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Why Amazon’s $8.5 billion acquisition of MGM should be blocked

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In Tuesday’s announcement of Amazon’s $8.5 billion acquisition of MGM—the historic film studio behind the Rocky , Legally Blonde , and James Bond  franchises—Mike Hopkins, senior vice president of Prime Video and Amazon Studios, naturally dropped two major Hollywood buzzwords.   “The real financial value behind this deal,” Hopkins said, “is the treasure trove of” —ding-ding-ding— “ IP in the deep catalog that we plan to reimagine and develop together with MGM’s talented team. It’s very exciting and provides so many opportunities for high-quality” —ding-ding-ding— “ storytelling .” Yes, in the latest proposed media merger, intellectual property will be married with innovative storytelling to create a company like no other. This has never been done before . . . if you don’t count Disney, Comcast, Sony, ViacomCBS, or the 10-day-old prospective merger of Warner-Discovery. Indeed, just as Marvel and Star Wars spin-off TV shows now populate Disney Plus, prepare yourself for a Rocky -themed reality-TV show (with real boxers!) and as many Bond prequels as Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson (the highly protective producers of the franchise) will allow for, to roll out on Amazon Prime Video.   What is more worrisome, though, is the even greater monopolistic foothold that this deal gives one of the world’s richest and most powerful companies, one whose market cap is not in the billions but trillions. Now, beyond just selling its own products, like baby oils, in its own marketplace and thus edging out smaller, independent businesses, Amazon will be doing the same thing with movies and TV shows at a scale of 10 times what it’s currently been doing in entertainment. Read More …

Google Ventures-backed Merlin Labs is building AI that can fly planes

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Merlin Labs, which develops autonomous systems that fly airplanes, has emerged from stealth with $25 million in funding from Google Ventures and others. The company says it wants to be the “the definitive autonomy platform for things that fly.” Merlin announced Wednesday it signed a deal to outfit 55 twin-turboprop King Air planes owned by Dynamic Aviation with AI flight systems. The startup also has a contract with the Air Force to develop autonomous transport planes. Boston-based Merlin Labs, which currently has roughly 50 employees (including full-time contractors), has a dedicated flight facility at the Mojave Air & Space Port where it’s been testing its AI platform. The system has already piloted hundreds of unmanned test flights from takeoff to touchdown, Merlin’s co-founder and CEO Matthew George tells me. [Photo: Merlin Labs] The first Dynamic Aviation King Air to be outfitted with a Merlin Labs AI system is now doing test flights in the Mojave. Eventually, the AI-enabled King Airs will do flights that are too “dull, dirty, or dangerous” for human pilots, George says. Currently, Dynamic Aviation uses humans for flying fire surveillance missions, transporting goods, and patrolling far out over the ocean, but it hopes Merlin’s AI will be able to ultimately take over the cockpit. Dynamic Aviation offers these flights as a service to customers that include federal defense and intelligence agencies, state and local governments, and private companies. Read More …

Google Ventures-backed Merlin Labs is building AI that can fly planes

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Merlin Labs, which develops autonomous systems that fly airplanes, has emerged from stealth with $25 million in funding from Google Ventures and others. The company says it wants to be the “the definitive autonomy platform for things that fly.” Merlin announced Wednesday it signed a deal to outfit 55 twin-turboprop King Air planes owned by Dynamic Aviation with AI flight systems. The startup also has a contract with the Air Force to develop autonomous transport planes. Boston-based Merlin Labs, which currently has roughly 50 employees (including full-time contractors), has a dedicated flight facility at the Mojave Air & Space Port where it’s been testing its AI platform. The system has already piloted hundreds of unmanned test flights from takeoff to touchdown, Merlin’s co-founder and CEO Matthew George tells me. [Photo: Merlin Labs] The first Dynamic Aviation King Air to be outfitted with a Merlin Labs AI system is now doing test flights in the Mojave. Eventually, the AI-enabled King Airs will do flights that are too “dull, dirty, or dangerous” for human pilots, George says. Currently, Dynamic Aviation uses humans for flying fire surveillance missions, transporting goods, and patrolling far out over the ocean, but it hopes Merlin’s AI will be able to ultimately take over the cockpit. Dynamic Aviation offers these flights as a service to customers that include federal defense and intelligence agencies, state and local governments, and private companies. Merlin’s AI will have to get clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) before Dynamic’s King Airs can go pilotless. George says his company has been working closely with the regulator to get its AI flight system certified as safe. But the FAA currently does not have a certification for autonomous systems that fly fixed-wing aircraft (the only aviation regulator in the world that does is in New Zealand). The agency is working on the requirements of the certification now, George says. Read More …

This spiritual successor to StumbleUpon makes the internet fun again

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Back before Twitter consumed the bulk of my spare internet time, I used to love discovering websites on StumbleUpon. The web 2.0-era site presented you with a little orange Stumble button. Pressing it would sweep you away to a seemingly random spot on the internet, with a persistent StumbledUpon menu so you could keep stumbling to more sites after that. Surfing the web through StumbleUpon always led to some strange and interesting places, and it felt joyful in a way that social media and search engines seldom do Read More …

Why the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack is a sign of things to come

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Ransomware has grown fouler than ever, but it’s also grown up. The practice of using malware to encrypt files on a victim’s devices and then demanding a ransom payment for unlocking them has advanced far beyond its origins as a nuisance for individual users. These days, it’s a massively profitable business that has spawned its own ecosystem of partner and affiliate firms. And as a succession of security experts made clear at the RSA Conference last week, we remain nowhere near developing an equivalent of a vaccine for this online plague. “It’s professionalized more than it’s ever been,” said Raj Samani, chief scientist at McAfee, in an RSA panel . “Criminals are starting to make more money,” said Jen Miller-Osborn, deputy director of threat intelligence at Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42, in another session . Read More …