PODCAST: Ads to match your mood and what’s a dad worth?
We’ve all been there: You get home from work, open up your computer to Netflix, press play and…..nothing. The screen reads buffering. Who do you blame? Your internet provider or Netflix? The U.S. Department of Justice is launching an investigation to answer that question. Specifically, they will be looking into whether cable companies, like Comcast and Time Warner, are using inappropriate tactics to restrict online video traffic to sites like Netflix and iTunes. Andrew Blum, author of the book “Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet” joins us to explain.
The CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase has been summoned to Capitol Hill today to face questions about his banks multi-billion dollar loss on bets in financial markets that went bad. According to his prepared remarks, Jamie Dimon will apologize, saying he feels “terrible” about the blunder.
Gas is cheaper and people weren’t buying as much building materials last month. That added up to a big fall in retail sales for May. If you set aside cars and trucks, it was the biggest drop in two years. Wholesale prices also dropped, with the Producer Price Index falling 1 percent in May. Applications for U.S. home mortgages rose last week to their highest level since 2009, an industry group said on Wednesday.
The UK’s finance minister said this morning Greece may need to quit the Euro to help convince Germany to invest more in saving the single currency. The new calculation today is that people in Greece are taking about a million dollars a day out of their bank accounts, ahead of a general election on Sunday that could determine if Greece stays with the euro.
Father’s Day, a time for companies to commission studies so they get their name in the news. To wit: Insure.com says stuff dads tend to do in the home is worth $20,000 a year. Stuff moms tend to do in the home, $60,000. Or if you prefer, Salary.com, which finds dad is sharing the load a bit more, saying they do $36,000 worth. Oh c’mon, dad’s jokes around the dinner table are worth more than that.
Microsoft has filed a patent for technology that serves up ads based on your mood. It works with Microsoft’s video console and figures out how you’re feeling based on your facial expressions, body movements and speech Then shows you ads it thinks you’ll be most receptive to. Happy consumers would see ads for electronics and vacations. Sad consumers? They see ads for weight loss products.
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