the BRIEF
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14, 2017
BUSINESS
Charleston’s CresCom Bank buying North Carolina lender with 28 branches
SkyNav tours bring the future to Wilmington It is the first city in the nation to introduce interactive, virtual reality tour technology By Emory Rakestraw North State Journal WILMINGTON — It’s barely the size of a case you’d store your glasses in, yet inside contains the whole universe; well, the universe of Wilmington and surrounding beaches that is. SkyNav has put the Port City on the map as the first in the nation to introduce 3D interactive tour technology, and it’s as easy as slipping your phone into a small cardboard box with virtual reality spectacles to let the journey take hold. Ty Downing, CEO of SISDigital, the full service digital agency behind SkyNav, said while he can’t give away all their secrets the creation involved a mix of simple and complex. “We’ve brought multiple technologies into creating SkyNav to create an immersive experience. Utilizing drone photography and ground-level, the thing that is unique is that we can go from sky to ground back to the sky.” said Downing, “It can be viewed on mobile, tablet, desktop it’s programmed with HTLM5 so it’s capable of handling modern digital assets.” The tour includes 13 aerial and 14 ground panoramas encompassing the entire Wilmington coastline from the city to its three island beaches: Wrightsville, Carolina, and Kure. SISDigital is FAA Section 107 certified, meaning they have received their drone pilot accreditation. Downing notes, “These are not hobby drones, these are very high quality. We take a series of multiple images, could be 30 to 40 in the sky in a fixed location and the process is we have to stitch them, color correct them, control points...there’s a lot of fine-tuning to make this globe perfect. It’s a lengthy process.” The fine-tuning and sheer perfection is noted once you take the visual journey, be it your desktop or mobile phone. The crystal clear image sparkles as if you’re standing right on River Street overlooking the Cape Fear River, or instantly transported to a sunny beach day beside the glimmering turquoise water of Wrightsville. SkyNav is not only visual but educational, viewers can click on landmarks with 54 in-
Wake Forest Law School partners with entrepreneur development group
PHOTOS COURTESY OF SKYNAV
SkyNav uses multiple technologies to create a 3D interactive tour of Wilmington and Wrightsville, Carolina, and Kure Beaches.
Port City Marina: SkyNav creates an immersive experience by using drone and ground level photography.
tegrated info beacons. “We strategically placed all these assets in the spot that they geographically live.” said Downing While the digital aspect is cut-
ting edge, it also ups the ante for the tourism market. People can visualize, plan, and be enticed prior to stepping foot in the city. “It’s a visual inspiration” said Shawn Braden,
Executive Vice President of Marketing for Wilmington and Beaches Convention & Visitors Bureau, “People first have to start dreaming about where they want to go...the dreaming part is the critical phase and that’s where this tool comes in.” Consumer interest in virtual reality is steadily on the rise with exponential growth expected over the next three years. And our brains are actually wired to respond to the VR experience as it appeals to and leverages the three parts of our brain responsible for perception and reaction (neocortex, limbic system, and reptilian brain). The partnership between SISDigital and the Wilmington area is betting on that natural curiosity. Braden notes, “I’ve heard many people say this could almost be more powerful than the [tourism] website. We’re taking them on a journey not a destination.”
Verizon closes Yahoo deal, Mayer steps down In much anticipated acquistion, embattled Yahoo CEO resigns; Verizon prepares for post-merger job cuts
By David Shephardson Reuters Verizon Communications Inc said on Tuesday it closed its $4.48 billion acquisition of Yahoo Inc’s core business and that Marissa Mayer, chief executive of the internet company, had resigned. The completion of the acquisition marks the end of the line for Yahoo as a standalone internet company, a storied tech pioneer once valued at more than $100 billion.
Charleston, S.C./ Washington, N.C. The parent of CresCom Bank is doubling its branch network and expanding its North Carolina footprint through another acquisition. Charleston-based Carolina Financial Corp. announced Monday an agreement to buy First South Bancorp Inc. of Washington, N.C.The all-stock deal is valued at $162 million. First South operates 28 branches across the Research Triangle area and eastern regions of North Carolina.The bank will take the CresCom name after the deal closes, which is expected to take place by the end of the year. After the sale is finalized, CresCom will grow to about $3.2 billion in assets, $2.2 billion in loans and $2.5 billion in deposits. It is second largest bank headquartered in South Carolina behind Columbiabased South State.
Verizon, the No. 1 U.S. wireless operator, is combining Yahoo with AOL, which it bought two years ago, to form a new venture called Oath, led by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong. Oath’s more than 50 brands include HuffPost, TechCrunch and Tumblr. “Given the inherent changes to my role, I’ll be leaving the company,” Mayer wrote in an email to employees on Tuesday that she also posted on Tumblr. “However, I want all of you to know that I’m brimming with nostalgia, gratitude, and optimism.” The closing of the deal, announced in July, had been delayed as the companies assessed the fallout from two data breaches that Yahoo disclosed last year. Reuters reported last week that Verizon plans to cut about 2,000
PHOTO COURTESY OF Denis Balibouse
jobs, or 15 percent, of the 14,000 employees at its Yahoo and AOL units. Verizon is expected to make cuts as early as Wednesday. Yahoo cut 15 percent of its workforce last year and AOL cut 500 jobs. On June 16, the remainder of
Yahoo not acquired by Verizon will be renamed Altaba Inc, a holding company whose primary assets will be its 15.5 percent stake in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and a 35.5 percent holding in Yahoo Japan Corp .
Winston-Salem Wake Forest Law is now an official member of the “Winston-Salem Entrepreneurial Ecosystem,” a group of academic, financial and community-based organizations focused on enhancing entrepreneurial growth in Winston Salem in both the for-profit and nonprofit arenas. According to Associate Dean for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Simone Rose1, the law school is also developing the Wake Innovation and Launch Lab (“WILL”), a new initiative that will connect Wake Forest University’s vibrant research and development culture with new and promising commercial opportunities in our region. The Wake Innovation and Launch Lab (WILL) will exist to bring innovative ideas of promise to fruition and offer academic credit to students in the law school, graduate schools and perhaps the college. The Wake Innovation and Launch Lab will do this by identifying ideas that hold the potential to be profitable enterprises and then assembling teams who will work to engage significant challenges that face commercialization and/or implementation efforts.
GE names John Flannery as CEO, Immelt to step aside Boston General Electric Co on Monday named veteran insider John Flannery as its next chief executive, taking over from Jeff Immelt who is stepping aside after 16 years as the head of the conglomerate he helped steer through the financial crisis but is now worth a third less than when he took over. Under Immelt, GE sold off its finance, broadcasting, appliances and other units in order to focus on higher-margin service and software-related businesses and cut costs, but it failed to deliver profit growth as fast as some investors hoped. GE said John Flannery, a 55-year-old who joined the company 30 years ago and is now the head of its healthcare unit, will replace Immelt as CEO, effective Aug. 1, and as chairman after Immelt retires on Dec. 31. “I want to start with a fresh look around the company overall and I think with a sense of urgency,” Flannery said in a presentation broadcast live on Facebook.