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The Serbian authorities have come up with a plan to destroy the free media with the help of Telekom Serbia mobile phone services provider.

N1 has had access to a plan under which the government-controlled Telekom Serbia will join forces with Czech tycoon Petr Kellners Telenor to reduce the SBB cable services providers market share to less than 30 percent. The Telekom believes that this would prevent the financing of media outlets such as N1 TV, Nova S and Sport Klub. The authorities are swearing by European values but are trying everything to prevent the existence of free media by destroying a private company this time.

The plan to destroy the free media in Serbia was presented to the Telekom management after months of work to draft it, N1 has learned. The state-owned telecommunications company is planning to give Telenor the complete infrastructure of its cable network and the complete content of its cable TV.

They are making no secret of the fact that the state-owned company is planning to increase its income, increase its client numbers with the goal of finally destroying SBB which is the main reason for the contract with Telekom, N1 learned.

That practically means that, based on European norms, Telekom Serbia is illegally associating with a private company to destroy another private company. Telekom is not hiding the fact that it wants to destroy SBB and reduce its market share to less than 30 percent and prevent it from investing in program content.

The destruction of SBB would allow Telekom to become the only provider capable of setting up new channels and earning income from both Telenor and its clients and plan to hae complete control over Telenor clients.

Telekom keeps saying that SBB has already filed a complaint with the European Commission saying that the government is pushing its company forward by creating a telecommunications and media monopoly.

The agreement between Telekom and Telenor has to be approved by the Commission to protect competition. According to what N1 has learned, the documents have been handed to the Commission but have not been published on its web site as per the procedure. If the Commission just declares itself not competent to rule on the case, the cooperation between Petr Kellners private company and the state-owned Telekom could go ahead unobstructed.

(N1, 25.01.2021)

https://rs.n1info.com/biznis/pakleni-plan-telekom-i-telenor-se-udruzuju-da-bi-unistili-slobodne-medije/

This post is also available in: Italiano

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Telekom Serbia and Telenor to join forces to control the media? - Serbina Monitor in English

People and businesses are relying on the internet to get things done more than ever before, an opportunity but also an infrastructure headache for service providers that need to scale quickly and reliably to meet that demand.

Today, a startup that has built a clever, software-based way for them to expand their networks without buying costly equipment is announcing a major round of funding on the back of its business booming.

DriveNets which provides software-based routing solutions to service providers that run them as virtualized services over white box generic architecture has closed $208 million in funding, a Series B that values the company at over $1 billion post-money.

The plan will be to use the funding to continue building out the business internationally and to tailor it to more use cases beyond carriers, including the wave of bigger companies that stream large amounts of media and have some control over their networks as a result.

Future deals are still under NDA, CEO Ido Susan said, but he described the opportunity as a clear one: If you want to serve bandwidth with low latency, if you want to offer strong 5G capability or cloud gaming, you need to be close to your end customer.

The Series B is beingD1 Capital Partners. Previous backers Bessemer Venture Partners and Pitango (which co-led DriveNets previous, $110 million round when it emerged from stealth) also made a significant investment, and Atreides Management also participated. This latest round was made at more than double DriveNets valuation in 2019.

D1 has been an especially prolific investor in the last year, going big on businesses that are seeing a lot of attention as a result of pandemic conditions. They include e-commerce giants Warby Parker and Instacart, fintech TransferWise, gaming engine Unity, online car sales platform Cazoo, and transportation startup Bolt.

DriveNets big round is based both on bigger trends in the market, as well as its own strong record.

Before this round, DriveNets had already counted AT&T among its customers, a major vote of confidence for the company and its virtual network approach, but it seems that recent circumstances and the spike in internet activity have brought more providers to consider its approach.

The internet was growing 30%-40% annually even before Covid-19, said Susan. But even five years ago, incumbent carriers were coming to us saying, said no one can build virtual networks. Now, its not a question of whether it works or not, but when you will adopt it.

Recent momentum for the companys sales, he said, is very good. Everyone is working and studying from home so you need more capacity and bandwidth in the network, he added.

DriveNets core product is a more flexible and cost-effective replacement for the traditional network router that relies on virtualized architecture. Traditionally, routers have been sold as vertically-integrated hardware solutions, bringing together both software and hardware into one branded big box, with companies like Cisco and Juniper Networks dominating the space.

In their place, as Susan and co-founder Hillel Kobrinsky envisioned it, DriveNets provides a solution that is based around generic white boxes. It currently works with three providers for these boxes, Susan said.

These work in conjunction with a system it has developed called Network Cloud, which in turn runs a networking stack called the DriveNets Operating System. Service providers control their systems of white boxes and other servers through a virtualized service run over Docker containers, using open APIs to automate and configure various network services.

This allows for more flexibility in capacity among the white box servers, but they can also be easily added and removed as needed. Essentially, its a system that disaggregates the software from the hardware, to make expanding the hardware much easier, and controlling the software significantly more flexible to boot.

(Ironically, my conversation with Susan took place over Zoom with him in his home office, which also doubles as a DIY workshop. So with a full array of hardware equipment surrounding Susan, we talked about how software would come to dominate the world.)

Its a disruptive concept that potentially steps on a lot of toes, but Adam Fisher, a partner with Bessemer, said that hes confident its one that will continue to gain traction.

We are extremely enthusiastic about the company, he said. Aside from Ido and Hillel as entrepreneurs, we really connected with their vision. Network routing is moving to software and cloud architecture. Were talking not just about the small parts here but thehearts and lungs of the system.DriveNets is starting with the hardest parts. Once one customer becomes multiple customers, you just realise its the future.

Read more from the original source:
DriveNets nabs $208M at a $1B+ valuation for its cloud-based alternative to network routers - TechCrunch

Tesla

The Tesla Model S was updated with a totally new interior on Wednesday, and the most radical change is that new yoke-style steering "wheel," which looks straight out of Knight Rider. But what might be even more radical is something that I can't see: It seems like there's no PRNDL shifter.

Up until now, the Model S has shifted into gear via a column-mounted stalk swiped from the Mercedes-Benz parts bin. (TheModel 3,Model XandModel Y use the same stalk.) But Tesla has eliminated all stalks from behind the new Model S' wheel, moving controls for the turn signals, horn and wipers onto the yoke. So how exactly do you shift?

There's no PRNDL here.

In all of the released images, the center console and dashboard are smooth and devoid of any sort of controls, save for the 17-inch touchscreen and the hazard warning light button that sits under the wireless charging pad below the screen. There's nothing on the door panels or the headliner, either.

The shifting controls could be found in that center screen, but there's no visible evidence of that. The lower left corner of the screen shows controls for the climate control and the heated windshield, while the lower right corner displays media info. In the top left there's an icon showing a top-down view of the car, so maybe the PRNDL is found there? But it seems like it would be extremely dangerous to keep such an essential function in a submenu of a digital display that could break.

No PRNDL here either.

Now there's a chance that these CGI images are all at an angle that obscures the PRNDL shifter, or maybe they were rendered or edited to remove its location. The only mention from Tesla on the topic is this blurb under an image of the steering wheel on its website: "The ultimate focus on driving: no stalks, no shifting. Model S is the best car to drive, and the best car to be driven in." That seems like an obvious reference to Tesla's Full Self-Driving system, which does nothing of the sort.

No matter how advanced you think Tesla's Full Self-Driving tech is, the driver still needs to be able to put it the car in drive, reverse, neutral or park. In fact there's even a law on the books that mandated the order of the letters PRND, as our friends at GearPatrol explain, and while I'm not sure if there is an actual law that requires a car have a shifter, it seems like there's got to be.

If this were any other car company, I could just call the public relations team for an explanation, butTesla dissolved its PR department a few months ago. Guess I'll just have to tweet at Elon Musk.

Climb in the driver's seat for the latest car news and reviews, delivered to your inbox twice weekly.

See the original post here:
Where the hell is the new Tesla Model S' PRNDL? - CNET

Still from E-Trade's teaser for its Super Bowl spot

E-Trade

E-Trade will run a Super Bowl ad next month following a hot year for retail investor activity.

The online broker, which was acquired by Morgan Stanley last year, has been known for its humorous Super Bowl spots throughout the years. The brand used a deep-talking baby pitchman for its TV commercials for years before "retiring" the baby in 2014. It last advertised during the Super Bowl in 2018.

The teaser for the new spot, created with ad agency Interpublic Group of Cos.' MullenLowe, doesn't include a baby. But the short video does feature a young boy exercising as "You're The Best," a song known from "The Karate Kid" movie, plays. The words "Kick your finances into shape" appear on the screen across the teaser. Though many brands opt to release their spots on social media ahead of the game, E-Trade's won't be shown publicly until game day.

It comes after E-Trade rode the huge year for retail investor engagement and saw high levels of new-to-market investors. Morgan Stanley said in its fourth-quarter earnings announcement last week that E-Trade had a "remarkable year in 2020, setting new records across all material metrics," and that the "unique backdrop" dramatically accelerated digital adoption and increased levels of engagement. E-Trade had seen record trading in the second quarter amid a broader retail trading boom.

Alice Milligan, E-Trade's managing director of marketing and digital, said the company relied on customer research and dialogue to figure out how to approach an ad in a year like this. She said E-Trade determined people had gone through numerous stages of emotion over the past year and were looking for some optimism and humor.

"One resounding thing we heard from investors and from customers and prospects is that they really want to feel in control of their lives and their finances, and many of us have felt quite a bit out of control for a long time," Milligan said. "It's time for people to start to feel a little bit better and start to feel in control. We're hoping the ad resonates in that way."

The Super Bowl will have an atypical advertiser lineup this year, with mainstays like Coke, Pepsi and Budweiser declining to buy traditional ad time in the game. Meanwhile, a slew of new advertisers from Fiverr to Mercari are stepping in after a stay-at-home year that propelled their businesses.

For E-Trade, the value of a Super Bowl ad is still strong.

"From a brand perspective, I think the Super Bowl represents a huge opportunity to get the word out about a company's brand to consumers that are most relevant for that brand," Milligan said. For E-Trade, many of those consumers are investors who feel like they could be doing better financially.

E-Trade's chief marketing officer, Andrea Zaretsky, added that the majority of the emerging investors, traders and consumers the company wants to reach will be watching. But the game spot itself is just one piece of the strategy. The brand plans to do a "full surround sound approach" before the game, during the game on game day, and after the game, including a targeted digital strategy.

The Covid pandemic changed the production of the shoot, which is typically a major undertaking with lots of hands. Zaretsky said the crew onsite filming the ad was a lot leaner, with a "very, very tight group." But the company opted to set up a video feed of the shoot for the first time.

"Everyone felt like they were there," she said. "More people felt like they were able [to be there] for the journey. I think the result was, in some ways, better."

Nominations are open for the 2021 CNBC Disruptor 50, a list of private start-ups using breakthrough technology to become the next generation of great public companies. Submit by Friday, Feb. 12, at 3 pm EST.

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E-Trade will return to the Super Bowl after hot year for retail investing - CNBC

NAIROBI, KENYA, 28 JANUARY 2021The Rockefeller Foundation has announced a new grant of US$12 million to the Africa Public Health Foundation to help expand the geographic coverage of testing and to strengthen contact tracing for COVID-19 in Africa through the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).

Equitable access to testing and tracing is essential to rapidly identify and respond to COVID-19 outbreaks until a vaccine is widely available to all, said Rajiv J. Shah, President of The Rockefeller Foundation. One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, too many people still do not have access to the tools that they need to keep themselves, their families, and their communities healthy and safe. Were pleased to work with the Africa Public Health Foundation and Africa CDC to catalyse a more efficient and inclusive response to and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic across the continent.

This funding will support a broader effort to accelerate equitable access to testing technologies, increase testing of asymptomatic persons, and reducing community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the sub-Saharan Africa region.

Until date, more than three million COVID-19 cases have been reported in Africa, with the current daily average of new cases in the second wave surpassing that of the first wave.

Testing and tracing remain two of the strongest public health interventions for containing COVID-19 on this continent of about 1.3 billion people. Yet, only a little above 30 million tests have been reported since the beginning of the pandemic. By scaling up testing and tracing, health authorities on the continent will have access to more reliable epidemiologic data to advise governments, businesses and the public on how to better manage the pandemic and mitigate its socioeconomic impact.

Testing is the number one tool to fight this pandemic because without testing we will be fighting blindly, said Dr John Nkengasong, Director of Africa CDC. We also need to trace people who are infected, isolate them and treat them. By supporting African Union Member States to do more testing and tracing to identify and isolate infected persons, we will be able to control the virus and limit transmission.

Through the Partnership to Accelerate COVID-19 Testing (PACT), an initiative rolled out in August last year, Africa CDC is establishing partnerships across the globe to mobilize technical, material and financial resources to support African Union Member States in expanding testing, tracing and treatment for COVID-19. This grant will contribute to the implementation of PACT across the continent.

The grant will also help increase access to testing in urban and rural areas, strengthen community level contact tracing, enhance data infrastructure and accelerate screening and case finding in high-risk populations.

Dr Francisco Songane, Interim CEO of the Africa Public Health Foundation said: The Africa Public Health Foundation is sincerely grateful for the leadership and support of the team at The Rockefeller Foundation. It is our mission to forge partnerships and mobilise resources for Africa CDC. In facing the COVID-19 pandemic, this kind of collaboration is needed more than ever.

Scaling up testing and tracing for the most at-risk populations is a critical piece of The Rockefeller Foundations efforts to support an equitable pandemic response on the continent, said William Asiko, Managing Director of the Africa Regional Office, The Rockefeller Foundation. As we await widespread vaccinations, investing in testing, tracing, and public education about physical distancing and mask-wearing are the best tools we have to address Africas most urgent needs now and strengthen the systems we need to protect ourselves from future threats.

-END-

Note to the EditorsAbout the Africa Public Health Foundation

The Africa Public Health Foundation exists to forge partnerships and mobilise resources to support critical public health initiatives across the continent, in support of Africa CDC. Established in September 2019, APHF is mobilising flexible funds to accelerate the Africa CDC-led COVID-19 response and the initiatives that will follow, with the aim of strengthening public health systems. For more information and to sign up for APHFs newsletter, please visit http://www.aphf.africa.

About Africa CDC

About The Rockefeller Foundation

The Rockefeller Foundation advances new frontiers of science, data, and innovation to solve global challenges related to health, food, power, and economic mobility. As a science-driven philanthropy focused on building collaborative relationships with partners and grantees, The Rockefeller Foundation seeks to inspire and foster large-scale human impact that promotes the well-being of humanity throughout the world by identifying and accelerating breakthrough solutions, ideas, and conversations. For more information, sign up for our newsletter atrockefellerfoundation.organd follow us on Twitter@RockefellerFdn.

Media ContactsJohn SpanglerDirector, Communications and AdvocacyThe Rockefeller Foundationjspangler@rockfound.org

James AyodelePrincipal Communication OfficerAfrica CDCayodelej@africa-union.org

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The Rockefeller Foundation Announces Grant to Expand Access to COVID-19 Testing and Tracing in Africa Africa CDC - africacdc.org