Netflix surging forward, Microsoft found guilty... and imagining what lab-grown meat could taste like
Issue #6: Fortnightly inspiration from Botswana's Home of Engineering.
We are once again celebrating International Women in Engineering Day.
Join us on July 26th at Travelodge in Block 3, Gaborone
Reminder: your invitation is still open.
Now in its fourth year, our Annual Women in Engineering Round Table Talk brings together and celebrates women engineers in Botswana – those who aspire and those who have already ‘arrived’.
This is an opportunity to network, learn – and grow.
Our panelists come to the table from a host of different backgrounds: the corporate sector, the start-up grind, and the halls of academia.
We are inviting you, and the big-thinking women in your life, to join us. Confirm your attendance and let your voice be heard at the 4th Annual Women in Engineering Round Table Talk. Spaces are limited.
Netflix: examining the numbers behind streaming success
As legacy media declines, the world’s most popular streaming service is gathering momentum.
“It’s a tall order to entertain the world,” says Ted Sarandos, co-chief executive of Netflix in an interview with the New York Times. “You have to do it with regularity and dependably.”
In the first quarter of 2024, Netflix posted revenue of US$9.4 billion and US$2.3 billion in net income at an operating margin of 28%. Right now, Netflix commands a seemingly unassailable market position having crossed over 270 million paying subscribers.
The key is in retention: keeping viewers engaged and coming back. To this end, company says it will spend about half of its total revenue this year, some $17 billion, on new programming for its subscribers.
Imagining a world of lab-grown, cultivated meat
Despite early interest, investment is down 75% in the tissue engineering techniques required to produce synthetic meat. Singapore is hoping to reverse that trend.
Meat grown in a laboratory requires just a fraction of the land and water to produce, and will lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Despite these advantages, meat produced in this way is slow, expensive and hard to scale — making the industry unsustainable with the technology available right now.
It won’t always be this way. Singapore is leading the charge towards alternative protein and was the first country in the world to approve lab-cultivated beef and chicken.
Singapore now plays host to food companies from around the world, conducting top tier research to refine their formulas, eliminate inefficiencies and explore new techniques to drive down these costs.
Microsoft Teams falls foul of EU anti-trust ruling
As part of ongoing efforts to promote fair competition, regulators continue to crack down on the world’s largest tech companies. This time, it’s Microsoft Teams in the crosshairs.
European Union Regulators have ruled that Microsoft has abused its powers of distribution, finding the tech giant guilty of anti-competitive behaviour.
In the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic when remote work went fully mainstream, MS Teams established itself as one of the world’s most popular videoconferencing tools. Microsoft seized the opportunity: bundling Teams inside Office 365 which includes staples like Word, Excel and Powerpoint.
Its smaller rivals — most notably Zoom and Slack — filed complaints to the European Union, alleging that Microsoft was unfairly benefiting from its dominant distribution, and failing to give customers a choice of whether to buy Teams separately when purchasing other software.
The regulators agreed, forcing Microsoft to unbundle Teams from its well-known suite of products and make changes to the way they market the app.
Your journey of academic growth and self discovery begins at New Era College
We offer a rich variety of full-time and part-time programmes. Classes start in August 2024.
