NOVEMBER 15TH, 2019 – NOVEMBER 22TH, 2019
TURKS & CAICOS SUN
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BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY WORLD NEWS Apple thinks glasses will replace smartphones: What it means for you Apple is planning to launch its first augmented reality (AR) product sometime in 2022. According to a report from The Information, citing sources attending an internal Apple presentation, Cupertino wants to release an augmented reality headset in 2022 and a pair of AR glasses by 2023. These “Apple Glasses” have popped up in previous rumors with an earlier launch date in 2020, but this new report reveals a far more concrete plan than previous accounts. Product details are thin on the ground, but a few design points pop up in the report. The products will be designed with gaming, video, and virtual meetings in mind, according to Bloomberg. The Apple Glasses AR capabilities hinge on a new 3D sensor system, developed in-house at Apple over several years. Apparently, this is a more advanced form of FaceID technology used in modern iPhones. Apple is allegedly working on lenses that darken when the wearer is using AR. This is to let others know the user is not necessarily paying attention to them. Apple has about 1,000 engineers working on the AR and VR initiative. CEO Tim Cook has been hot on the idea of AR for a number of years now. The report also mentions plans to begin attracting developers to the platform in 2021. Clearly, this is a major business commitment, not a small side project. Perhaps the most interesting part of the report states that Apple believes augmented reality glasses will eventually replace smartphones. This will occur “in roughly a decade,” according to executives at the presentation. By 2030, Apple expects that the iPhone, and by extension Android phones too, will be obsolete — at least in high-end Western markets. That’s no easy task. Current AR glasses pair up to a smartphone, which provides the data connectivity, storage, and bulk of the processing capabilities required by AR apps. Moving this entirely into a set of sleek, lightweight glasses will require a number of engineering breakthroughs. Apple’s first-generation AR products certainly won’t offer fully standalone capabilities. You’ll still need a phone in your pocket. Instead, the company is reportedly working on a new operating system, dubbed rOS, to enable existing devices to work with future headsets and glasses. Barring the technological hurdles, there’s little reason to believe AR glasses can’t replace most of our smartphone needs. Messaging and calls are certainly possible, as is watching video and navigating with realworld map directions. The other hurdle is solving user interaction, something that advances in voice recognition and 3D object detection technology will likely be key to solving. It’s easy to imagine the possibilities with AR, as some examples have already proven immensely popular. 2016’s Pokémon Go phenomenon was likely many people’s first foray into the world of AR. Today, consumers are using AR for Snapchat filters, real-time text translation, viewing the stars, and kitting our apartments. AR is already useful on smartphones, but AR glasses open up new possibilities for even more useful and engrossing experiences — ranging from in-world games to real-time contextual information on everything from directions to people.
No. 1 milk company declares bankruptcy amid drop in demand Got milk? Increasingly, Americans don’t, and that led the nation’s biggest milk producer to file for bankruptcy Tuesday. Dean Foods blamed a decadeslong drop in milk consumption that has seen people turn to alternatives like soda, juice and almond milk. The Dallas company said it may sell itself to the Dairy Farmers of America, a marketing cooperative owned by thousands of farmers. “Despite our best efforts to make our business more agile and cost-efficient, we continue to be impacted by a challenging operating environment marked by continuing declines in consumer milk consumption,” CEO Eric Berigause said in a statement. Since 1975, the amount of liquid milk consumed per capita in the U.S. has tumbled more than 40%. Americans drank around 24 gallons a year in 1996, according to government data. That dropped to 17 gallons in 2018. An increasing variety of beverages, including teas and sodas, has hurt milk consumption. So have protein bars, yogurts and other on-the-go breakfasts, which take the place of a morning bowl of cereal. More recently, health and animal-welfare concerns have also contributed, as more shoppers seek out non-dairy alternatives. Oat milk, for example, saw U.S. sales rise 636% to more than $52 million over the past year, according to Nielsen data. Sales of cow’s milk dropped 2.4% in that same time frame. Not all dairy products have been affected. U.S. butter and cheese consumption is up since 1996, for example. “We’re eating our dairy, not drinking it,” said Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The downturn has had an outsize effect on Dean Foods,
Jugs of McArthur Dairy milk, a Dean Foods brand, are shown at a grocery store, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019, in Surfside, Fla which derived 67% of its sales from fluid milk last year, according to its annual report. The company has lost money in eight of its last 10 quarters and posted declining sales in seven of the last eight. Dean employs 16,000 people and operates 60 processing facilities across the country. On any given day, it is running 8,000 refrigerated delivery trucks on U.S. roads. It supplies milk for its own brands, like Dairy Pure, Meadow Gold and TruMoo, as well as store brands. One big blow came last year, when Walmart opened its own milk processing plant in Indiana. Dean said it will continue operating normally while it puts its finances in order under Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It has lined up about $850 million in financing from lenders. The bankruptcy filing comes at a difficult time for dairy farmers, who were already struggling with low prices because of oversupply. Linda Ceylor and her husband, Gerald, operate an organic farm near Catawba, Wisconsin, where they milk fewer than 50 cows and raise heifers. Ceylor said Dean Foods’ woes mirror what smaller producers are facing. She said the most hurtful part is watching young people go out of business, including three
neighbors in their 30s. “All they ever wanted to do is milk cows, and all three of them said they can’t do it anymore,” Ceylor said. “That’s like watching your grandchildren go through a massive problem you can’t do anything about. There’s really no other choice for them to make.” Darin Von Ruden, president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union, said he is concerned about Dean Foods selling itself to Dairy Farmers of America. “That’s two of the five biggest companies in the country, and when you start looking at that kind of consolidation, is that good for producers? The answer is probably no,” said Von Ruden, who is selling his dairy operation to his son. Dean is already a product of consolidation. It was bought by Suiza Foods Corp. in 2001. The new, larger company assumed the Dean name and bought several other milk producers. Stephenson said that left Dean with a large number of aging facilities. At the same time, it sold off some non-dairy brands, like TofuTown, becoming less diversified. Stephenson said Dean was also slow to innovate. He cited growing sales of Fairlife milk, a Coca-Cola Co. brand that is lower in lactose and higher in protein.
World thirst for oil keeps growing, with SUVs a key culprit The world’s thirst for oil will continue to grow until the 2030s, with climate-damaging emissions climbing until at least 2040 — and consumers’ insatiable appetite for SUVs is a big reason why. Mounting demand for plastic is another factor. So is increasing plane travel. And the upcoming population boom in cities across Africa and Asia. All this is according to an important global industry forecast released Wednesday by the International Energy Agency that is used as guidance by oil companies and governments. This year, amid growing pressure from young activists like Greta Thunberg and others for tougher action on emissions, the IEA’s World Energy Outlook took a stronger-than-usual stand on climate change. It celebrates a growing boom in solar and wind power, and urges governments to work together on changing the way we fuel our lives. And it singles out gas-guzzling SUVs for criticism. Growing demand for SUVs in the U.S, China, Europe and elsewhere could negate all the environmental benefits of the increased use of electric cars, the report says. Because of their size, SUVs are harder to electrify than smaller
Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old climate activist from Sweden, sits on a catamaran docked in Hampton, Va., on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019 vehicles. SUVs “were the second biggest reason for global emissions growth in last 10 years, after the power sector and more than all the industrial sectors put together,” IEA director Fatih Birol told reporters in Paris on Wednesday. Energy-intensive SUVs and pickup trucks account for about twothirds of car sales in the U.S. and only about a third in the EU, though they are steadily growing in demand in Europe too, according to industry reports.
Worldwide, about 42% of cars sold last year were SUVs, Birol said. The World Energy Outlook, which focuses on forecasting energy needs over the next 20 years, is increasingly important to governments because of its relevance to climate policy. Environmental advocates say the IEA still isn’t doing enough to encourage renewable energy. Oil Change International notably criticized the IEA’s “over-reliance” on natural gas as a replacement for coal, saying that
will lead to “climate chaos” because gas too contributes to emissions. As flooding in Venice hit the second-highest level ever this week, inundating St. Mark’s Cathedral and grounding gondolas, the city’s mayor blamed climate change. Scientists say it’s difficult to pin a single such event on climate change, but that increasingly extreme weather events worldwide are linked to human-caused emissions. The IEA said that almost 20% of the growth in last year’s global energy use was “due to hotter summers pushing up demand for cooling and cold snaps leading to higher heating needs.” Based on current emissions promises by governments, the IEA forecast global oil demand of 106.4 million barrels a day in 2040, up from 96.9 million last year. Global oil demand is due to slow in the 2030s, and coal use to shrink slightly. Emissions will continue to rise, if more slowly than today, and won’t peak before 2040. The U.S. is central to whatever happens next. U.S. consumers and businesses were a leading source of growing oil demand last year, the IEA says. Also, the U.S. will account for 85% of the increase in global oil production by 2030, thanks to the shale boom.