CNN’s parent company WarnerMedia, through their attorneys, have sent a cease-and-desist letter to President Trump’s re-election campaign over what they call misleading contents of a new campaign ad.
According to the letter, the ad is misusing CNN news coverage in a way that’s “false, misleading and deceptive.” The ad titled, “American Comeback,” takes a segment from CNN’s “The Situation Room” and according to WarnerMedia’s attorneys, “purposely and deceptively edits the clip to imply that Mr. Blitzer and Dr. Gupta were crediting the President’s travel ban policy issued in January for saving millions of American lives, when in fact Mr. Blitzer and Dr. Gupta were discussing recently implemented social distancing guidelines and stay-at-home orders issued by state and local governments.”
On March 30, anchor Wolf Blitzer asked Dr. Sanjay Gupta, “Well, is it accurate that if these steps had not been put in place, the stay at home orders, the social distancing orders, as the President said yesterday, it could have been 2 million people down here in the United States?” Gupta responded, “I mean, you know, these are all models, Wolf. It’s a little tough to say, but, you know, if you talk about something that is spreading, you know, very robustly throughout a community. You know, two to three times more contagious than flu, and up to 10 times, perhaps even more than that, more deadly than flu, then yes.” Blitzer’s question was about “stay at home orders” and social distancing, but in the campaign ad, that portion of his question was omitted. After Blitzer and Gupta are shown on screen, the ad cuts to taped video that invokes Trump’s restrictions on travel from China, like an airport screen showing cancelled flights.
In the ad, all that is heard is Blitzer asking, “Is it accurate that if these steps had not been put in place … it could’ve been 2 million people dead here in the United States?” And Gupta is heard saying, “yes.” It sounds like their complaint is accurate, but it’s also desreving of a huge eyeroll, because of how many times CNN takes portions of quotes, statements and speeches and distorts them to mislead it’s audience. They can dish it out, but they can’t take it.
A.I. Music Prodigy
Just like many in the music industry embraced electronic music (EM) and autotune voice tracks, music generated by artificial intelligence may be the next thing that creatives have to deal with — or run from.
Researchers at artificial intelligence lab OpenAI have released “Jukebox”, an open-source algorithm that can generate music, complete with lyrics, vocals, and a soundtrack. All the algorithm needs is a genre, an artist, and a snippet of lyrics, and Jukebox can create song samples that can be realistic and quite catchy.
Some of the results are surprisingly good. Jukebox pulls from songs across many genres including pop, jazz, country, heavy metal, and hip-hop, and artists including Frank Sinatra, 2Pac, Katy Perry, Eagles, Beyoncé, and Kenny Rogers.
It can’t do eveerything though, as Jukebox’s researchers admidtted that in a blog post on OpenAI’s website.”There is a significant gap between these generations and human-created music,” OpenAI researchers write. “While the generated songs show local musical coherence, follow traditional chord patterns, and can even feature impressive solos, we do not hear familiar larger musical structures such as choruses that repeat.”
The technology also raises some questions about potential legal issues. Jay-Z, for example, has recently been trying to get AI-powered impersonations of himself singing Billy Joel removed from YouTube. His entertainment company, Roc Nation, cites YouTube uploads for “unlawfully” using AI to “impersonate” Jay-Z’s voice, according to The Verge.
Reply to this email and tell us, do you think A.I. generated music can ever be as good as human generated music ? We want to know what you think!
FAANG Earnings Complete
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) – Revenue growth accelerated as expected in the quarter, up 26%, from normally high teens levels. Margins will be dramatically lower in the second quarter, as Covid-19 spending will approach $4BB. Much of this is one time in nature. Face masks, extra cleaning, re-routing orders to enable social distancing, and extra overtime pay as demand has spiked. Impressively, revenue growth is expected to remain at markedly higher levels, with guidance between 18-28% next quarter. 2020 looks better on a top line basis, but lower on an earnings and FCF basis. The company’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) business exceeded expectations, growing topline 33% year over year, with EBIT up 36%. It totals almost 70% of the company’s EBIT today, and in conjunction with Microsoft, will own the cloud business for years to come.
Alphabet-Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) – Google revenue grew 13% in the first quarter, EBITDA was up 6%, but adjusted EPS came in $13.41 vs $15.08 a year ago. On a GAAP basis, EPS (before gains and losses on marked to market investments) was $10.79 vs $10.81 a year ago. Seasonally the first quarter is the weakest, and Covid-19 impacts to advertising will weigh looking forward. Search activity has spiked, YouTube viewing is up significantly, and Android App downloads are up 30%. The Company has also seen a “massive increase in demand” for Chromebooks.
Facebook (NSADAQ: FB) – The most impressive of the FAANG’s earnings, Facebook (FB) not only had a solid quarter, but also reported flat advertising trends through the first three weeks of April (looking year over year). User metrics improved, with daily active users growing 11% in Q1 (vs 8% in prior quarters). Ad prices dropped and, similar to Google, Facebook is seeing weakness in advertising demand. FB plans to cut costs from $54-59BB this year to a range of $52-56BB. FCF improved quite a bit in the quarter, with cash flow from ops up 20% to $11BB and capex falling $300mm to $3.55BB.
Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) – Microsoft shares rose as much as 5% in extended trading on Wednesday after the company reported fiscal third-quarter sales growth of 15%, fueled by its cloud business. The company said the pandemic “had minimal net impact on the total company revenue” in the quarter and that “effects of COVID-19 may not be fully reflected in the financial results until future periods.” Earnings: $1.40 per share, adjusted. Revenue: $35.02 billion.
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has reported solid earnings results for its fiscal second quarter with Q2 GAAP EPS of $2.55 beating consensus expectations by $0.29. Revenue of $58.31B came in marginally higher year-over-year, smashing the Street’s forecast by $3.67B. International sales accounted for 62% of the quarter’s revenue. Crucially, AAPL also reported that its install base of active users reached an all-time high in all geographic segments as well as all major product categories. “Despite COVID-19’s unprecedented global impact, we’re proud to report that Apple grew for the quarter, driven by an all-time record in Services and a quarterly record for Wearables,” commented Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.
Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) – delivered a big jump in subscribers, but the stock bounced around in immediate reaction to the earnings release. It was initially up 10% before settling to less than a 1% gain in after-hours trading, as the company offered conservative guidance. The company also said it could not accurately predict future subscriber growth due to the coronavirus pandemic, calling its estimates “guesswork.” Netflix reported: Earnings per share (EPS): $1.57. Revenue: $5.77 billion. Global paid net subscriber additions: 15.77 million
Buffett Sees Stock and Bitcoin Correlations
Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway remain reluctant in spending its $137 billion cash pile. His skepticism about the quick recovery of the U.S. stock market may spoil the recent Bitcoin (BTC) rally. The top cryptocurrency has broken out of its short-term correlation with the U.S. stock market. But, a potential equities correction in the near-term raises the probability of a pullback in all high-risk and speculative assets.
Bitcoin price saw a vertical rally to $9,500 in a short period of time. It took less than two months for BTC to rise by nearly three times from $3,600. Much of the positive sentiment around the upsurge of Bitcoin in April was attributed to the dominance of organic spot volume. It suggested that from $3,600 to mid-$7,000, retail investors accumulated Bitcoin.
In previous rallies, spoof orders allegedly coming from the futures market, created speculative short-term bubbles that burst as soon as larger traders triggered a cascading sell-off. While high spot volume from exchanges like Coinbase can be considered an optimistic piece of data, it cannot by itself, justify such a large rally within a two-month span. The same way Buffett is struggling to find value in the stock market to lead major acquisition deals.
Speaking at the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting, Buffett said that $137 billion is not a large cash pile if bad things start to pile up in the market. Berkshire has major stakes in leading conglomerates like Coca Cola and Kraft Heinz and sold his entire stakes in the four major airlines. If the market begins to go in the opposite direction than analysts anticipate, the cash pile can be used to assist Berkshire’s portfolio companies.
Bitcoin is at a point where it faces strong overhead resistance in the $9,500 to $9,900 range and the U.S. equities market is still rattled by the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. Given the cyclical nature of Bitcoin, technical analysts weigh towards a correction for Bitcoin after its highly anticipated block reward halving on May 12. Bitcoin halving’s in the past, have led to 10,000% and 2,500% gains for BTC.
This is a Mental Illness
Andrea Ivanova, from Bulgaria has undergone more than 20 hyaluronic acid lip injections with plans to get her lips even bigger. The 22-year-old, who has been dubbed a “real-life Barbie”, had her latest injection on Tuesday and posted a photo of herself on her Instagram page to reveal her ever-growing pout. She captioned her photo with the hashtags “#love #bigger #lips” as fans praised her for her appearance, with one saying: “Bigger is better”.
Another added: “I love Andreas perfect big lips”. Andrea, who began her transformation in 2018, boasts over 32.1K Instagram followers where she posts pictures of her lips to her adoring fans. She has spent thousands of dollars to achieve her look, forking out an average of $167 per treatment but has lost count of how much she has spent over the years. Andrea said: “I had my latest injection two days ago.
“There are no restrictions to what I can eat. “I think my lips are lovely, I love them. “I am not sure if they are the biggest lips in the world, but they are one of the biggest, I think.”
She began her transformation on 2018 and said she now feels happier and more content with having bigger lips. Speaking last September when she had completed 15 lip injections she said: “I like my lips now more than before.
“I feel very good and very happy with my new lips, because according to me with bigger lips I look prettier. “I have visited almost all clinics for aesthetic procedures in [Bulgarian capital] Sofia and I put in my lips almost all kinds of lips fillers. “I didn’t count the money for these procedures. “I don’t know exactly how much money I have spent on my lips.” Thousands of fans praise her for her unique look, but she also gets fierce criticism.
My thoughts: this is a legitimate mental illness and she needs treatment.