Giant panda slot machine pandas running
For those who are frustrated with guns, new mechanics, polar warbond….
2024.05.13 23:03 Nelpup For those who are frustrated with guns, new mechanics, polar warbond….
—TLDR: ”Just stop being frustrated!”
—But actually, just sharing my perspective on the game and how I’ve approached it. I mean no offense to anyone. Ignore at will, especially the advice.
I’ve been playing regularly since launch and it’s been one of the greatest co-op experiences ever. I usually run duos with a friend, 7-9 bugs. Think I’m level 68 atm. That’s Fleet Admiral to you, soldier.
That being said, many aspects of the game have been changed and a lot of it feels like it’s for the worse.
-The Erupter now fires military grade firecrackers… I liked the risk/reward it had before. Alas, no more “bolt gun” for me.
-The new charge up weapon in the polar war bond is the worst weapon I’ve ever used in the game (I mean just laughably bad), and some of the other added weapons are reskinned WORSE versions of already implemented guns. Bit bummed about spending those medals, but what else am I using em for. Still, I paid for the SC’s. Gut punch!
-Spawn changes have made level 7 more challenging but it’s been manageable. I die a lot more. Partially because I refuse to use anything but the lightest armor….
-There’s a lot of little odd mechanics that leave you frustrated or back on the destroyer. Charger behavior, enemies being crushed by dropships and walking out fine, lots of stuff. Truly.
-Meta weapons come and go, strategies become less viable (no more stunning titans, that was too easy anyways lol). Stuns might not even work on chargers now idk.
-Probably way more, but this is what I’ve seen.
WE ARE STILL HAVING A BLAST. I LOVE DEMOCRACY. I LOVE MAG DUMPING MACHINE GUNS AND POPPING GIANT SPITTER TICKS WITH IMPACTS. I STILL PEE A LITTLE WHEN STALKERS JUMP ME. FOR DEMOCRACY, OF COURSE….
We’ll take random load outs (after eliminating the poopy guns/strats) and drop a skill level just to change the game up. We’ve tried things like only taking sentries or beam weaponry, and that has been a lot of fun too (would not recommend on higher difficulty lol). I’ve made it a personal goal of mine to surf every bugger that’s big enough to support my weight. Jump pack = 10,000 IQ strat, I’ll die on that hill.
It’s still a great game. Even if it’s worse than when it came out.
But so many people seem (imo, overly) frustrated. I think most of the criticisms are totally fair and I too think things could be better. But the reality is that nothing will be fixed as quickly as we’d like.
It’s a bummer that now a lot of the discourse I see is about what people DON’T like about the game. Which I think just lowers the mood even further. Not that this helps either necessarily………
But venting feels good, pretty much what I’m doing rn. So I get it. Plus, sometimes it yields results.
MY ADVICE:
-Take a step back if you’re angry about the game. Don’t waste your valuable time being frustrated. Reboot rdr2 like I did, it’s been amazing. Fully polished game. My horse, Dominique, is beautiful. I think I feed him too much though.
-DEFINITELY 100% ABSOLUTELY wait to buy the next warbond. Someone will post on YouTube reviewing it, be careful with your credits. I wish I would have waited.
-Have some faith that things will be fixed. I can’t imagine it’s a simple process. I’m trying to be patient with it.
-There is such a thing as loving something to a fault. Y’all really care about the game, and that’s yielded some great things. But don’t lose yourself in the narrative/drama. Just for your own happiness.
Hopefully these issues will be fixed soon.
Thanks for reading, and for caring about the game. It’s been a very fun few months. I salute you all.
submitted by Nelpup to Helldivers [link] [comments]
—But actually, just sharing my perspective on the game and how I’ve approached it. I mean no offense to anyone. Ignore at will, especially the advice.
I’ve been playing regularly since launch and it’s been one of the greatest co-op experiences ever. I usually run duos with a friend, 7-9 bugs. Think I’m level 68 atm. That’s Fleet Admiral to you, soldier.
That being said, many aspects of the game have been changed and a lot of it feels like it’s for the worse.
-The Erupter now fires military grade firecrackers… I liked the risk/reward it had before. Alas, no more “bolt gun” for me.
-The new charge up weapon in the polar war bond is the worst weapon I’ve ever used in the game (I mean just laughably bad), and some of the other added weapons are reskinned WORSE versions of already implemented guns. Bit bummed about spending those medals, but what else am I using em for. Still, I paid for the SC’s. Gut punch!
-Spawn changes have made level 7 more challenging but it’s been manageable. I die a lot more. Partially because I refuse to use anything but the lightest armor….
-There’s a lot of little odd mechanics that leave you frustrated or back on the destroyer. Charger behavior, enemies being crushed by dropships and walking out fine, lots of stuff. Truly.
-Meta weapons come and go, strategies become less viable (no more stunning titans, that was too easy anyways lol). Stuns might not even work on chargers now idk.
-Probably way more, but this is what I’ve seen.
WE ARE STILL HAVING A BLAST. I LOVE DEMOCRACY. I LOVE MAG DUMPING MACHINE GUNS AND POPPING GIANT SPITTER TICKS WITH IMPACTS. I STILL PEE A LITTLE WHEN STALKERS JUMP ME. FOR DEMOCRACY, OF COURSE….
We’ll take random load outs (after eliminating the poopy guns/strats) and drop a skill level just to change the game up. We’ve tried things like only taking sentries or beam weaponry, and that has been a lot of fun too (would not recommend on higher difficulty lol). I’ve made it a personal goal of mine to surf every bugger that’s big enough to support my weight. Jump pack = 10,000 IQ strat, I’ll die on that hill.
It’s still a great game. Even if it’s worse than when it came out.
But so many people seem (imo, overly) frustrated. I think most of the criticisms are totally fair and I too think things could be better. But the reality is that nothing will be fixed as quickly as we’d like.
It’s a bummer that now a lot of the discourse I see is about what people DON’T like about the game. Which I think just lowers the mood even further. Not that this helps either necessarily………
But venting feels good, pretty much what I’m doing rn. So I get it. Plus, sometimes it yields results.
MY ADVICE:
-Take a step back if you’re angry about the game. Don’t waste your valuable time being frustrated. Reboot rdr2 like I did, it’s been amazing. Fully polished game. My horse, Dominique, is beautiful. I think I feed him too much though.
-DEFINITELY 100% ABSOLUTELY wait to buy the next warbond. Someone will post on YouTube reviewing it, be careful with your credits. I wish I would have waited.
-Have some faith that things will be fixed. I can’t imagine it’s a simple process. I’m trying to be patient with it.
-There is such a thing as loving something to a fault. Y’all really care about the game, and that’s yielded some great things. But don’t lose yourself in the narrative/drama. Just for your own happiness.
Hopefully these issues will be fixed soon.
Thanks for reading, and for caring about the game. It’s been a very fun few months. I salute you all.
2024.05.13 23:02 SanderSo47 Weekend Actuals for May 10-12 – 'Apes' Conquer the Box Office
 | https://preview.redd.it/3fbcmrfpc90d1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=035c1ef66f3334c34425df0cc438efa1473a9f07 submitted by SanderSo47 to boxoffice [link] [comments] The audience was more than ready to return to the Planet of the Apes. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes topped the box office and showed there's still life in the reboot franchise even with the death of its lead character. And while it wasn't the film to kick off the summer season, it sure felt like it. There were two other newcomers, Not Another Church Movie and Poolman, and both had awful debuts. The Top 10 earned a combined $89.5 million this weekend. That's off 5.9% from last year, when Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 stayed at #1. Debuting on first place, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes opened with $58.4 million in 4,075 theaters. That marks the second highest debut in the reboot franchise, just behind Dawn ($72.6 million). It's also beneath Tim Burton's reviled version ($68.5 million), but that's not really a downside. The fact that it opened higher than War ($56.2 million) is impressive, considering that film opened in the lucrative July month where people had more free time. Even more impressive is the fact that it could achieve it without its lead character Caesar. But credit has to go to Disney and 20th Century Studios for offering something worth watching in theaters. To differentiate it from the previous films, Kingdom chose to jump 200-300 years from the previous film, which allowed for some creative freedom. The audience could now see a Planet of the Apes film where the apes are the ruling species, which deviated from the previous films establishing that humans could still fight apes. This in turn could also lead to new audiences; the massive time jump meant that people could watch the film without having to watch the previous films. With pretty good reviews, it was a sign that the franchise was worth continuing. According to 20th Century Studios, 64% of the audience was male and 57% of the audience was in the 18-34 demographic. Critics liked the film, but there's a twist with the audience's reception. The film received a "B" on CinemaScore, far below the previous film and suggesting lukewarm word-of-mouth. Deadline said that 85% of the CinemaScore audience gave the film an A or a B, while the rest went as low as C and D. It's tough to predict its legs, so we'll have to wait until the second weekend drop to see how much effect it has. As long as the film does not drop higher than War (62.9%), that should be considered a win. Last week's champ The Fall Guy dropped to second place with a $13.6 million weekend. That 51% drop is fine, but it's still not enough to offset disappointment. Through ten days, the film has earned a meager $49.6 million, and it's guaranteed to finish below $100 million, which makes it even more disappointing considering this opened the summer season. In third place, Challengers eased 43% and earned $4.3 million. That takes its domestic total to $37.7 million, and with the competitive summer season coming up, it looks like $50 million is out of reach by this point. Sony's horror film Tarot earned $3.4 million. That represents a 48% drop, which is good considering its putrid reaction, although that's not saying much considering how low it opened last week. Through ten days, the film has made $11.9 million, and it will face The Strangers: Chapter 1 next week. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire dropped 42% and added $2.6 million. Its domestic total is now $191.9 million, but this pretty much confirms the film will finish below the $200 million milestone. Looks like Godzilla will still be the MonsterVerse's highest grossing film 10 years later. After its awful drop last week, Unsung Hero recovered this weekend, easing 15% and grossing $2.5 million. Its Sunday was boosted by Mother's Day, as the film jumped 36% from its previous Sunday. The film has made $17 million so far. Kung Fu Panda was in seventh place, easing 27% and adding $1.8 million. Its domestic total is $191 million, and it will certainly be impacted with the arrival of IF and The Garfield Movie now. A24's Civil War dipped 49% and earned $1.8 million. That takes its domestic total to $65.2 million. Unsurprisingly, the re-release of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace lost so much interest after its first weekend. The film made $1.4 million this weekend, marking a colossal 84% second weekend drop, one of the biggest in history. With this, the film's lifetime gross is now $486 million. Rounding up the Top Ten is Universal's Abigail, which continues bleeding audience. The film dropped 51% for a $1.1 million weekend. Its domestic total is now $24.7 million, and it's now officially losing to Radio Silence's Ready or Not ($28.7 million). There was another release, Briarcliff's spoof movie Not Another Church Movie. And it was pretty much ignored, as the film earned just $360,000 in 1,100 theaters (a disastrous $325 per-theater average). This will fall like a rock quickly. Another disastrous release was Chris Pine's directorial debut Poolman. It opened in 162 theaters, but it made an awful $131,000 ($809 per-theater average). That shouldn't come as a surprise; it had a terrible premiere at TIFF last year, where it got widely panned. Will Chris give it another go at the director's chair? OVERSEASKingdom of the Planet of the Apes also conquered the box office overseas. It debuted with $72.5 million in 52 markets, for a $130.9 million worldwide debut. Its best debuts were in China ($11.4M), France ($7.1M), Mexico ($6.4M), UK ($4.8M), Korea ($3.2M), Australia ($2.7M), Brazil ($2.6M), Germany ($2.2M), Spain ($2.2M) and Indonesia ($1.9M). The China numbers were underwhelming, but it performed strongly in Latin America. Let's see how it goes in the following weeks. In a notable milestone, A24's Civil War has hit $100 million worldwide, becoming the studio's second film to hit that mark. It's currently sitting at $107 million so far. The Garfield Movie added $11.2 million this week, taking its overseas total to $36 million. Mexico remains its best market at $12.5 million, while the film had an okay $2.1 million start in Germany. It continues expanding this week, before hitting North America. The Fall Guy fell to $9.4 million overseas (a 54% drop), taking its worldwide total to just $103.7 million after two weeks. Its best markets are the UK ($8.3M), Australia ($6.6M), Mexico ($3.6M), Germany ($3.4M) and France ($3.4M). It still has China and Japan left, but don't expect those markets to save it. IF had early premieres in a few markets, earning $3.2 million. It debuted in France with $3.3 million, but it had a soft start in Belgium ($300K). Its international run expands this week. MOVIES THAT ENDED THEIR RUN THIS WEEKNone.THIS WEEKENDWe've got three wide releases. The first is Paramount's IF, which marks John Krasinski's directorial follow-up to A Quiet Place. It stars Cailey Fleming, Ryan Reynolds, Krasinski, Fiona Shaw, along with the voices of Steve Carell, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Louis Gossett Jr., Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Maya Rudolph, Jon Stewart, Sam Rockwell, Sebastian Maniscalco, Christopher Meloni, Richard Jenkins, Awkwafina, John Krasinski, Blake Lively, George Clooney, Matthew Rhys, Bradley Cooper, Amy Schumer, Keegan-Michael Key and Vince Vaughn. Its plot follows a young girl and her neighbor who find themselves able to see imaginary friends. Reynolds is one of the world's most popular actors today, and there hasn't been a remarkable family film since Kung Fu Panda 4, so maybe this could surprise. Although it will compete the following week with The Garfield Movie for the family demo. The second is Lionsgate's The Strangers: Chapter 1, and is the first part of a trilogy (all directed by Renny Harlin). Horror could take a win, considering the genre has been performing very badly this year. But is The Strangers the answer to that? And the last one is Focus Features' Back to Black, a biopic focused on Amy Winehouse's life. The film has attracted controversy since its announcement, especially because Winehouse's father was involved (if you know her life, you'll understand why this is not well received). It already opened in a few markets, including the UK, and it has amassed $32 million so far. With this kind of bad buzz and weak reviews, don't be surprised if the film is front-loaded. |
2024.05.13 23:00 EchoJobs Hiring AI Engineer [San Francisco, CA] [Machine Learning Deep Learning PyTorch NumPy Pandas Azure AWS GCP Git]
![Hiring AI Engineer [San Francisco, CA] [Machine Learning Deep Learning PyTorch NumPy Pandas Azure AWS GCP Git]](https://external-preview.redd.it/_VWjje9iZ8PwXqS7yLKNsuIYdOeUugto9M8vYAdfch0.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=4b410501b861b4ccb9e3cb70ff3d32048ef9e566 "Hiring AI Engineer [San Francisco, CA] [Machine Learning Deep Learning PyTorch NumPy Pandas Azure AWS GCP Git]") | submitted by EchoJobs to SFtechJobs [link] [comments] |
2024.05.13 22:51 adventurepaul E-commerce Industry News Recap 🔥 Week of May 13th, 2024
Hi - I'm Paul and I follow the e-commerce industry closely for my Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter. Each week I post a summary recap of the week's top stories, which I cover in depth with sources in the full edition. Let's dive in...
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STAT OF THE WEEK: Kohl's sales have shrunk by $2.3B since 2019. During that same period of time, the company lost 1.3M customers who no longer shop with the retailer.
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BigCommerce is exploring a sale after attracting takeover interest, according to sources who chose to remain anonymous due to the confidentiality of the information. The sources said that BigCommerce asked investment bank Qatalyst Partners to solicit interest from potential buyers that include private equity firms, but that the discussions are at an early stage and no deal is certain.
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Squarespace announced that it will be going private in a $6.9B all-cash deal with private-equity firm Permira, who agreed to pay $44 per share (a roughly 30% premium). Although Squarespace never lost 90% of its share price like BigCommerce, it has experienced a tumultuous time on the market since its IPO in May 2021 — opening around $49.50 and at times trading in the low $20s. Shares rose nearly 13% to $43 in pre-market trading upon release of the news.
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ByteDance filed a lawsuit in US federal court seeking to block the new law that would force the sale or ban of the app within the country. The lawsuit challenges the law on constitutional grounds, also citing commercial, technical, and legal hurdles, as well as opposition from Beijing. Legal experts say the legal battle will play out in the courts in coming months and likely will reach the Supreme Court.
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OpenAI unveiled its newest model, GPT-4o, designed to turn ChatGPT into a digital personal assistant that can engage in real-time, spoken conversations and interact with users using text, screenshots, photos, documents, and charts. The new version of ChatGPT also has memory capabilities, which means it can learn from previous conversations. It will be available to both unpaid and premium customers alike. OpenAI also announced that it would be launching a desktop app with the GPT-4o capabilities, giving users another platform to interact with the technology outside of a web browser.
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Amazon launched in South Africa last week, marking its first marketplace in sub-Saharan Africa, and bringing its total number of marketplaces worldwide to 22. To launch the new marketplace, Amazon is offering free delivery on first orders and on subsequent orders above R500 (about $27), access to 3,000 pick-up points, status updates via WhatsApp to track orders, 30 day refunds, and 24/7 customer support. The marketplace was supposed to launch in the country in 2023, but got delayed due to changes in priorities within Amazon.
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In an unlikely partnership, Instacart is partnering with Uber Eats to expand into the restaurant delivery business. Instacart will add a new tab for restaurant delivery to its app in the coming weeks, the listings will be provided by Uber, and the food will be picked up and delivered by Uber Eats drivers. Customers will receive the same prices on both apps and Instacart will receive an affiliate commission on orders. It's a strange partnership though given that Instacart and Uber Eats actively compete on grocery delivery. Are they planning to merge? Uber says no.
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Apple's advertisement for its latest iPad Pro sparked criticism for showing an animation of musical instruments, paint cans, cameras, record players, and other symbols of creativity being crushed by a giant machine, with the output being the new iPad Pro, which the company says is the thinnest Apple product ever. In this context, “crushing” was supposed to symbolize “consolidating” and “compacting” — with the visuals meant to showcase how the new iPad Pro puts the power of all these tools into the hands of creators in one thin device. However online commenters criticized the ad as insensitive and as symbolizing a “destruction of the human experience.” The ad hit the web on Tuesday, and by Thursday, Apple issued a mea culpa and apologized for the campaign.
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Google is encouraging merchants to enable conversion annotations on their Google Shopping ads, which offer social proof that highlight a product's popularity. Conversion annotations like “best selling” or “3K shopped here recently” would provide visual cues about a product’s popularity or sales performance directly in the ad unit. Annotations like these are par for the course with e-commerce retailers including Amazon, Walmart, and Temu, which all employ similar tactics. They can provide valuable info for shoppers and also help with conversions. However they also open data privacy concerns, given that Google is not the actual retailer or marketplace selling the items, so a merchant would have to share this purchase history data from their e-commerce platform with Google — which technically most already do by giving access to GA4.
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Shein is attempting to join the National Retail Federation as it pursues regulatory approval to go public in the US. The company believes that NRF membership would boost its chances of receiving SEC approval. However so far, Shein has been rejected numerous times. An anonymous source familiar with the matter said someone with heavy influence at the NRF is strongly against the Shein's admittance. However board members who spoke to CNBC said that Shein's membership application hadn't come up in meetings, and that they aren't involved in deciding which companies are granted access.
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Amazon is leading the way with selling home goods, capturing 18.8% of consumer home furnishings spending, compared to Walmart's 7.3% market share. Notably, Amazon’s gains in the furniture category come in spite of the company’s decision to phase out two of its three furniture brands last year.
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Stanley, which is projected to do $750M in sales this year, up from $73M in 2019, after seeing its water bottles become a status symbol thanks to TikTok, is now expanding into trendier accessories. The company is launching a line of bags called the All-Day Collection which include a mini cooler, backpack cooler, and Quencher Carry-All, designed for someone to sling their Stanley over their hip.
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Jack Dorsey left the Bluesky board and deleted his account on the service he helped kickstart, claiming that Bluesky was “literally repeating all the mistakes” he made while running Twitter. Dorsey says he never intended Bluesky to be an independent company, but rather, an open source protocol that Twitter was supposed to be the first client of. He also confirmed that he is financially backing Nostr, another decentralized Twitter-like service popular among crypto enthusiasts and run by an anonymous founder.
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Amazon is deploying 50 electric trucks in California, which it claims is the largest EV fleet in the country, as part of its mission to eliminate pollution from its global operations. The trucks will be integrated into first-mile operations, moving goods from container ships at the ports to fulfillment centers, as well as middle-mile operations, transporting packages from fulfillment centers to delivery centers.
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Wix launched a new tool called AI Portfolio Creator, which allows a user to upload and organize large-scale image collections, select the type of portfolio they want, and then have the AI tool sort and generate a portfolio with clustered images, recommended titles and descriptions, and personalized layout options.
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Amazon is now requiring all dietary supplements to be verified by a third-party testing, inspection, and certification organization — which is something that not even the FDA requires. Amazon is the largest supplement retailer in the US ahead of Walmart and Target, and its new requirements are expected to put more pressure on the industry, which is being scrutinized more than ever.
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Alibaba is revamping its flagship retail website Taobao for the first time in seven years with a focus on providing a smoother search and buying process. The website overhaul comes ahead of the 618 sales event, China's second-largest annual shopping event. A few weeks ago I reported that Eddie Wu, the CEO of Alibaba Group, would now be directly overseeing its domestic e-commerce arm which includes Taobao and Tmall Group, and it sounds like he's hitting the ground running with his new responsibilities.
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Amazon is hosting its first-ever Amazon Book Sale, a new shopping event starting on May 15th that offers up to 50% off print best sellers and up to 80% off Kindle Books. The six day shopping event will exclusively run in the US, and Prime-membership is not required to take advantage of the deals.
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FTX reported that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded. The company owes about $11.2B to its customers and estimates that it has between $14.5B and $16.3B to distribute to them. The caveat is that customers will receive the USD value of their holdings at the time of the exchange collapse, and not the actual crypto holdings themselves, which means that they'll miss out on all gains during the past two years during which BTC went from around $16k to now over $60k. Better than nothing though, that's for sure.
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800,000 consumers in Europe and the US were duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a network of fake online designer shops operated from China, which comprised one of the largest scams of its kind with 76,000 fake websites created. The scammers used expired domains to host its fake shops in order to help avoid detection by websites or brand owners, and more than 1M orders were processed in the past three years alone.
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Beyond Inc, which owns Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock, and Zulily, reported that its Q1 net loss swelled to $72M from $10M a year ago, while its operating loss widened to $58M from $8M. The company's active customers grew to 6M, up 26% from nearly 5M a year ago, however, its average order value dropped to $173 from $220 a year earlier.
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TikTok will begin automatically labeling AI generated content when it is uploaded from certain platforms like DALL.E 3, Adobe Firefly, Photoshop, and Microsoft Copilot. TikTok will also start attaching Content Credentials to content, which will remain on the media when downloaded, allowing other platforms to read the metadata.
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eBay is testing an Add To Cart button in search results that opens a Quick View window, allowing buyers to skip the listing page. Technically the button should probably not be labeled “Add To Cart” since it doesn't perform that action, but rather, displays a quick view window with three buttons: Buy It Now, Add To Cart, View All Details. Sellers are worried that buyers will miss crucial details in the product description that may lead to increased returns and negative feedback.
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Amazon is planning to launch its fleet of drones in Tolleson, Arizona, but the city's extreme temperature is hampering its efforts. Drones can't operate in temperatures exceeding 104 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that Tolleson crosses for a full three months of the year.
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A US district judge dismissed X's lawsuit against Bright Data, a data-scraping company accused of improperly accessing X system and violating X terms and state laws when scraping and selling data. The judge basically said that if X owned the data, it could perhaps argue that it has exclusive rights to control it, but then X wouldn't be able to enjoy the safe harbor of Section 230, which allows the platform to avoid liability for third-party content. Can't have it both ways!
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Nintendo is discontinuing its X integration for the switch on June 10th, which means users will no longer be able to post screenshots or videos to the platform from their device. The drop in support also affects games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which had game-specific options to send out tweets. Microsoft Xbox dropped support for X in April 2023 and Sony Playstation dropped the service in October 2023 due to the increase in X's API access fees.
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Amazon claimed that its recordable incident rate — a metric that comprises all injuries requiring “more than basic first-aid treatment” — at its US warehouses has improved by 24% since 2019. However the National Employment Law Project challenged Amazon's injury data in a report last week, claiming that Amazon's overall injury rate in 2023 was 71% higher than that of other employers in the sector at 6.5 cases per 100 workers.
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Amazon Ads announced three new advertising formats for streaming TV including shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads, and interactive trivia ads. Amazon did not say when the new ad types would officially launch, but noted that it will formally present them at a presentation on May 14th.
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Meta is rolling out an expanded set of generative AI ad tools that can create full image variations with text overlays, expand images to fit across different aspect ratios, and generate alternate versions of headlines and other ad text. The features will become available globally to advertisers by the end of the year.
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Square introduced a tool called Square Kiosk to allow self-service ordering at fast food restaurants. The device is a combined software, hardware, and payment solution that allows customers to select exactly what they want with customization options, upgrades, and add-ons.
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The European Parliament announced new measures to make packaging more sustainable and reduce packaging waste in the EU, including reduction targets of 15% by 2040 — which sounds far away but is only 16 years away?! As part of the new rules, the EU will set maximum empty space ratios for e-commerce transportation, ban certain single-use plastic packaging types, and beverage distributors and take-away food will have to offer consumers the option of bringing their own container.
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Indians who pre-ordered Teslas in 2016 are giving up and seeking refunds of their deposits after Elon Musk canceled another visit to the country last month. Disillusioned Tesla enthusiasts in India say they will now buy a car from the company only if they see it in a showroom, or they'll buy a different electrical vehicle from a company that actually exists in the country.
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Target is limiting its Pride Month collection to select stores this year instead of rolling out the merchandise nationwide like it typically has for the past decade, due to backlash the retailer experienced last year. Last May customers in certain stores knocked down LGBTQ+ merchandise displays, angrily approached store employees, and posted threatening videos on social media from inside the stores.
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E-commerce spending from Jan 1 to April 30, 2024 rose 7% YoY to $331.6B, according to Adobe Analytics. One trend Adobe identified during the period is a shift of online spending to purchasing the cheapest goods across personal care, electronics, apparel, home & garden, furniture, and grocery.
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Plus 7 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest, including Shopify's acquisition of Peel, a tool that integrates with a merchant's tech stack including Klaviyo and Recharge and helps them analyze their sales data to improve customer retention.
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I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week!
PAUL Editor of Shopifreaks E-Commerce Newsletter
PS: If I missed any big news this week, please share in the comments.
submitted by adventurepaul to ecommerce [link] [comments]
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STAT OF THE WEEK: Kohl's sales have shrunk by $2.3B since 2019. During that same period of time, the company lost 1.3M customers who no longer shop with the retailer.
___
BigCommerce is exploring a sale after attracting takeover interest, according to sources who chose to remain anonymous due to the confidentiality of the information. The sources said that BigCommerce asked investment bank Qatalyst Partners to solicit interest from potential buyers that include private equity firms, but that the discussions are at an early stage and no deal is certain.
___
Squarespace announced that it will be going private in a $6.9B all-cash deal with private-equity firm Permira, who agreed to pay $44 per share (a roughly 30% premium). Although Squarespace never lost 90% of its share price like BigCommerce, it has experienced a tumultuous time on the market since its IPO in May 2021 — opening around $49.50 and at times trading in the low $20s. Shares rose nearly 13% to $43 in pre-market trading upon release of the news.
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ByteDance filed a lawsuit in US federal court seeking to block the new law that would force the sale or ban of the app within the country. The lawsuit challenges the law on constitutional grounds, also citing commercial, technical, and legal hurdles, as well as opposition from Beijing. Legal experts say the legal battle will play out in the courts in coming months and likely will reach the Supreme Court.
___
OpenAI unveiled its newest model, GPT-4o, designed to turn ChatGPT into a digital personal assistant that can engage in real-time, spoken conversations and interact with users using text, screenshots, photos, documents, and charts. The new version of ChatGPT also has memory capabilities, which means it can learn from previous conversations. It will be available to both unpaid and premium customers alike. OpenAI also announced that it would be launching a desktop app with the GPT-4o capabilities, giving users another platform to interact with the technology outside of a web browser.
___
Amazon launched in South Africa last week, marking its first marketplace in sub-Saharan Africa, and bringing its total number of marketplaces worldwide to 22. To launch the new marketplace, Amazon is offering free delivery on first orders and on subsequent orders above R500 (about $27), access to 3,000 pick-up points, status updates via WhatsApp to track orders, 30 day refunds, and 24/7 customer support. The marketplace was supposed to launch in the country in 2023, but got delayed due to changes in priorities within Amazon.
___
In an unlikely partnership, Instacart is partnering with Uber Eats to expand into the restaurant delivery business. Instacart will add a new tab for restaurant delivery to its app in the coming weeks, the listings will be provided by Uber, and the food will be picked up and delivered by Uber Eats drivers. Customers will receive the same prices on both apps and Instacart will receive an affiliate commission on orders. It's a strange partnership though given that Instacart and Uber Eats actively compete on grocery delivery. Are they planning to merge? Uber says no.
___
Apple's advertisement for its latest iPad Pro sparked criticism for showing an animation of musical instruments, paint cans, cameras, record players, and other symbols of creativity being crushed by a giant machine, with the output being the new iPad Pro, which the company says is the thinnest Apple product ever. In this context, “crushing” was supposed to symbolize “consolidating” and “compacting” — with the visuals meant to showcase how the new iPad Pro puts the power of all these tools into the hands of creators in one thin device. However online commenters criticized the ad as insensitive and as symbolizing a “destruction of the human experience.” The ad hit the web on Tuesday, and by Thursday, Apple issued a mea culpa and apologized for the campaign.
___
Google is encouraging merchants to enable conversion annotations on their Google Shopping ads, which offer social proof that highlight a product's popularity. Conversion annotations like “best selling” or “3K shopped here recently” would provide visual cues about a product’s popularity or sales performance directly in the ad unit. Annotations like these are par for the course with e-commerce retailers including Amazon, Walmart, and Temu, which all employ similar tactics. They can provide valuable info for shoppers and also help with conversions. However they also open data privacy concerns, given that Google is not the actual retailer or marketplace selling the items, so a merchant would have to share this purchase history data from their e-commerce platform with Google — which technically most already do by giving access to GA4.
___
Shein is attempting to join the National Retail Federation as it pursues regulatory approval to go public in the US. The company believes that NRF membership would boost its chances of receiving SEC approval. However so far, Shein has been rejected numerous times. An anonymous source familiar with the matter said someone with heavy influence at the NRF is strongly against the Shein's admittance. However board members who spoke to CNBC said that Shein's membership application hadn't come up in meetings, and that they aren't involved in deciding which companies are granted access.
___
Amazon is leading the way with selling home goods, capturing 18.8% of consumer home furnishings spending, compared to Walmart's 7.3% market share. Notably, Amazon’s gains in the furniture category come in spite of the company’s decision to phase out two of its three furniture brands last year.
___
Stanley, which is projected to do $750M in sales this year, up from $73M in 2019, after seeing its water bottles become a status symbol thanks to TikTok, is now expanding into trendier accessories. The company is launching a line of bags called the All-Day Collection which include a mini cooler, backpack cooler, and Quencher Carry-All, designed for someone to sling their Stanley over their hip.
___
Jack Dorsey left the Bluesky board and deleted his account on the service he helped kickstart, claiming that Bluesky was “literally repeating all the mistakes” he made while running Twitter. Dorsey says he never intended Bluesky to be an independent company, but rather, an open source protocol that Twitter was supposed to be the first client of. He also confirmed that he is financially backing Nostr, another decentralized Twitter-like service popular among crypto enthusiasts and run by an anonymous founder.
___
Amazon is deploying 50 electric trucks in California, which it claims is the largest EV fleet in the country, as part of its mission to eliminate pollution from its global operations. The trucks will be integrated into first-mile operations, moving goods from container ships at the ports to fulfillment centers, as well as middle-mile operations, transporting packages from fulfillment centers to delivery centers.
___
Wix launched a new tool called AI Portfolio Creator, which allows a user to upload and organize large-scale image collections, select the type of portfolio they want, and then have the AI tool sort and generate a portfolio with clustered images, recommended titles and descriptions, and personalized layout options.
___
Amazon is now requiring all dietary supplements to be verified by a third-party testing, inspection, and certification organization — which is something that not even the FDA requires. Amazon is the largest supplement retailer in the US ahead of Walmart and Target, and its new requirements are expected to put more pressure on the industry, which is being scrutinized more than ever.
___
Alibaba is revamping its flagship retail website Taobao for the first time in seven years with a focus on providing a smoother search and buying process. The website overhaul comes ahead of the 618 sales event, China's second-largest annual shopping event. A few weeks ago I reported that Eddie Wu, the CEO of Alibaba Group, would now be directly overseeing its domestic e-commerce arm which includes Taobao and Tmall Group, and it sounds like he's hitting the ground running with his new responsibilities.
___
Amazon is hosting its first-ever Amazon Book Sale, a new shopping event starting on May 15th that offers up to 50% off print best sellers and up to 80% off Kindle Books. The six day shopping event will exclusively run in the US, and Prime-membership is not required to take advantage of the deals.
___
FTX reported that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded. The company owes about $11.2B to its customers and estimates that it has between $14.5B and $16.3B to distribute to them. The caveat is that customers will receive the USD value of their holdings at the time of the exchange collapse, and not the actual crypto holdings themselves, which means that they'll miss out on all gains during the past two years during which BTC went from around $16k to now over $60k. Better than nothing though, that's for sure.
___
800,000 consumers in Europe and the US were duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a network of fake online designer shops operated from China, which comprised one of the largest scams of its kind with 76,000 fake websites created. The scammers used expired domains to host its fake shops in order to help avoid detection by websites or brand owners, and more than 1M orders were processed in the past three years alone.
___
Beyond Inc, which owns Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock, and Zulily, reported that its Q1 net loss swelled to $72M from $10M a year ago, while its operating loss widened to $58M from $8M. The company's active customers grew to 6M, up 26% from nearly 5M a year ago, however, its average order value dropped to $173 from $220 a year earlier.
___
TikTok will begin automatically labeling AI generated content when it is uploaded from certain platforms like DALL.E 3, Adobe Firefly, Photoshop, and Microsoft Copilot. TikTok will also start attaching Content Credentials to content, which will remain on the media when downloaded, allowing other platforms to read the metadata.
___
eBay is testing an Add To Cart button in search results that opens a Quick View window, allowing buyers to skip the listing page. Technically the button should probably not be labeled “Add To Cart” since it doesn't perform that action, but rather, displays a quick view window with three buttons: Buy It Now, Add To Cart, View All Details. Sellers are worried that buyers will miss crucial details in the product description that may lead to increased returns and negative feedback.
___
Amazon is planning to launch its fleet of drones in Tolleson, Arizona, but the city's extreme temperature is hampering its efforts. Drones can't operate in temperatures exceeding 104 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that Tolleson crosses for a full three months of the year.
___
A US district judge dismissed X's lawsuit against Bright Data, a data-scraping company accused of improperly accessing X system and violating X terms and state laws when scraping and selling data. The judge basically said that if X owned the data, it could perhaps argue that it has exclusive rights to control it, but then X wouldn't be able to enjoy the safe harbor of Section 230, which allows the platform to avoid liability for third-party content. Can't have it both ways!
___
Nintendo is discontinuing its X integration for the switch on June 10th, which means users will no longer be able to post screenshots or videos to the platform from their device. The drop in support also affects games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which had game-specific options to send out tweets. Microsoft Xbox dropped support for X in April 2023 and Sony Playstation dropped the service in October 2023 due to the increase in X's API access fees.
___
Amazon claimed that its recordable incident rate — a metric that comprises all injuries requiring “more than basic first-aid treatment” — at its US warehouses has improved by 24% since 2019. However the National Employment Law Project challenged Amazon's injury data in a report last week, claiming that Amazon's overall injury rate in 2023 was 71% higher than that of other employers in the sector at 6.5 cases per 100 workers.
___
Amazon Ads announced three new advertising formats for streaming TV including shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads, and interactive trivia ads. Amazon did not say when the new ad types would officially launch, but noted that it will formally present them at a presentation on May 14th.
___
Meta is rolling out an expanded set of generative AI ad tools that can create full image variations with text overlays, expand images to fit across different aspect ratios, and generate alternate versions of headlines and other ad text. The features will become available globally to advertisers by the end of the year.
___
Square introduced a tool called Square Kiosk to allow self-service ordering at fast food restaurants. The device is a combined software, hardware, and payment solution that allows customers to select exactly what they want with customization options, upgrades, and add-ons.
___
The European Parliament announced new measures to make packaging more sustainable and reduce packaging waste in the EU, including reduction targets of 15% by 2040 — which sounds far away but is only 16 years away?! As part of the new rules, the EU will set maximum empty space ratios for e-commerce transportation, ban certain single-use plastic packaging types, and beverage distributors and take-away food will have to offer consumers the option of bringing their own container.
___
Indians who pre-ordered Teslas in 2016 are giving up and seeking refunds of their deposits after Elon Musk canceled another visit to the country last month. Disillusioned Tesla enthusiasts in India say they will now buy a car from the company only if they see it in a showroom, or they'll buy a different electrical vehicle from a company that actually exists in the country.
___
Target is limiting its Pride Month collection to select stores this year instead of rolling out the merchandise nationwide like it typically has for the past decade, due to backlash the retailer experienced last year. Last May customers in certain stores knocked down LGBTQ+ merchandise displays, angrily approached store employees, and posted threatening videos on social media from inside the stores.
___
E-commerce spending from Jan 1 to April 30, 2024 rose 7% YoY to $331.6B, according to Adobe Analytics. One trend Adobe identified during the period is a shift of online spending to purchasing the cheapest goods across personal care, electronics, apparel, home & garden, furniture, and grocery.
___
Plus 7 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest, including Shopify's acquisition of Peel, a tool that integrates with a merchant's tech stack including Klaviyo and Recharge and helps them analyze their sales data to improve customer retention.
___
I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week!
PAUL Editor of Shopifreaks E-Commerce Newsletter
PS: If I missed any big news this week, please share in the comments.
2024.05.13 22:51 EchoJobs Hiring AI Engineer [San Francisco, CA] [Machine Learning Deep Learning PyTorch NumPy Pandas Azure AWS GCP Git]
| | submitted by EchoJobs to SanFranciscoTechJobs [link] [comments] |
2024.05.13 22:50 Historical_Meeting11 First time made a resume. Want feedback or any suggestions for upcoming college placement.
submitted by Historical_Meeting11 to resumes [link] [comments]
2024.05.13 22:46 adventurepaul What's new in e-commerce? 🔥 Week of May 13th, 2024
Hi - I'm Paul and I follow the e-commerce industry closely for my Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter. Each week I post a summary recap of the week's top stories, which I cover in depth in the newsletter. Let's dive in...
___
STAT OF THE WEEK: Kohl's sales have shrunk by $2.3B since 2019. During that same period of time, the company lost 1.3M customers who no longer shop with the retailer.
___
BigCommerce is exploring a sale after attracting takeover interest, according to sources who chose to remain anonymous due to the confidentiality of the information. The sources said that BigCommerce asked investment bank Qatalyst Partners to solicit interest from potential buyers that include private equity firms, but that the discussions are at an early stage and no deal is certain.
___
Squarespace announced that it will be going private in a $6.9B all-cash deal with private-equity firm Permira, who agreed to pay $44 per share (a roughly 30% premium). Although Squarespace never lost 90% of its share price like BigCommerce, it has experienced a tumultuous time on the market since its IPO in May 2021 — opening around $49.50 and at times trading in the low $20s. Shares rose nearly 13% to $43 in pre-market trading upon release of the news.
___
ByteDance filed a lawsuit in US federal court seeking to block the new law that would force the sale or ban of the app within the country. The lawsuit challenges the law on constitutional grounds, also citing commercial, technical, and legal hurdles, as well as opposition from Beijing. Legal experts say the legal battle will play out in the courts in coming months and likely will reach the Supreme Court.
___
OpenAI unveiled its newest model, GPT-4o, designed to turn ChatGPT into a digital personal assistant that can engage in real-time, spoken conversations and interact with users using text, screenshots, photos, documents, and charts. The new version of ChatGPT also has memory capabilities, which means it can learn from previous conversations. It will be available to both unpaid and premium customers alike. OpenAI also announced that it would be launching a desktop app with the GPT-4o capabilities, giving users another platform to interact with the technology outside of a web browser.
___
Amazon launched in South Africa last week, marking its first marketplace in sub-Saharan Africa, and bringing its total number of marketplaces worldwide to 22. To launch the new marketplace, Amazon is offering free delivery on first orders and on subsequent orders above R500 (about $27), access to 3,000 pick-up points, status updates via WhatsApp to track orders, 30 day refunds, and 24/7 customer support. The marketplace was supposed to launch in the country in 2023, but got delayed due to changes in priorities within Amazon.
___
In an unlikely partnership, Instacart is partnering with Uber Eats to expand into the restaurant delivery business. Instacart will add a new tab for restaurant delivery to its app in the coming weeks, the listings will be provided by Uber, and the food will be picked up and delivered by Uber Eats drivers. Customers will receive the same prices on both apps and Instacart will receive an affiliate commission on orders. It's a strange partnership though given that Instacart and Uber Eats actively compete on grocery delivery. Are they planning to merge? Uber says no.
___
Apple's advertisement for its latest iPad Pro sparked criticism for showing an animation of musical instruments, paint cans, cameras, record players, and other symbols of creativity being crushed by a giant machine, with the output being the new iPad Pro, which the company says is the thinnest Apple product ever. In this context, “crushing” was supposed to symbolize “consolidating” and “compacting” — with the visuals meant to showcase how the new iPad Pro puts the power of all these tools into the hands of creators in one thin device. However online commenters criticized the ad as insensitive and as symbolizing a “destruction of the human experience.” The ad hit the web on Tuesday, and by Thursday, Apple issued a mea culpa and apologized for the campaign.
___
Google is encouraging merchants to enable conversion annotations on their Google Shopping ads, which offer social proof that highlight a product's popularity. Conversion annotations like “best selling” or “3K shopped here recently” would provide visual cues about a product’s popularity or sales performance directly in the ad unit. Annotations like these are par for the course with e-commerce retailers including Amazon, Walmart, and Temu, which all employ similar tactics. They can provide valuable info for shoppers and also help with conversions. However they also open data privacy concerns, given that Google is not the actual retailer or marketplace selling the items, so a merchant would have to share this purchase history data from their e-commerce platform with Google — which technically most already do by giving access to GA4.
___
Shein is attempting to join the National Retail Federation as it pursues regulatory approval to go public in the US. The company believes that NRF membership would boost its chances of receiving SEC approval. However so far, Shein has been rejected numerous times. An anonymous source familiar with the matter said someone with heavy influence at the NRF is strongly against the Shein's admittance. However board members who spoke to CNBC said that Shein's membership application hadn't come up in meetings, and that they aren't involved in deciding which companies are granted access.
___
Amazon is leading the way with selling home goods, capturing 18.8% of consumer home furnishings spending, compared to Walmart's 7.3% market share. Notably, Amazon’s gains in the furniture category come in spite of the company’s decision to phase out two of its three furniture brands last year.
___
Stanley, which is projected to do $750M in sales this year, up from $73M in 2019, after seeing its water bottles become a status symbol thanks to TikTok, is now expanding into trendier accessories. The company is launching a line of bags called the All-Day Collection which include a mini cooler, backpack cooler, and Quencher Carry-All, designed for someone to sling their Stanley over their hip.
___
Jack Dorsey left the Bluesky board and deleted his account on the service he helped kickstart, claiming that Bluesky was “literally repeating all the mistakes” he made while running Twitter. Dorsey says he never intended Bluesky to be an independent company, but rather, an open source protocol that Twitter was supposed to be the first client of. He also confirmed that he is financially backing Nostr, another decentralized Twitter-like service popular among crypto enthusiasts and run by an anonymous founder.
___
Amazon is deploying 50 electric trucks in California, which it claims is the largest EV fleet in the country, as part of its mission to eliminate pollution from its global operations. The trucks will be integrated into first-mile operations, moving goods from container ships at the ports to fulfillment centers, as well as middle-mile operations, transporting packages from fulfillment centers to delivery centers.
___
Wix launched a new tool called AI Portfolio Creator, which allows a user to upload and organize large-scale image collections, select the type of portfolio they want, and then have the AI tool sort and generate a portfolio with clustered images, recommended titles and descriptions, and personalized layout options.
___
Amazon is now requiring all dietary supplements to be verified by a third-party testing, inspection, and certification organization — which is something that not even the FDA requires. Amazon is the largest supplement retailer in the US ahead of Walmart and Target, and its new requirements are expected to put more pressure on the industry, which is being scrutinized more than ever.
___
Alibaba is revamping its flagship retail website Taobao for the first time in seven years with a focus on providing a smoother search and buying process. The website overhaul comes ahead of the 618 sales event, China's second-largest annual shopping event. A few weeks ago I reported that Eddie Wu, the CEO of Alibaba Group, would now be directly overseeing its domestic e-commerce arm which includes Taobao and Tmall Group, and it sounds like he's hitting the ground running with his new responsibilities.
___
Amazon is hosting its first-ever Amazon Book Sale, a new shopping event starting on May 15th that offers up to 50% off print best sellers and up to 80% off Kindle Books. The six day shopping event will exclusively run in the US, and Prime-membership is not required to take advantage of the deals.
___
FTX reported that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded. The company owes about $11.2B to its customers and estimates that it has between $14.5B and $16.3B to distribute to them. The caveat is that customers will receive the USD value of their holdings at the time of the exchange collapse, and not the actual crypto holdings themselves, which means that they'll miss out on all gains during the past two years during which BTC went from around $16k to now over $60k. Better than nothing though, that's for sure.
___
800,000 consumers in Europe and the US were duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a network of fake online designer shops operated from China, which comprised one of the largest scams of its kind with 76,000 fake websites created. The scammers used expired domains to host its fake shops in order to help avoid detection by websites or brand owners, and more than 1M orders were processed in the past three years alone.
___
Beyond Inc, which owns Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock, and Zulily, reported that its Q1 net loss swelled to $72M from $10M a year ago, while its operating loss widened to $58M from $8M. The company's active customers grew to 6M, up 26% from nearly 5M a year ago, however, its average order value dropped to $173 from $220 a year earlier.
___
TikTok will begin automatically labeling AI generated content when it is uploaded from certain platforms like DALL.E 3, Adobe Firefly, Photoshop, and Microsoft Copilot. TikTok will also start attaching Content Credentials to content, which will remain on the media when downloaded, allowing other platforms to read the metadata.
___
eBay is testing an Add To Cart button in search results that opens a Quick View window, allowing buyers to skip the listing page. Technically the button should probably not be labeled “Add To Cart” since it doesn't perform that action, but rather, displays a quick view window with three buttons: Buy It Now, Add To Cart, View All Details. Sellers are worried that buyers will miss crucial details in the product description that may lead to increased returns and negative feedback.
___
Amazon is planning to launch its fleet of drones in Tolleson, Arizona, but the city's extreme temperature is hampering its efforts. Drones can't operate in temperatures exceeding 104 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that Tolleson crosses for a full three months of the year.
___
A US district judge dismissed X's lawsuit against Bright Data, a data-scraping company accused of improperly accessing X system and violating X terms and state laws when scraping and selling data. The judge basically said that if X owned the data, it could perhaps argue that it has exclusive rights to control it, but then X wouldn't be able to enjoy the safe harbor of Section 230, which allows the platform to avoid liability for third-party content. Can't have it both ways!
___
Nintendo is discontinuing its X integration for the switch on June 10th, which means users will no longer be able to post screenshots or videos to the platform from their device. The drop in support also affects games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which had game-specific options to send out tweets. Microsoft Xbox dropped support for X in April 2023 and Sony Playstation dropped the service in October 2023 due to the increase in X's API access fees.
___
Amazon claimed that its recordable incident rate — a metric that comprises all injuries requiring “more than basic first-aid treatment” — at its US warehouses has improved by 24% since 2019. However the National Employment Law Project challenged Amazon's injury data in a report last week, claiming that Amazon's overall injury rate in 2023 was 71% higher than that of other employers in the sector at 6.5 cases per 100 workers.
___
Amazon Ads announced three new advertising formats for streaming TV including shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads, and interactive trivia ads. Amazon did not say when the new ad types would officially launch, but noted that it will formally present them at a presentation on May 14th.
___
Meta is rolling out an expanded set of generative AI ad tools that can create full image variations with text overlays, expand images to fit across different aspect ratios, and generate alternate versions of headlines and other ad text. The features will become available globally to advertisers by the end of the year.
___
Square introduced a tool called Square Kiosk to allow self-service ordering at fast food restaurants. The device is a combined software, hardware, and payment solution that allows customers to select exactly what they want with customization options, upgrades, and add-ons.
___
The European Parliament announced new measures to make packaging more sustainable and reduce packaging waste in the EU, including reduction targets of 15% by 2040 — which sounds far away but is only 16 years away?! As part of the new rules, the EU will set maximum empty space ratios for e-commerce transportation, ban certain single-use plastic packaging types, and beverage distributors and take-away food will have to offer consumers the option of bringing their own container.
___
Indians who pre-ordered Teslas in 2016 are giving up and seeking refunds of their deposits after Elon Musk canceled another visit to the country last month. Disillusioned Tesla enthusiasts in India say they will now buy a car from the company only if they see it in a showroom, or they'll buy a different electrical vehicle from a company that actually exists in the country.
___
Target is limiting its Pride Month collection to select stores this year instead of rolling out the merchandise nationwide like it typically has for the past decade, due to backlash the retailer experienced last year. Last May customers in certain stores knocked down LGBTQ+ merchandise displays, angrily approached store employees, and posted threatening videos on social media from inside the stores.
___
E-commerce spending from Jan 1 to April 30, 2024 rose 7% YoY to $331.6B, according to Adobe Analytics. One trend Adobe identified during the period is a shift of online spending to purchasing the cheapest goods across personal care, electronics, apparel, home & garden, furniture, and grocery.
___
Plus 7 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest, including Shopify's acquisition of Peel, a tool that integrates with a merchant's tech stack including Klaviyo and Recharge and helps them analyze their sales data to improve customer retention.
___
I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week!
For more details on each story and sources, see the full edition: https://www.shopifreaks.com/bigcommerce-for-sale-openai-gpt-4o-instacarts-unlikely-partnership/
What else is new in e-commerce? Share stories of interesting in the comments below (including in your own business) or on shopifreaks.
-PAUL Editor of Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter
PS: Want the full editions delivered to your Inbox each week? Join free at www.shopifreaks.com
submitted by adventurepaul to ShopifyeCommerce [link] [comments]
___
STAT OF THE WEEK: Kohl's sales have shrunk by $2.3B since 2019. During that same period of time, the company lost 1.3M customers who no longer shop with the retailer.
___
BigCommerce is exploring a sale after attracting takeover interest, according to sources who chose to remain anonymous due to the confidentiality of the information. The sources said that BigCommerce asked investment bank Qatalyst Partners to solicit interest from potential buyers that include private equity firms, but that the discussions are at an early stage and no deal is certain.
___
Squarespace announced that it will be going private in a $6.9B all-cash deal with private-equity firm Permira, who agreed to pay $44 per share (a roughly 30% premium). Although Squarespace never lost 90% of its share price like BigCommerce, it has experienced a tumultuous time on the market since its IPO in May 2021 — opening around $49.50 and at times trading in the low $20s. Shares rose nearly 13% to $43 in pre-market trading upon release of the news.
___
ByteDance filed a lawsuit in US federal court seeking to block the new law that would force the sale or ban of the app within the country. The lawsuit challenges the law on constitutional grounds, also citing commercial, technical, and legal hurdles, as well as opposition from Beijing. Legal experts say the legal battle will play out in the courts in coming months and likely will reach the Supreme Court.
___
OpenAI unveiled its newest model, GPT-4o, designed to turn ChatGPT into a digital personal assistant that can engage in real-time, spoken conversations and interact with users using text, screenshots, photos, documents, and charts. The new version of ChatGPT also has memory capabilities, which means it can learn from previous conversations. It will be available to both unpaid and premium customers alike. OpenAI also announced that it would be launching a desktop app with the GPT-4o capabilities, giving users another platform to interact with the technology outside of a web browser.
___
Amazon launched in South Africa last week, marking its first marketplace in sub-Saharan Africa, and bringing its total number of marketplaces worldwide to 22. To launch the new marketplace, Amazon is offering free delivery on first orders and on subsequent orders above R500 (about $27), access to 3,000 pick-up points, status updates via WhatsApp to track orders, 30 day refunds, and 24/7 customer support. The marketplace was supposed to launch in the country in 2023, but got delayed due to changes in priorities within Amazon.
___
In an unlikely partnership, Instacart is partnering with Uber Eats to expand into the restaurant delivery business. Instacart will add a new tab for restaurant delivery to its app in the coming weeks, the listings will be provided by Uber, and the food will be picked up and delivered by Uber Eats drivers. Customers will receive the same prices on both apps and Instacart will receive an affiliate commission on orders. It's a strange partnership though given that Instacart and Uber Eats actively compete on grocery delivery. Are they planning to merge? Uber says no.
___
Apple's advertisement for its latest iPad Pro sparked criticism for showing an animation of musical instruments, paint cans, cameras, record players, and other symbols of creativity being crushed by a giant machine, with the output being the new iPad Pro, which the company says is the thinnest Apple product ever. In this context, “crushing” was supposed to symbolize “consolidating” and “compacting” — with the visuals meant to showcase how the new iPad Pro puts the power of all these tools into the hands of creators in one thin device. However online commenters criticized the ad as insensitive and as symbolizing a “destruction of the human experience.” The ad hit the web on Tuesday, and by Thursday, Apple issued a mea culpa and apologized for the campaign.
___
Google is encouraging merchants to enable conversion annotations on their Google Shopping ads, which offer social proof that highlight a product's popularity. Conversion annotations like “best selling” or “3K shopped here recently” would provide visual cues about a product’s popularity or sales performance directly in the ad unit. Annotations like these are par for the course with e-commerce retailers including Amazon, Walmart, and Temu, which all employ similar tactics. They can provide valuable info for shoppers and also help with conversions. However they also open data privacy concerns, given that Google is not the actual retailer or marketplace selling the items, so a merchant would have to share this purchase history data from their e-commerce platform with Google — which technically most already do by giving access to GA4.
___
Shein is attempting to join the National Retail Federation as it pursues regulatory approval to go public in the US. The company believes that NRF membership would boost its chances of receiving SEC approval. However so far, Shein has been rejected numerous times. An anonymous source familiar with the matter said someone with heavy influence at the NRF is strongly against the Shein's admittance. However board members who spoke to CNBC said that Shein's membership application hadn't come up in meetings, and that they aren't involved in deciding which companies are granted access.
___
Amazon is leading the way with selling home goods, capturing 18.8% of consumer home furnishings spending, compared to Walmart's 7.3% market share. Notably, Amazon’s gains in the furniture category come in spite of the company’s decision to phase out two of its three furniture brands last year.
___
Stanley, which is projected to do $750M in sales this year, up from $73M in 2019, after seeing its water bottles become a status symbol thanks to TikTok, is now expanding into trendier accessories. The company is launching a line of bags called the All-Day Collection which include a mini cooler, backpack cooler, and Quencher Carry-All, designed for someone to sling their Stanley over their hip.
___
Jack Dorsey left the Bluesky board and deleted his account on the service he helped kickstart, claiming that Bluesky was “literally repeating all the mistakes” he made while running Twitter. Dorsey says he never intended Bluesky to be an independent company, but rather, an open source protocol that Twitter was supposed to be the first client of. He also confirmed that he is financially backing Nostr, another decentralized Twitter-like service popular among crypto enthusiasts and run by an anonymous founder.
___
Amazon is deploying 50 electric trucks in California, which it claims is the largest EV fleet in the country, as part of its mission to eliminate pollution from its global operations. The trucks will be integrated into first-mile operations, moving goods from container ships at the ports to fulfillment centers, as well as middle-mile operations, transporting packages from fulfillment centers to delivery centers.
___
Wix launched a new tool called AI Portfolio Creator, which allows a user to upload and organize large-scale image collections, select the type of portfolio they want, and then have the AI tool sort and generate a portfolio with clustered images, recommended titles and descriptions, and personalized layout options.
___
Amazon is now requiring all dietary supplements to be verified by a third-party testing, inspection, and certification organization — which is something that not even the FDA requires. Amazon is the largest supplement retailer in the US ahead of Walmart and Target, and its new requirements are expected to put more pressure on the industry, which is being scrutinized more than ever.
___
Alibaba is revamping its flagship retail website Taobao for the first time in seven years with a focus on providing a smoother search and buying process. The website overhaul comes ahead of the 618 sales event, China's second-largest annual shopping event. A few weeks ago I reported that Eddie Wu, the CEO of Alibaba Group, would now be directly overseeing its domestic e-commerce arm which includes Taobao and Tmall Group, and it sounds like he's hitting the ground running with his new responsibilities.
___
Amazon is hosting its first-ever Amazon Book Sale, a new shopping event starting on May 15th that offers up to 50% off print best sellers and up to 80% off Kindle Books. The six day shopping event will exclusively run in the US, and Prime-membership is not required to take advantage of the deals.
___
FTX reported that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded. The company owes about $11.2B to its customers and estimates that it has between $14.5B and $16.3B to distribute to them. The caveat is that customers will receive the USD value of their holdings at the time of the exchange collapse, and not the actual crypto holdings themselves, which means that they'll miss out on all gains during the past two years during which BTC went from around $16k to now over $60k. Better than nothing though, that's for sure.
___
800,000 consumers in Europe and the US were duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a network of fake online designer shops operated from China, which comprised one of the largest scams of its kind with 76,000 fake websites created. The scammers used expired domains to host its fake shops in order to help avoid detection by websites or brand owners, and more than 1M orders were processed in the past three years alone.
___
Beyond Inc, which owns Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock, and Zulily, reported that its Q1 net loss swelled to $72M from $10M a year ago, while its operating loss widened to $58M from $8M. The company's active customers grew to 6M, up 26% from nearly 5M a year ago, however, its average order value dropped to $173 from $220 a year earlier.
___
TikTok will begin automatically labeling AI generated content when it is uploaded from certain platforms like DALL.E 3, Adobe Firefly, Photoshop, and Microsoft Copilot. TikTok will also start attaching Content Credentials to content, which will remain on the media when downloaded, allowing other platforms to read the metadata.
___
eBay is testing an Add To Cart button in search results that opens a Quick View window, allowing buyers to skip the listing page. Technically the button should probably not be labeled “Add To Cart” since it doesn't perform that action, but rather, displays a quick view window with three buttons: Buy It Now, Add To Cart, View All Details. Sellers are worried that buyers will miss crucial details in the product description that may lead to increased returns and negative feedback.
___
Amazon is planning to launch its fleet of drones in Tolleson, Arizona, but the city's extreme temperature is hampering its efforts. Drones can't operate in temperatures exceeding 104 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that Tolleson crosses for a full three months of the year.
___
A US district judge dismissed X's lawsuit against Bright Data, a data-scraping company accused of improperly accessing X system and violating X terms and state laws when scraping and selling data. The judge basically said that if X owned the data, it could perhaps argue that it has exclusive rights to control it, but then X wouldn't be able to enjoy the safe harbor of Section 230, which allows the platform to avoid liability for third-party content. Can't have it both ways!
___
Nintendo is discontinuing its X integration for the switch on June 10th, which means users will no longer be able to post screenshots or videos to the platform from their device. The drop in support also affects games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which had game-specific options to send out tweets. Microsoft Xbox dropped support for X in April 2023 and Sony Playstation dropped the service in October 2023 due to the increase in X's API access fees.
___
Amazon claimed that its recordable incident rate — a metric that comprises all injuries requiring “more than basic first-aid treatment” — at its US warehouses has improved by 24% since 2019. However the National Employment Law Project challenged Amazon's injury data in a report last week, claiming that Amazon's overall injury rate in 2023 was 71% higher than that of other employers in the sector at 6.5 cases per 100 workers.
___
Amazon Ads announced three new advertising formats for streaming TV including shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads, and interactive trivia ads. Amazon did not say when the new ad types would officially launch, but noted that it will formally present them at a presentation on May 14th.
___
Meta is rolling out an expanded set of generative AI ad tools that can create full image variations with text overlays, expand images to fit across different aspect ratios, and generate alternate versions of headlines and other ad text. The features will become available globally to advertisers by the end of the year.
___
Square introduced a tool called Square Kiosk to allow self-service ordering at fast food restaurants. The device is a combined software, hardware, and payment solution that allows customers to select exactly what they want with customization options, upgrades, and add-ons.
___
The European Parliament announced new measures to make packaging more sustainable and reduce packaging waste in the EU, including reduction targets of 15% by 2040 — which sounds far away but is only 16 years away?! As part of the new rules, the EU will set maximum empty space ratios for e-commerce transportation, ban certain single-use plastic packaging types, and beverage distributors and take-away food will have to offer consumers the option of bringing their own container.
___
Indians who pre-ordered Teslas in 2016 are giving up and seeking refunds of their deposits after Elon Musk canceled another visit to the country last month. Disillusioned Tesla enthusiasts in India say they will now buy a car from the company only if they see it in a showroom, or they'll buy a different electrical vehicle from a company that actually exists in the country.
___
Target is limiting its Pride Month collection to select stores this year instead of rolling out the merchandise nationwide like it typically has for the past decade, due to backlash the retailer experienced last year. Last May customers in certain stores knocked down LGBTQ+ merchandise displays, angrily approached store employees, and posted threatening videos on social media from inside the stores.
___
E-commerce spending from Jan 1 to April 30, 2024 rose 7% YoY to $331.6B, according to Adobe Analytics. One trend Adobe identified during the period is a shift of online spending to purchasing the cheapest goods across personal care, electronics, apparel, home & garden, furniture, and grocery.
___
Plus 7 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest, including Shopify's acquisition of Peel, a tool that integrates with a merchant's tech stack including Klaviyo and Recharge and helps them analyze their sales data to improve customer retention.
___
I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week!
For more details on each story and sources, see the full edition: https://www.shopifreaks.com/bigcommerce-for-sale-openai-gpt-4o-instacarts-unlikely-partnership/
What else is new in e-commerce? Share stories of interesting in the comments below (including in your own business) or on shopifreaks.
-PAUL Editor of Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter
PS: Want the full editions delivered to your Inbox each week? Join free at www.shopifreaks.com
2024.05.13 22:42 newyork0120 The Met Gaia Is The Latest Casualty As Leftist Protesters Turn On Their Masters
Every year I’m confronted with the decision of whether to talk about the Met Gala. And it can be a tough decision if I’m being totally honest - on one hand, it’s always easy to point and laugh at rich Leftists wearing weird costumes and making fools out of themselves; on the other hand, it’s gotten way too easy to do that, and as far as celebrity freak shows go, the Met Gala is sort of like the Oscars at this point: its supposed “unpredictability” is now cliche, its zaniness is now boring. Unless mayhem breaks out—say, like an actor slaps the presenter live on-stage or something like that—then the truth is that no one really cares about any of these events anymore - in fact, I’m still not even sure what the Met Gala is. All I know is that the celebrities dress strangely and then go into I guess a big museum. What do they do inside the museum? Is there some kind of award ceremony? Is it a dance? Is it like celebrity prom or something? Do they sacrifice a live goat and drink its blood while chanting satanic curses? Is it some combination of these things? Nobody knows for sure. And most of all, nobody cares.
But fortunately, something interesting did happen at the Met Gala last week, or at least outside of it. Mobs of pro-Palestine demonstrators, apparently bored of their tent cities on college campuses, slowly marched through Manhattan towards the Met, and when they arrived, they tore down the police barricades and flooded the street.
Just for fun, here’s Lizzo dressed like something that you might find inside an unflushed toilet at Panda Express, and that’s what she wore to the Met Gala while riots raged outside in a clash of poor commies versus rich commies, as Peachy Keenan put it. These riots should also bring to mind I think some immediate logistical considerations that the Democratic Party now has to think about - for one thing, it’s safe to say that planning for the Democratic National Convention is going through some last-minute revisions right about now. Just imagine being in charge of security for the DNC; you’re gonna need bigger barricades than they had at the Met, and probably a lot more cops.
But more barricades and cops aren’t gonna fix the underlying problem that the Democratic Party has created here. There’s now a full-on uprising on the Left against the elitism that Democrats have long embraced - and the media is getting involved, too. Yahoo, for example, has already turned on the Met Gala; they just published a piece declaring, “The Met Gala’s Opulence Is Always Gross. This Year, It’s Obscene.”
Now, the whole article is a rant that hits a crescendo with this paragraph, which is probably the single-longest run-on sentence I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Here it is, this whole thing is one sentence, just so you know:
In any event, that whole massive paragraph could be summed up as saying, “We’re living through late-stage capitalism right now.” That’s what the Left-wing media is saying. That’s the way that they are framing this, and of course, “late-stage capitalism” is one of their favorite phrases to use these days. And they used to celebrate the Met Gala, but not anymore. Now they’re saying the same thing the demonstrators are, which is that the frivolous elite are partying while Rome burns—which they are, of course—and they’re furious about it, or pretending to be.
Now, what the media and these demonstrators don’t want to admit is that the elitists at this gala—all the celebrities who are dressed like slutty Star Wars villains and so on—are on their team. The celebrities are part of the ruling class, the protesters and media critics are its products and in some cases quite literally its offspring. Now, to be sure, the celebrities and college administrators and the politicians are reluctant to acknowledge that their own Frankenstein monster is turning against them, but that’s exactly what’s happening.
Remember that it was two years ago that AOC showed up to the Met Gala with a “Tax the Rich” gown. There were a bunch of sympathetic news stories highlighting her bravery at the time, and here’s how AOC justified showing up to an event that costs $300,000 per table while equipped with a custom dress, handbag, shoes and jewelry costing more than $2,000.
Her whole schtick was always hypocritical and disingenuous, of course, but it turns out that Leftist activists were listening to this rhetoric, I guess, they were taking it seriously, we’ve seen this a lot lately. When Chuck Schumer threatened Supreme Court justices, Leftists showed up at the justices’ homes; when the White House claimed that “trans kids” were being abused, a Leftist shot and killed Christians; when Democrats accused Israel of “genocide,” college students occupied university buildings; now two years after AOC attacked the Met, leftist gathered outside of the building.
This is the escalation that Democrats have primed this country for; it’s now in progress, whether Democrats intended it to happen to THEM or not—which, of course, they didn’t—but that’s not to say that ruling elites are going to roll over and let this happen. I mean, as you saw in that footage, the cops showed up in force and started making arrests the very second that protestors trespassed through the barricades in front of the Met. They were on the scene immediately.
Now, that’s kind of a noticeable contrast when compare it to other things like when these people set up encampments on college campuses, they were given in most cases a few days, maybe a week, before the cops moved in; when they looted and burned poor neighborhoods, they were given about three months to inflict carnage before anyone did anything about it; but when they showed up at the Met Gala, they were given three SECONDS before the arrests started. So it really shows you kind of how the hierarchy works.
The Democrats can’t protect the rest of the country from these mobs, nor do they intend to. So last night, in addition to creating a scene at the Met Gala, Leftists also vandalized a World War I memorial in New York and torched an American flag in front of it.
So please note, again, the contrast, the hierarchy, and the fact that this was happening at the exact same time as the Met Gala thing - REALLY shows you where the priorities are when you notice what kinds of illegal demonstrations the police will stop and which demonstrations they’ll allow to continue. The mob can deface World War I memorials all they want because in doing so, they’re communicating their hatred for this country and everything it stands for. So the Democrats who run New York aren’t going to stop them. But the mob isn’t allowed to inconvenience celebrities at the Met under any circumstances.
The point is that this is the hierarchy that Democrats clearly want to enforce. The trouble is getting the mob to RESPECT the hierarchy, and the Democrats are having trouble with that at the moment.
Yet they still seem oblivious, the Democrats are—or acting oblivious, at least—to the fact that they created this monster themselves, and that’s why inside the Met, as chaos unfolded outside, the party continued uninterrupted, and so did all of this associated weirdness, which was as off-putting as it’s ever been - take for example this decoy costume worn by someone using the name “Karol G.” Now, apparently she wanted to keep her real costume a secret, so earlier in the evening, she sported this beige umbrella-looking lampshade thing instead.
Now, imagine being a hardcore, AOC-loving Leftist who sees this - Democrats have spent the last several years telling you to despise rich people and commit crimes in the name of political activism, and then down the street from your hippy commune at the local university, some celebrity is walking around in a lampshade costume which probably costs $50,000 or something, and the entire Democratic Party establishment is pretending that it’s all normal. What do you do? How would you view the Democratic Party establishment after seeing this?
Now, as for the costume itself, of course, it’s clearly a bid for attention, and I guess it worked—I’m talking about it—but it’s not even an original idea - as a lot of people have pointed out, the outfit bears a striking resemblance to a certain shower curtain costume from the film “Karate Kid,” only with different colors, so there’s really no redeeming qualities whatsoever here, it’s a total debacle all around.
But to be fair, there was at least some originality on display last night - for example, this celebrity apparently walked through a wind tunnel full of roses somewhere before arriving at the Met, and for her trouble, Vogue named her as one of the best-dressed women of the evening.
We can assume again that this… woman?… paid many thousands of dollars for that outfit, which is just a trench coat with flower peddles and glitter glued onto it. It really looks like something a four-year-old girl might make. As everybody knows, in the mind of a four-year-old girl, anything and everything can be made prettier with copious amounts of glitter and flowers, which is a fine mentality for a small child; doesn’t translate very well in this case. And as self-congratulatory as it is, again, there’s no self-awareness whatsoever - it’s almost as if the entire purpose of the event is to celebrate the elites’ total inability to detect how preposterous, self-absorbed, and laughable they are.
An this is nothing new, it’s been the case since the Met Gala was established, it’s always been a mini-theater of the absurd. What’s changed is that the voting base of the Democratic Party isn’t laughing along with these clowns as much anymore. They turned against the universities; now they’ve turned against Hollywood. What the protesters of course don’t understand is that they have inherited their own worldview and everything they believe from these very institutions and these very people.
Hollywood and Academia don’t realize that they’re being attacked by their own Frankenstein, but the Frankenstein monster also doesn’t realize that it IS the Frankenstein monster. And if Frankenstein ever wakes up to that fact, well then the ruling class will really be in trouble.
submitted by newyork0120 to Rants [link] [comments]
But fortunately, something interesting did happen at the Met Gala last week, or at least outside of it. Mobs of pro-Palestine demonstrators, apparently bored of their tent cities on college campuses, slowly marched through Manhattan towards the Met, and when they arrived, they tore down the police barricades and flooded the street.
Just for fun, here’s Lizzo dressed like something that you might find inside an unflushed toilet at Panda Express, and that’s what she wore to the Met Gala while riots raged outside in a clash of poor commies versus rich commies, as Peachy Keenan put it. These riots should also bring to mind I think some immediate logistical considerations that the Democratic Party now has to think about - for one thing, it’s safe to say that planning for the Democratic National Convention is going through some last-minute revisions right about now. Just imagine being in charge of security for the DNC; you’re gonna need bigger barricades than they had at the Met, and probably a lot more cops.
But more barricades and cops aren’t gonna fix the underlying problem that the Democratic Party has created here. There’s now a full-on uprising on the Left against the elitism that Democrats have long embraced - and the media is getting involved, too. Yahoo, for example, has already turned on the Met Gala; they just published a piece declaring, “The Met Gala’s Opulence Is Always Gross. This Year, It’s Obscene.”
Now, the whole article is a rant that hits a crescendo with this paragraph, which is probably the single-longest run-on sentence I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Here it is, this whole thing is one sentence, just so you know:
Even in an era filled with the horrors of late-stage capitalism run amok—bipartisan support for genocide; rolling back of reproductive, civil, and voting rights; a threadbare social safety net; decades of wage stagnation; tax cuts for the the rich; the crushing of unions and labor rights; expansion of the militarized police surveillance state; creeping techno-authoritarianism; untested, unregulated, and unchecked A.I.; entrenched racial inequality and injustice; right-wing and white supremacist extremist violence; and Boeing jet parts falling from the sky like so many dead whistleblowers—that kind of frivolous urgency promises that this year’s event nonetheless will stand out as a vainglorious display of self-congratulatory decadence and tone-deaf extravagance.Now, first of all, just as a stylistic matter, if you’re going to make a sentence that long, it needs to be coherent. And “Boeing jet parts are falling from the sky like so many dead whistleblowers?” That doesn’t even make sense; the dead whistleblowers didn’t fall from the sky. I mean, they’re not being pushed out planes. One of them shot himself allegedly and the other died of an illness. Now, even if you subscribe to the theory that Boeing’s hitmen killed these whistleblowers—which, who knows, maybe they did—the fact remains that they didn’t fall from the sky. They died on the ground, so the metaphor just doesn’t work. And this is the problem you get into with 100-word sentences: eventually, you just lose track of what you’re saying.
In any event, that whole massive paragraph could be summed up as saying, “We’re living through late-stage capitalism right now.” That’s what the Left-wing media is saying. That’s the way that they are framing this, and of course, “late-stage capitalism” is one of their favorite phrases to use these days. And they used to celebrate the Met Gala, but not anymore. Now they’re saying the same thing the demonstrators are, which is that the frivolous elite are partying while Rome burns—which they are, of course—and they’re furious about it, or pretending to be.
Now, what the media and these demonstrators don’t want to admit is that the elitists at this gala—all the celebrities who are dressed like slutty Star Wars villains and so on—are on their team. The celebrities are part of the ruling class, the protesters and media critics are its products and in some cases quite literally its offspring. Now, to be sure, the celebrities and college administrators and the politicians are reluctant to acknowledge that their own Frankenstein monster is turning against them, but that’s exactly what’s happening.
Remember that it was two years ago that AOC showed up to the Met Gala with a “Tax the Rich” gown. There were a bunch of sympathetic news stories highlighting her bravery at the time, and here’s how AOC justified showing up to an event that costs $300,000 per table while equipped with a custom dress, handbag, shoes and jewelry costing more than $2,000.
REPORTER: “You know this dress has a message for this Met Gala, tell me about what that is.”It’s a really important conversation, AOC says, some people aren’t ready to hear it, but we need to punish rich people, we need to make them as uncomfortable as possible, we need to take their money, and that was the message from AOC, who not incidentally, grew up in a very well-off suburb.
AOC: “You know, I made a message, it says ’Tax the Rich’ right there, uh, it’s really about having a real conversation about fairness and equity in our system, and I think that this conversation is particularly relevant as we debate over budget and reconciliation down. What we’re talking about, providing working families with child care, healthcare, and meeting the climate crisis [unintelligible]* it deserves. … I think that ultimately, you know, we’re at a very critical point. I think there are some folks who are starting to really understand that this is a very critical conversation for us to be having right now. Other folks have invested interest in not having that conversation, but our point is to keep organizing and keep it going.”*
Her whole schtick was always hypocritical and disingenuous, of course, but it turns out that Leftist activists were listening to this rhetoric, I guess, they were taking it seriously, we’ve seen this a lot lately. When Chuck Schumer threatened Supreme Court justices, Leftists showed up at the justices’ homes; when the White House claimed that “trans kids” were being abused, a Leftist shot and killed Christians; when Democrats accused Israel of “genocide,” college students occupied university buildings; now two years after AOC attacked the Met, leftist gathered outside of the building.
This is the escalation that Democrats have primed this country for; it’s now in progress, whether Democrats intended it to happen to THEM or not—which, of course, they didn’t—but that’s not to say that ruling elites are going to roll over and let this happen. I mean, as you saw in that footage, the cops showed up in force and started making arrests the very second that protestors trespassed through the barricades in front of the Met. They were on the scene immediately.
Now, that’s kind of a noticeable contrast when compare it to other things like when these people set up encampments on college campuses, they were given in most cases a few days, maybe a week, before the cops moved in; when they looted and burned poor neighborhoods, they were given about three months to inflict carnage before anyone did anything about it; but when they showed up at the Met Gala, they were given three SECONDS before the arrests started. So it really shows you kind of how the hierarchy works.
The Democrats can’t protect the rest of the country from these mobs, nor do they intend to. So last night, in addition to creating a scene at the Met Gala, Leftists also vandalized a World War I memorial in New York and torched an American flag in front of it.
So please note, again, the contrast, the hierarchy, and the fact that this was happening at the exact same time as the Met Gala thing - REALLY shows you where the priorities are when you notice what kinds of illegal demonstrations the police will stop and which demonstrations they’ll allow to continue. The mob can deface World War I memorials all they want because in doing so, they’re communicating their hatred for this country and everything it stands for. So the Democrats who run New York aren’t going to stop them. But the mob isn’t allowed to inconvenience celebrities at the Met under any circumstances.
The point is that this is the hierarchy that Democrats clearly want to enforce. The trouble is getting the mob to RESPECT the hierarchy, and the Democrats are having trouble with that at the moment.
Yet they still seem oblivious, the Democrats are—or acting oblivious, at least—to the fact that they created this monster themselves, and that’s why inside the Met, as chaos unfolded outside, the party continued uninterrupted, and so did all of this associated weirdness, which was as off-putting as it’s ever been - take for example this decoy costume worn by someone using the name “Karol G.” Now, apparently she wanted to keep her real costume a secret, so earlier in the evening, she sported this beige umbrella-looking lampshade thing instead.
Now, imagine being a hardcore, AOC-loving Leftist who sees this - Democrats have spent the last several years telling you to despise rich people and commit crimes in the name of political activism, and then down the street from your hippy commune at the local university, some celebrity is walking around in a lampshade costume which probably costs $50,000 or something, and the entire Democratic Party establishment is pretending that it’s all normal. What do you do? How would you view the Democratic Party establishment after seeing this?
Now, as for the costume itself, of course, it’s clearly a bid for attention, and I guess it worked—I’m talking about it—but it’s not even an original idea - as a lot of people have pointed out, the outfit bears a striking resemblance to a certain shower curtain costume from the film “Karate Kid,” only with different colors, so there’s really no redeeming qualities whatsoever here, it’s a total debacle all around.
But to be fair, there was at least some originality on display last night - for example, this celebrity apparently walked through a wind tunnel full of roses somewhere before arriving at the Met, and for her trouble, Vogue named her as one of the best-dressed women of the evening.
We can assume again that this… woman?… paid many thousands of dollars for that outfit, which is just a trench coat with flower peddles and glitter glued onto it. It really looks like something a four-year-old girl might make. As everybody knows, in the mind of a four-year-old girl, anything and everything can be made prettier with copious amounts of glitter and flowers, which is a fine mentality for a small child; doesn’t translate very well in this case. And as self-congratulatory as it is, again, there’s no self-awareness whatsoever - it’s almost as if the entire purpose of the event is to celebrate the elites’ total inability to detect how preposterous, self-absorbed, and laughable they are.
An this is nothing new, it’s been the case since the Met Gala was established, it’s always been a mini-theater of the absurd. What’s changed is that the voting base of the Democratic Party isn’t laughing along with these clowns as much anymore. They turned against the universities; now they’ve turned against Hollywood. What the protesters of course don’t understand is that they have inherited their own worldview and everything they believe from these very institutions and these very people.
Hollywood and Academia don’t realize that they’re being attacked by their own Frankenstein, but the Frankenstein monster also doesn’t realize that it IS the Frankenstein monster. And if Frankenstein ever wakes up to that fact, well then the ruling class will really be in trouble.
2024.05.13 22:40 EchoJobs Hiring Senior Machine Learning Engineer USD 150k-284k [San Francisco, CA] [TensorFlow PyTorch Machine Learning NumPy Pandas Deep Learning]
![Hiring Senior Machine Learning Engineer USD 150k-284k [San Francisco, CA] [TensorFlow PyTorch Machine Learning NumPy Pandas Deep Learning]](https://external-preview.redd.it/XtnpkrBD15PyY0YanRYQ_PmhsPLhMfIbGfV4j0UYe6A.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=79ad2ee54e79c1506aca5a0221d2267299627c18 "Hiring Senior Machine Learning Engineer USD 150k-284k [San Francisco, CA] [TensorFlow PyTorch Machine Learning NumPy Pandas Deep Learning]") | submitted by EchoJobs to SFtechJobs [link] [comments] |
2024.05.13 22:31 EchoJobs Hiring US Tech - Data Scientist - Gen AI Solutions [Remote] [NumPy PyTorch Deep Learning Hadoop SQL Python Pandas TensorFlow Spark Azure Machine Learning R]
![Hiring US Tech - Data Scientist - Gen AI Solutions [Remote] [NumPy PyTorch Deep Learning Hadoop SQL Python Pandas TensorFlow Spark Azure Machine Learning R]](https://external-preview.redd.it/jgwNXj0a8OM2BFEcw1fcUUs-Zrter7z78m6rwNP4PCk.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=f6b8c13366815225af742f5e15f45477c9e951ba "Hiring US Tech - Data Scientist - Gen AI Solutions [Remote] [NumPy PyTorch Deep Learning Hadoop SQL Python Pandas TensorFlow Spark Azure Machine Learning R]") | submitted by EchoJobs to remoteworks [link] [comments] |
2024.05.13 22:31 EchoJobs Hiring US Tech - Data Scientist - Gen AI Solutions [Austin, TX] [NumPy PyTorch Deep Learning Hadoop SQL Python Pandas TensorFlow Spark Azure Machine Learning R]
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2024.05.13 22:31 EchoJobs Hiring US Tech - Data Scientist - Gen AI Solutions [San Francisco, CA] [NumPy PyTorch Deep Learning Hadoop SQL Python Pandas TensorFlow Spark Azure Machine Learning R]
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2024.05.13 22:30 EchoJobs Hiring US Tech - Data Scientist - Gen AI Solutions [San Francisco, CA] [NumPy PyTorch Deep Learning Hadoop SQL Python Pandas TensorFlow Spark Azure Machine Learning R]
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2024.05.13 22:30 EchoJobs Hiring US Tech - Data Scientist - Gen AI Solutions [Atlanta, GA] [NumPy PyTorch Deep Learning Hadoop SQL Python Pandas TensorFlow Spark Azure Machine Learning R]
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2024.05.13 22:30 EchoJobs Hiring US Tech - Data Scientist - Gen AI Solutions [Denver, CO] [NumPy PyTorch Deep Learning Hadoop SQL Python Pandas TensorFlow Spark Azure Machine Learning R]
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2024.05.13 22:30 EchoJobs Hiring US Tech - Data Scientist - Gen AI Solutions [Chicago, IL] [NumPy PyTorch Deep Learning Hadoop SQL Python Pandas TensorFlow Spark Azure Machine Learning R]
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2024.05.13 22:25 CronicCanabis88 Retroid 4/ Retroid 4 pro SPECS DEEP DIVE
*** THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS, ***
The CPU that we will find inside the RP4P, is the Dimensity 1100, with 4 Performance, xA78 cores, clocked out to run up to 2.6GHz & 4 ECO, xA55 cores, clocked out to run at a maximum of 2.0 GHz. This is an upgrade over the RP4 as that 4 of the 8 cores have a much higher clock rate of 2.6 Ghz, not just 2.0 Ghz. Having this combo of "Eco" and "performace" cores in this device allows you to do things like maximize your game play with INSANE battery life when the proper settings are used during low power tasks, such as NES or SNES emulation for example, to get 8-10 hours (reports vary but this seems to be the average battery life on minimal useage because 'what is minimal useage' varys when put next to 'standby' ). Both models come with 3 "performance" modes baked in to the OS. These are Standard, Performance, and Max performance, and these limit the Cpu cores in different ways to different degrees, which is very usefull when doing tasks that do not need all the power the device has to offer. This keeps temps as low as possible to not warm hands during extended gameplay, ( really even under max load and the slowest fan settings this is not an issue, but in theory it is), and max that battery life, until you need that extra power for tasks that push the limits of the device.
*** GPU: Mali G77 MC9 clocked at 836MHz ***
The Arm Mali-G77 GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) is the first-generation premium device GPU based on the Mali Valhall architecture.The Mali-G77 provides 30% performance density uplift and 30% improvement on energy efficiency compared to the previous generation Mali-G76 on ISO process and frequency, so even thou this GPU is a few years old, it was a beast in its day, making it still a great budget GPU for most high powered applicationos STILL. This coupled with a 60% improvement in machine learning applications is driving innovative experiences and applications on mobile devices. Mali-G77 has support for all latest APIs, including the latest releases of Vulkan and OpenCL.
*** DISPLAY: 4.7 inch, touchscreen, 750×1334@60Hz, 500nits ***
The screen is a GREAT resolution for the games you would play on it, the power of the device, and the size of the device. Wile AAA, Flagship phones sport up to 4k screens, at these smaller sizes, a lower res screen goes a LOT further then if its on a bigger display.Most of the games you will play on this emulator, have native resolutions UNDER the resolution of the screen, so your all good there. This again, pairs well with teh CPU/GPU combo, because rendering at this resolution for the DC/PS2/Switch emulation is great, and is the perfect balance of performance/Visual quality.
*** RAM: 8GB LPDDR4x ***
With 8 gigs of Fast, LPDDR4s ram, maxing at 4266 MT/s, you should never be in a situation with this device and its other limitations, where your out of RAM. The LPDDR4x Was Samsungs take on the LPDDR4,consuming aprox 17% less power, and boasting a 15% boost from the previous gen ram. This was a perfect adition to the other componets you will find inside this beast.
*** STORAGE128GB UFS 3.1, Micro SD card slot ***
The recorded metrics reveal a sequential reading speed of 946.2MB/s, a sequential writing speed of 363.83MB/s, a random reading speed of 129.43MB/s, and a random writing speed of 156.17MB/s. These benchmarks provide valuable insights into the efficiency and capabilities of the ROM in terms of data access and transfer speeds.
COMMUNICATIONSWi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2
Whats one of the worst things when playing a video game? Latency issues are so frustrating, and when you try to get that "Frame Perfect" button press and your bluetooth controllers latency is making this impossible( I know this is on a device that has a controller built in, but when you plug this in to your TV, throw a USB-C hub on there, plug in a ccharger, maybe a harddrive, you need to have a controller at that point) with Bluetooth5.2, you can be assured Low latency and long range, adn the ability to pair multiple devices at once. The next biggest issue for gamers is therir ping (network latency)
BATTERY5000mAh
This large capacity battery (same size as whats in the samsung s23 ultra BTW) paired with the 4 Eco cores on the CPU, the ability to turn off the fan and control its speeds. Its min speed setting is ALWAYS MORE than enough, never go higher then this to keep battery life up, the fan is a HUGE draw on the battery. I seem to be able to bug it out very often, so even on max performance mode using dreamcast/ps2 emulators, i never see my temps above 55 deg, and STRAIGHT FROM RETROID, they claim " D100 is POP technics, our system show the cpu temperature is junction temperature, not cpu top temperature. when junction temperature arrived 90 degrees, D100 datasheet is allowed high to 125 degrees, so no feel anxious if it arrived 90 degrees. "*source Email with retroid*so dont worry about temnps keep that fan off/lowest setting if your being forced to run it, and always leave your Power Mode on the lowest setting unless what you are play can not run
I/O Micro HDMI video output, 3.5mm headphone port, USB Type-C (data and charging)
While the Micro HDMI on this device has a max resolution of 720, so opt for a USB-C hub tht allows HDMI,USB-C PD port for charging and a 2nd for Data transfer, and then Ethernet is a good option to get on this, I got one with all that plus 4 USB3.1 ports for like 12 bucks. The wired 3.5mm jack is refreshing seeing as phones have been lacking these for a long time now.
submitted by CronicCanabis88 to Retroid_Pocket_4 [link] [comments]
Retroid 4 Pro
***CPU:*** Dimensity 1100, [4xA78@2.6GHz](mailto:4xA78@2.6GHz) cores & 4xA55@2.0 GHz coresThe CPU that we will find inside the RP4P, is the Dimensity 1100, with 4 Performance, xA78 cores, clocked out to run up to 2.6GHz & 4 ECO, xA55 cores, clocked out to run at a maximum of 2.0 GHz. This is an upgrade over the RP4 as that 4 of the 8 cores have a much higher clock rate of 2.6 Ghz, not just 2.0 Ghz. Having this combo of "Eco" and "performace" cores in this device allows you to do things like maximize your game play with INSANE battery life when the proper settings are used during low power tasks, such as NES or SNES emulation for example, to get 8-10 hours (reports vary but this seems to be the average battery life on minimal useage because 'what is minimal useage' varys when put next to 'standby' ). Both models come with 3 "performance" modes baked in to the OS. These are Standard, Performance, and Max performance, and these limit the Cpu cores in different ways to different degrees, which is very usefull when doing tasks that do not need all the power the device has to offer. This keeps temps as low as possible to not warm hands during extended gameplay, ( really even under max load and the slowest fan settings this is not an issue, but in theory it is), and max that battery life, until you need that extra power for tasks that push the limits of the device.
*** GPU: Mali G77 MC9 clocked at 836MHz ***
The Arm Mali-G77 GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) is the first-generation premium device GPU based on the Mali Valhall architecture.The Mali-G77 provides 30% performance density uplift and 30% improvement on energy efficiency compared to the previous generation Mali-G76 on ISO process and frequency, so even thou this GPU is a few years old, it was a beast in its day, making it still a great budget GPU for most high powered applicationos STILL. This coupled with a 60% improvement in machine learning applications is driving innovative experiences and applications on mobile devices. Mali-G77 has support for all latest APIs, including the latest releases of Vulkan and OpenCL.
*** DISPLAY: 4.7 inch, touchscreen, 750×1334@60Hz, 500nits ***
The screen is a GREAT resolution for the games you would play on it, the power of the device, and the size of the device. Wile AAA, Flagship phones sport up to 4k screens, at these smaller sizes, a lower res screen goes a LOT further then if its on a bigger display.Most of the games you will play on this emulator, have native resolutions UNDER the resolution of the screen, so your all good there. This again, pairs well with teh CPU/GPU combo, because rendering at this resolution for the DC/PS2/Switch emulation is great, and is the perfect balance of performance/Visual quality.
*** RAM: 8GB LPDDR4x ***
With 8 gigs of Fast, LPDDR4s ram, maxing at 4266 MT/s, you should never be in a situation with this device and its other limitations, where your out of RAM. The LPDDR4x Was Samsungs take on the LPDDR4,consuming aprox 17% less power, and boasting a 15% boost from the previous gen ram. This was a perfect adition to the other componets you will find inside this beast.
*** STORAGE128GB UFS 3.1, Micro SD card slot ***
The recorded metrics reveal a sequential reading speed of 946.2MB/s, a sequential writing speed of 363.83MB/s, a random reading speed of 129.43MB/s, and a random writing speed of 156.17MB/s. These benchmarks provide valuable insights into the efficiency and capabilities of the ROM in terms of data access and transfer speeds.
COMMUNICATIONSWi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2
Whats one of the worst things when playing a video game? Latency issues are so frustrating, and when you try to get that "Frame Perfect" button press and your bluetooth controllers latency is making this impossible( I know this is on a device that has a controller built in, but when you plug this in to your TV, throw a USB-C hub on there, plug in a ccharger, maybe a harddrive, you need to have a controller at that point) with Bluetooth5.2, you can be assured Low latency and long range, adn the ability to pair multiple devices at once. The next biggest issue for gamers is therir ping (network latency)
BATTERY5000mAh
This large capacity battery (same size as whats in the samsung s23 ultra BTW) paired with the 4 Eco cores on the CPU, the ability to turn off the fan and control its speeds. Its min speed setting is ALWAYS MORE than enough, never go higher then this to keep battery life up, the fan is a HUGE draw on the battery. I seem to be able to bug it out very often, so even on max performance mode using dreamcast/ps2 emulators, i never see my temps above 55 deg, and STRAIGHT FROM RETROID, they claim " D100 is POP technics, our system show the cpu temperature is junction temperature, not cpu top temperature. when junction temperature arrived 90 degrees, D100 datasheet is allowed high to 125 degrees, so no feel anxious if it arrived 90 degrees. "*source Email with retroid*so dont worry about temnps keep that fan off/lowest setting if your being forced to run it, and always leave your Power Mode on the lowest setting unless what you are play can not run
I/O Micro HDMI video output, 3.5mm headphone port, USB Type-C (data and charging)
While the Micro HDMI on this device has a max resolution of 720, so opt for a USB-C hub tht allows HDMI,USB-C PD port for charging and a 2nd for Data transfer, and then Ethernet is a good option to get on this, I got one with all that plus 4 USB3.1 ports for like 12 bucks. The wired 3.5mm jack is refreshing seeing as phones have been lacking these for a long time now.
Retroid 4
CPU2024.05.13 22:21 EchoJobs Hiring Senior Machine Learning Engineer USD 150k-284k [San Francisco, CA] [TensorFlow PyTorch Machine Learning NumPy Pandas Deep Learning]
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2024.05.13 22:21 EchoJobs Hiring ML Research Engineer, Foundation Models [San Francisco, CA] [NumPy Pandas AWS Deep Learning Machine Learning Python PyTorch]
![Hiring ML Research Engineer, Foundation Models [San Francisco, CA] [NumPy Pandas AWS Deep Learning Machine Learning Python PyTorch]](https://external-preview.redd.it/pdz_VuTSsAZm-D3RW6m_ATgewcMqgv8F6WfWUGMuA64.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=f1be998abd6ee2b8827a8f0ed4c407bfe5eaa45f "Hiring ML Research Engineer, Foundation Models [San Francisco, CA] [NumPy Pandas AWS Deep Learning Machine Learning Python PyTorch]") | submitted by EchoJobs to SanFranciscoTechJobs [link] [comments] |
2024.05.13 22:21 EchoJobs Hiring ML Research Engineer, Foundation Models [San Francisco, CA] [NumPy Pandas AWS Deep Learning Machine Learning Python PyTorch]
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2024.05.13 22:00 EchoJobs Hiring Staff Data Scientist USD 195k-250k [San Francisco, CA] [Spark Python Pandas Git SQL Machine Learning]
![Hiring Staff Data Scientist USD 195k-250k [San Francisco, CA] [Spark Python Pandas Git SQL Machine Learning]](https://external-preview.redd.it/ONZFY5c7Ye17s_tFcOhVrMNMtLBUIoA-yyF0_38cz7k.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=8c977940d4cd9c4c10436bc0f05977d402829898 "Hiring Staff Data Scientist USD 195k-250k [San Francisco, CA] [Spark Python Pandas Git SQL Machine Learning]") | submitted by EchoJobs to SanFranciscoTechJobs [link] [comments] |
2024.05.13 22:00 EchoJobs Hiring Staff Data Scientist USD 195k-250k [San Francisco, CA] [Spark Python Pandas Git SQL Machine Learning]
| | submitted by EchoJobs to SFtechJobs [link] [comments] |