Quibi is one of the more spectacular tech flops of the decade
Quibi will be shutting down before end of year, terminating its contracts with a long list of movie stars, athletes and celebrities who were featured in the mobile only short form videos. Quibi was original and bold. In a time when lives were far more mobile, would people become so fascinated with premium content that this fad would have been a hit? Former Disney CEO and Quibi leader, Katzenberg, along with Meg Whitman of eBay fame, have issued an apology for blowing $1.75 billion in a little over a year, and will go on to other creative projects. CNET
dis-rup-shun: Perhaps Katzenberg and Whitman saw themselves as the next Steve Jobs, creating something radically different and of high quality, that people would love. Speaking of Jobs, if Apple acquired Quibi and branded it Apple iPhone TV, or something similar, initially giving a few hours of content to every Apple device owner, then migrating them to paid plans, the service would likely be a smash hit. Consumers, however, are not in the mood for another monthly charge that only lives on a mobile device, especially when spending most all of their time at home.
The surge of electric pickup trucks
Overnight, the world is faced with a number of electric pickup truck choices, even though the pickup truck audience has not been asking for one. GM’s electric Hummer, an electric F-150, Tesla’s Cybertruck, join startups Rivian, Bollinger and Lordstown on the truck scene. Wired
dis-rup-shun: Pickups and SUVs are the growth engines of the auto market, and the vehicles that are sold at higher margins. Electric pickups, however, come at higher prices, in some cases, prices over $100K. So the automakers are counting on tapping a luxury truck buyer, not the average pool man. Time will tell if the market will bear a glut of expensive, luxury electric trucks, but GM and Tesla are betting yes.
Large percentage of Apple’s service revenues paid by Google
Google is paying rent to Apple. The search company pays Apple to be the default search engine of the Safari browser, resulting in revenues attributed to Apple Services in the amount of $8 to $12 billion per year, or 17% to 26% of Apple’s services revenues last year. CNBC
dis-rup-shun: The number of Safari users who would likely select Google to be the default browser would likely be near the same figure even if the search engine was not associated with Safari. The red flag, however, is that Apple has touted the early success of its services business, implying that people were lining up in droves to pay a monthly fee for games, music, news or other content. It turns out that a quarter of that success is attributable to Google’s rent payment.
Smart vents may fix your HVAC woes
Getting the right amount of air conditioned air to the right room at the right time is a challenge in many homes, and a problem that vexes many homeowners. One application of smart home technology that addresses this problem, well, smartly, is the smart vent. Smart vents open and close based on sensor readings in each room indicating temperature imbalances, and determining which rooms are occupied. Flair’s smart vents draw power from two small C cell batteries and can be connected to popular smart thermostats to “just work.” TechCrunch
dis-rup-shun: Smart vents should be a standard issue in any home and certainly will be in the future. Using sensor technology to measure and adjust in the background not only is a simple application of technology, it is more efficient and far simpler than climbing into attics to attempt to adjust ducts to change air flow.