of multi-channel communications, our investments in Conversational AI and our Sinch Engage engagement suite to deliver this much-valued innovation to AAA and the many motorists they excel in servicing.”
Sinch and AAA have long worked together in initiatives to drive meaningful member experience through mobile messaging. For instance, Sinch has made the AAA’s 800-HELP number text-enabled. When a member texts, the response from AAA includes a web link that allows the user to create a request for roadside assistance without having to speak to a AAA agent.
“AAA’s top priority is taking care of our members when they need us most,” said Marshall Doney, president and CEO, AAA. “Sinch has been an excellent partner in furthering that mission and their innovation has allowed us to take our roadside assistance to the next level.”
Enabling roadside assistance via satellite builds on Sinch’s previous experience in delivering robust communications services that meet the highest possible requirements. Last November, T-Mobile partnered with Sinch to launch another important first: NextGen 911 Real-Time Text (RTT). This first-ever NextGen 911 RTT technology is operating at an Emergency Communications Center (ECC) in Hood County, Texas, allowing T-Mobile customers to communicate with 911 through simultaneous conversational text and voice — text messages can be sent and read at the same time — without the need for teletype (TTY) technology.
This is particularly critical for up to 48 million Americans who are Deaf or hard of hearing, as well as those who have speech-related disabilities or are non-native English speakers. RTT also gives public safety centers the ability to make better-informed dispatch decisions during a crisis and shave crucial time off a response.
About Sinch
Sinch powers meaningful conversations between businesses and their customers through its Customer Communications Cloud. More than 150,000 businesses – including many of the world’s largest tech companies – rely on Sinch and its global super network, which is the most secure and reliable network for messaging, voice and email. Sinch has been profitable and fast-growing since it was founded in 2008. It is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, with shares traded at NASDAQ Stockholm: XSTO:SINCH. Learn more at sinch.com.
Oil prices are on the rise and are tracking towards $100 a barrel.
Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said that ongoing supply constraints have contributed to the rise in prices, but the economy can handle it.
"I think the underlying drivers of the economy in the US and frankly globally remain pretty healthy," Wirth said.
Oil prices are on track to soon cross the $100 per barrel level, but the economy should be able to handle the higher costs of the key energy commodity, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth told Bloomberg in an interview on Monday.
West Texas Intermediate crude oil has surged nearly 30% since July and hit a high of $91.36 on Monday, while Brent crude oil jumped to a ten-month high of $94.95. Prices for gas at the pump are also on the rise, with the average national gas price rising to $3.88 on Monday, according to data from AAA.
According to Wirth, the rise in oil prices is being driven by a combination of ongoing supply constraints as Saudi Arabia and Russia recently extended their production output, as well as a resilient economy driving demand for the commodity.
"We're certainly moving in that direction [towards $100 per barrel]. Supply is tightening, inventories are drawing. These things happen gradually. The trends would suggest we're certainly on our way [to $100 per barrel]," Wirth said.
But despite rising gas prices and the sizable negative impact it could have on consumer sentiment, Wirth believes the economy can handle higher gas prices just like it did for all of 2022.
"It will have some effect on the economy but we've had relatively higher oil prices here now for most of this year and certainly all of last year, and the recession that everyone's been talking about hasn't arrived. So I think the underlying drivers of the economy in the US and frankly globally remain pretty healthy, so I think it's a drag on the economy but one that thus far I think the economy has been able to tolerate," Wirth said.
With a market valuation of $320 billion, Chevron is America's second largest oil company after Exxon Mobil.
Crestron has launched several new desk scheduling products to address the need for flexible hot desking solutions as companies continue the gradual return to office.
The new Crestron Desk Q and Desk Touch maintain Crestron’s expansion into the corporate hot desking market, complementing its portfolio of hybrid workplace solutions. Crestron Desk Scheduling provides a convenient and flexible solution for visitors and employees to reserve and use desks at any time throughout the workday.
Brad Hintze, EVP of Global Marketing at Crestron, said:
Scheduling is a part of our daily lives. As organizations look to create a better hybrid work environment for their employees and an improved understanding of how and where people are working in the office, we must look outside just the meeting space. Hot desking has quickly become the crucial technology in workplace design.”
While scheduling meeting rooms has been commonplace in businesses for years, the rapid growth of hybrid working as the standard model of working has seen a need for more modernised solutions blossom. The rise of spaces such as phone booths, digital hives, jump seats, meeting pods, and unassigned desks has cultivated a demand for reserving and managing short-term and on-demand areas more dynamically.
Crestron Desk Scheduling system creates a streamlined transition to floating hot desk spaces by empowering hybrid employees to schedule a location and time on-premises before leaving home via the booking software on their laptops. For on-premises workers, visible LED status indicators illustrate which desks are available. They can then reserve a space on the touch screen or through a QR code scan.
“Businesses are prioritising their space management strategies to create a welcoming and productive office environment that maximises office real estate investment,” Hintze added.
Crestron’s straightforward and seamless desk booking experience encourages higher adoption and usage for regularly scheduled hybrid employees and visiting remote workers.
Crestron Continuing to Innovate in the Collaboration Space
Crestron has launched several compelling collaboration products this year beyond its Desk Scheduler and the Desk Q and Desk Touch.
In May, Crestron released two other exciting hybrid collaboration solutions — Crestron Flex Pods, a scalable tabletop wireless microphone and speaker platform, and the Crestron Videobar 70, an all-in-one collaboration bar for Teams Rooms, Zoom Rooms, and BYOD meeting spaces.
Crestron Flex Pods tabletop wireless audio solutions provide businesses with a better choice of microphone and speaker solutions. Flex Pods produce streamlined, high-quality tabletop audio for meeting spaces to address the demand for hybrid meetings requiring scalable and flexible audio. This enables a room to be adapted for each meeting without requiring fixed in-ceiling microphones or speakers.
The Crestron Videobar 70 is an all-in-one collaboration bar that intends to offer a complete meeting experience for Teams, Zoom Rooms, and any BYOD service. It is designed to create a premium audiovisual experience for medium to large meeting rooms.
Crestron also released the TST-1080 Wireless Touch Screen earlier this year, offering customisable video conferencing and presentation controls.
As well as conferencing and presentation systems, the Crestron TST-1080 is compatible with various devices and systems, including lighting and shades and HVAC and home theatre.
Meta’s in-development edit button for Threads might let you edit posts within five minutes of publishing them, as reported by developer Alessandro Paluzzi on X (formerly Twitter). Instagram chief Adam Mosseri confirmed shortly after the app’s July launch that an edit button was on the list of potential features, and now that Paluzzi has discovered some details about it, perhaps the feature will be available more widely sometime soon.
An edit button is one of the things I think Threads is missing most, so I’m happy to see this shred of evidence that Meta might be closer to actually...
HOLMDEL, NJ – September 21, 2023 – Vonage,a global leader in cloud communications helping businesses accelerate their digital transformation and a part of Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC), has been recognized as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS). This recognition positions Vonage in the Leaders Quadrant for Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision
“This is a transformative time for cloud communications and how businesses use this technology,” said Rory Read, Vonage CEO and SVP, Head of Business Area Global Communications Platform for Ericsson. “Consumers now expect flexible, intelligent communication between them and the brands they engage with. The ability to communicate from anywhere, on any channel, is a key differentiator and represents the next level of communication between businesses and their customers, and that is what CPaaS – or Communications APIs – provides.”
Read continued, “Vonage’s CPaaS capabilities and strong developer resources enable businesses to embed communications into applications, systems and workflows so customers can engage with businesses on their terms, for deeper engagement and a better overall customer experience. And as we look to the future of business communications, we are focused on building a global network platform and exposing network capabilities as APIs, unlocking the power of the 5G network, and putting it at the fingertips of developers to create new, innovative use cases for enterprises and the customers they serve. We are thrilled to be recognized as a Leader in the Gartner CPaaS Magic Quadrant for our platform today, and our vision for tomorrow.”
In this CPaaS Magic Quadrant, Gartner recognizes vendors based on Completeness of Vision Evaluation Criteria which includes innovation, market understanding and a vertical/industry strategy.
Programmable components for the Vonage Communications Platform such as Vonage AI Acceleration Suite, help improve business productivity, customer experiences and enhance customer engagement with a simplified approach to build new applications. With Vonage AI Studio, VCP empowers developers and non-developers to communicate with customers across channels with AI powered conversational workflows.
Vonage is one of only two vendors recognized in all three Magic Quadrant reports – CPaaS, Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) and Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) in the cloud communications space. Vonage CPaaS is part of the Vonage Communications Platform (VCP), which also includes UCaaS, CCaaS and Conversational Commerce applications.
Vonage, a global cloud communications leader, helps businesses accelerate their digital transformation. Vonage’s Communications Platform is fully programmable and allows for the integration of Video, Voice, Chat, Messaging, AI and Verification into existing products, workflows and systems. The Vonage conversational commerce application enables businesses to create AI-powered omnichannel experiences that boost sales and increase customer satisfaction. Vonage’s fully programmable unified communications, contact center and conversational commerce applications are built from the Vonage platform and enable companies to transform how they communicate and operate from the office or remotely – providing the flexibility required to create meaningful engagements.
Vonage is headquartered in New Jersey, with offices throughout the United States, Europe, Israel and Asia and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC), and a business area within the Ericsson Group called Business Area Global Communications Platform. To follow Vonage on Twitter, please visit www.twitter.com/vonage. To become a fan on Facebook, go to facebook.com/vonage. To subscribe on YouTube, visit youtube.com/vonage.
Infobip has been recognized for its ability to execute and completeness of vision in the first Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for the Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) market
Vodnjan, Croatia – September 20, 2023 – Global cloud communications platform Infobip has been named a Leader in the Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) market by analyst firm Gartner. In the first Gartner Magic Quadrant for CPaaS, Infobip is recognized as a Leader for its overall completeness of vision and ability to execute.
In its Competitive Landscape CPaaS report, Gartner said: “the communications platform as a service market is evolving beyond APIs to encompass the entire customer journey. Existing conversational commerce use cases are broadening to become conversational everything.” In the same report, the analyst recommended CPaaS providers must: “construct customer experience as a service (CXaaS) offerings to target the entire customer life cycle by encompassing not just CPaaS, but also contact center, customer data platform (CDP) and conversational artificial intelligence (CAI), as well as customer journey orchestration.” Gartner also recommended providers: “accelerate time to value for customer experience (CX) by providing tools such as user-friendly templates, ‘solutions in a box’ for advanced use cases, improved visual builders and detailed journey analytics.”
To meet these evolving demands, Infobip recently launched Experiences, a revolutionary generative AI-powered, no-code journey builder that helps businesses engage customers, foster loyalty, and drive growth. Infobip Experiences enables organizations to orchestrate customer journeys and save time with a library of journey templates from onboarding and engagement to retention and loyalty. Alongside its network of 43 data centers and 9,700 global connections, of which 800 are direct operator connections, customers cite Infobip’s worldwide reach and scale, along with its delivery and latency guarantees, as key differentiators.
“We believe the Gartner recognition of Infobip as a Leader in the CPaaS market reflects the investments we’re making to provide innovative new products and services alongside our global reach and scale. Moreover, our acquisitions of U.S. messaging heavyweight OpenMarket and VoIP provider Peerless Network have cemented our superior position in America alongside our market-leading offer globally. As a result, we offer a global one-stop shop for omnichannel interactions and communications. But we’re not stopping now. With the CPaaS market forecast to grow to $30.6 billion by 2026, we are keeping our foot on the gas to ensure we remain the leading full-stack omnichannel communications platform for every platform.”
About Infobip
Infobip is a global cloud communications platform that enables businesses to build connected experiences across all stages of the customer journey. Accessed through a single platform, Infobip’s omnichannel engagement, identity, user authentication and contact centre solutions help businesses and partners overcome the complexity of consumer communications to grow business and increase loyalty. With over a decade of industry experience, Infobip has expanded to 75+ offices globally. It offers natively built technology with the capacity to reach over seven billion mobile devices and ‘things’ in 6 continents connected to over 9,700+ connections of which 800+ are direct operator connections. Infobip was established in 2006 and is led by its co-founders, CEO Silvio Kutić, Roberto Kutić and Izabel Jelenić.
Recognized for Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute
Atlanta, GA, USA and Stockholm, Sweden – September 20, 2023 – Sinch, which powers meaningful conversations between businesses and their customers through its Customer Communications Cloud, today announced that the company has been positioned as a Leader in the first 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS). The evaluation was based on specific criteria that analyzed Sinch’s overall Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute.
Magic Quadrant reports are a culmination of rigorous, fact-based research in specific markets, providing a wide-angle view of the relative positions of the providers in markets where growth is high and provider differentiation is distinct. Providers are positioned into four quadrants: Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries and Niche Players. The research enables you to get the most from market analysis in alignment with your unique business and technology needs.
“The recognition as a Leader, we feel, validates our strong position in a global and growing market,” said Sinch CEO Laurinda Pang. “Business leaders and decision makers now recognize that a great customer experience will leverage the right communications channel, at the right time, and that businesses need to keep pace with their customers as consumer preferences evolve. We feel our strong ability to deliver against these needs is reflected in the new Magic Quadrant, recognizing the value that Sinchers around the globe deliver to our more than 150,000 business customers.”
View a complimentary copy of the Magic Quadrant report to learn more about Sinch’s strengths and cautions, among other providers’ offerings, here.
* Source: Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Communication Platforms as a Service, Lisa Unden-Farboud, Daniel O’Connell, Ajit Patankar, Brian Doherty, 18 September 2023.
About Sinch
Sinch powers meaningful conversations between businesses and their customers through its Customer Communications Cloud. More than 150,000 businesses – including many of the world’s largest tech companies – rely on Sinch and its global super network, which is the most secure and reliable network for messaging, voice and email. Sinch has been profitable and fast-growing since it was founded in 2008. It is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, with shares traded at NASDAQ Stockholm: XSTO:SINCH. Learn more at sinch.com. Learn more at sinch.com.
Thanks to industry consolidation and saturated market growth, the streaming industry has started behaving much like the traditional cable giants they once disrupted. As with most industries suffering from “enshittification,” that generally means imposing obnoxious new restrictions (see: Netflix password sharing), endless price hikes, and obnoxious and dubious new fees geared toward pleasing Wall Street.
Case in point: Amazon customers already pay $15 per month, or $139 annually for Amazon Prime, which includes a subscription to Amazon’s streaming TV service. In a bid to make Wall Street happy, Amazon has apparently decided it makes good sense to start hitting those users with entirely new streaming TV ads, then charge an additional $3 per month to avoid them:
“US-based Prime members will be able to revert back to an ad-free experience for an additional $2.99 per month on top of their existing subscription. Prime memberships in the US cost $14.99 per month, or $139 per year if paid annually. Pricing for the ad-free option for other countries will be shared “at a later date.”
Of course imposing new annoyances you then have to pay extra to avoid is just a very small part of Amazon’s overall quest to boost revenues at the cost of market health, competition, customer satisfaction, and the long-term viability of its sellers.
Ideally, competition in streaming is supposed to result in companies improving product quality and, ultimately, competing on price. But eager to feed Wall Street’s insatiable and often myopic need for improved quarterly returns at any cost, streaming giants have begun extracting additional pounds of flesh wherever and however they can, product quality and consumer satisfaction be damned.
That (combined with stupid and pointless mergers and “growth for growth’s sake” consolidation) results in streaming services that are increasingly expensive, lower quality than ever (see the decline of HBO as one shining example), and don’t much care about the consumer experience. That’s before you get to the endless industry layoffs or the media industry’s protracted unwillingness to pay creatives a living wage.
All overseen by a suite of unremarkable, fail-upward, overpaid executives (see: Warner Brothers Discovery CEO David Zaslav) who show absolutely no indication that they genuinely understand the industry they do business in or have any real empathy for employees or consumers. The result is higher prices, worse product quality, lower employee pay, plenty of industry chaos, and enshittification.
So, it’s not terribly surprising short-sighted executives can’t see this is the exact trajectory and decision making process that opened the traditional cable industry to painful and protracted disruption, ensuring history simply repeats itself in perpetuity.
The Home Assistant Green can be the main command center for your smart home. | Image: Home Assistant
Buy enough tech and you can’t escape the siren call of a smart home. Amazon practically throws Echo Dots at you. Google will sneak a Nest Mini in the box with almost anything you buy in its store. Good luck buying a new kitchen appliance that doesn’t beg to be connected to the internet. All of those come with platforms that are locked down and cloud-dependent, requiring you to bend to their corporate wishes to use them.
But for the last decade, Home Assistant has been the go-to software for privacy-focused nerds who want all the benefits that Apple, Google, and Amazon products provide with infinitely better flexibility and fewer security risks. And now, for the software’s 10th birthday, the people behind Home Assistant are introducing a...
In the second round of job cuts announced so far this year, the networking vendor is laying off 350 people in the Bay Area, with software engineering positions largely being targeted for elimination.
I was thrilled when Threads finally launched on the web in August, but I quickly found that it was missing one important feature: you couldn’t quote posts, only repost them. (In X / Twitter lingo, that translates to quote tweet and retweet.) But that’s now changing, as Instagram Adam Mosseri said Thursday that quote posts on the web were rolled out this week.
To quote a post, just click the two arrows icon and then click the “quote” option.
Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge
That quote button. Right there.
Mosseri also said that Threads users on mobile can follow a thread and get notifications on it. This feature apparently hasn’t rolled out for me on iOS — I can’t find it — but I expect I’ll get it soon...
