 |
|
|
|||||
A little over a decade ago, Netflix decided to take streaming into its own hands: Instead of relying on commercial content delivery services, the streamer built its own servers from scratch, and gave them away to internet service providers. Since then, Netflix has distributed over 18,000 of these servers, now installed in 6,000 locations spread across 175 countries, forming the companys Open Connect content delivery network. Now, Netflix is ready to take this tech beyond movies and TV shows: The company has begun to develop its own cloud gaming infrastructure, with servers that could eventually allow any Netflix member to play complex games on their smart TVs without an expensive game console. This kind of cloud gaming requires a whole new generation of Open Connect servers. The appliances that are going to stream games will need to look different, says Netflix CTO Elizabeth Stone. Thats something that were building now. Netflixs servers have improved by 40x Netflix began working on Open Connect in 2011, and placed a first set of servers in the data centers of select U.S.-based internet providers in 2012. At the time, Netflix engineers taped a different movie quote on each custom-built, bright red Open Connect server. The concept behind Open Connect has stayed pretty much the same ever since: Once a server gets installed in an internet providers local data center, it gets loaded up with copies of Netflixs movies and shows, which are then streamed to the providers customers whenever theyre ready to watch something. When you click play, the content is coming from around the corner, Stone explains. That allows Netflix to deliver movies faster and more reliably, while also reducing congestion for upstream pipes that connect a service provider to the internet at largea win-win for everyone involved. These days, the movie quotes are long gone, as are the red chassis housings. The technology itself has changed as well: Netflix server racks now incorporate both machines with fast flash drives that stream Netflixs most popular fare, as well as massive hard drive clusters to store thousands of additional movies and shows for customers with more eclectic taste. One half-rack of our servers serves all of Netflixs catalog, Stone says. It can serve about 500,000 simultaneous streams. When we first got started, this half-rack could only serve about 13,000 simultaneous streams. Video games are a different beast Open Connects next challenge is Netflixs budding video game business. The company has launched more than 120 mobile games since it began exploring gaming in 2021, but its ambitions reach far beyond mobile: Netflix ultimately wants to allow its subscribers to access games comparable to whats available on Microsofts Xbox and Sonys PlayStation directly from the Netflix app running on a regular smart TV. To do this, Netflix has begun to build its own cloud gaming service, which it is currently testing with a subset of its subscribers in eight countries, including the U.S. and Canada. Subscribers in the beta test get to play around a dozen titles, including the indie game hit Oxenfree and the rebooted Atari classic Centipede: Recharged. This trial run helps Netflix test its cloud gaming technology, and optimize the design of its new Open Connect game servers. These appliances are very different from Netflixs existing streaming hardware. If you are streaming games to the TV, you execute the game on a server, Stone explains. The server then captures a live video feed of the game and beams it to the consumers TV. That requires Netflixs game servers to be optimized for real-time graphics rendering. More GPU-heavy, different types of chips, and a different type of design, Stone says. Cloud games also need to be delivered with as little latency as possible so that players dont miss a critical jump or turn due to a delayed stream. For some games, synchronization across locations is also needed to allow Netflix subscribers to play together remotely. Cloud games tend to be pretty social, in many cases, Stone says. Stone readily admits Netflixs current cloud gaming test is small. As we feel more confident in our approach, we [will] start to scale to other countries and other game types, she says. That will come in the coming years. The Tyson-Paul disaster helped future-proof Open Connect Getting a new technology like cloud gaming right can be challenging, especially for a company the size of Netflix; opening up the service too early to all of its 300 million subscribers could easily overwhelm the companys infrastructure. Netflix did get a lesson in humility last year when it aggressively expanded into livestreamingonly to have the broadcast of a match between boxing legend Mike Tyson and YouTube star Logan Paul turn into a train wreck. Everything about Tyson-Paul was extraordinary, including how large that event was, Stone says. An estimated 65 million viewers tuned in simultaneously, overwhelming even Netflixs content delivery network. The result: widespread buffering, and some users being kicked from the stream entirely. Stone describes the experience as a painful but necessary lesson. For that fight, there was no way to simulate that in a lab, she says. The insights her team gained from that knockout not only helped Netflix successfully stream two NFL games over the holidays, but are helping make Open Connect more resilient for whatever comes next, from live sports to cloud gaming. Our aspirations are much larger than 300 million members, Stone says. In order to stream film and TV to 400 million members, 500 million members all around the world, we need Open Connect to continue to evolve.
Category:
E-Commerce
Some grassroots environmental organizations have regained access to the millions of dollars they were promised through the Inflation Reduction Act. But now some see an even more menacing threat: prosecution. The unease has grown as President Donald Trumps attacks on them and their mission to help disadvantaged communities and curb climate change continues to escalate. Leaders of these groups say they expect federal agents to start breathing down their necks any day now as Trump seeks to shred the climate initiatives of his predecessor, Joe Biden. Its not a matter of if you will be audited, its a matter of when, said Ashley Shelton, executive director of the Louisiana-based nonprofit The Power Coalition for Equity and Justice. The first signs of that happened earlier this month when media reports surfaced that the Trump administration had ordered certain nonprofits receiving funding through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to hand over all their correspondence with EPA staff. According to Politico, they were also ordered to turn over to the FBI documents including transactions related to their programs and their organizations articles of incorporation and policies. On March 11, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced he had cancelled the program. The groups are suing to regain access to the $20 billion in greenhouse gas reduction funding. The federal government alleges the recipients defrauded the government. Zeldin has called Bidens climate program a green slush fund and characterized the Trump administrations actions as an effort to curtail wasteful government spending. Zeldin has charged that the EPA fast-tracked the greenhouse gas funds to avoid oversight during the final days of Bidens term. He has repeatedly referred to a surreptitiously taken video in which an EPA representative in December likened the effort to award those funds before Trump took office as throwing gold bars off the Titanic. Lawsuits pile up; funding in limbo Lawsuits continue to mount against Trumps actions as other pots of IRA funding and federal grants remain on lock down despite court orders barring any freeze on funds that have already been approved by Congress. We know that this current administration has signaled that they may not comply with what the courts or Congress orders them to do, and so that’s going to be a real problem, said Erin Rogers, co-director for the Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice. The Hive Fund specializes in raising funds and awarding grants to nonprofits led by minority women in communities hardest hit by pollution and climate change. Rogers said her group is already working with their recipients to better shield them from the federal audits that could be weaponized against them. We’re absolutely committed to helping groups do what they need to do to stay in compliance with their contracts, and then be in the legal system to make sure that these contracts are complied with by the federal government, she said. The Power Coalition is part of a group that secured a $20 million grant from the EPA to address energy efficiency in a low-income, predominantly Black Baton Rouge neighborhood located in the heavily-industrialized corridor in southwest Louisiana known as Cancer Alley. That project had been in limbo when Trump announced his freeze, but is back on track now that the EPA has freed up some of the IRA money. We’re proceeding with caution because I don’t want to be in a position to get the community excited about an opportunity that we then can’t actually materialize, Shelton said. DEI efforts targeted Shelton knows Trumps war on diversity, equity and inclusion is yet another thing that makes them vulnerable. I mean, the words equity and justice are in our name as an organization, she said. Does it feel like at some point it will make us a target? Sure. Environmental advocacy is only a small portion of what the coalition does. Her organization also advocates and implements outreach services related to health care, criminal justice reform, housing, early education and child care and voting rights. We’re not doing anything wrong, she said. Theres certainly apprehension and some fear (but) we’re gonna move forward and we’re gonna do this work because it is good and necessary work. Sheltons sentiments are shared by Cynthia Robertson, who in 2018 started with a food box in front of her home in Sulphur, Louisiana that grew into a six-employee nonprofit, Micah 6:8 Mission, whose name stems from a biblical exhortation to practice justice, mercy and humility. The group focuses on disaster recovery and environmental justice in the southwest corner of the state. We have 17 permitted [industrial] facilities in that area. We have a very high cancer rate, Robertson said. So we’ve been working at providing food, and at the same time we educate and give [the community] the tools to understand what’s going on and advocate for themselves. Robertson was worried that work might come to a halt when she, like so many others, was locked out of the federal governments online portal to access approximately $200,000 in grants from the EPA for community air monitoring and educational outreach on environmental justice issues. With that funding now available again, Robertson said theres still no word on whether a more than $100,000 grant she secured through the Department of Energy to help draft a community benefits plan for their service area will still come through. Some of the requirements for community benefit plans are to advance diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, according to a fact sheet from the DOEs Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations. I just know that there’s been delays and that we have been instructed by the DOE to postpone or suspend our work, she said. [But] we’re still continuing to do the work, because we have this contract we signed, and so the government has broken their side of the contract. The agency did not respond to multiple requests from Floodlight seeking a response to Robertsons claims. I’m not going to hold out any hope that it’s coming through because, along with DEI, the Trump administration has said they’re not going to support anything that deals with community benefits plans, she added. That doesn’t mean we’re not going to do the work. We’re just going to have to scale back the work. Some foundations step in The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation recently announced it would increase its funding to nonprofits by an estimated $150 million over the next two years to help supplant the funding frozen by Trump. In January, billionaire and former Democratic New York City Mayor Michael Bloombergwho is also a special envoy to the United Nations on climate changevowed to help cover the U.S. contribution to the UN climate body after Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement. The presidents move came at a time when other members of the countrys billionaire class were cutting their contributions to environmental issues to fall in line with Trumps agenda. I think people are really looking to see who can we trust, who’s still here with us, said Heather McTeer Toney, executive director of the Bloomberg-funded Beyond Petrochemicals campaign. This idea of being a target, it feels different. It is scary. We are really blessed to work with an organization that has not pulled out, and I think puts us in a position to encourage others to stay and be part of the climate movement. Toney added that most environmental justice groups were fighting and advocating for years without any financial help from the government and would likely revert back to that if need be. But Rogers stressed the need to push against Trumps attempts to claw back IRA funding. Philanthropy likely cannot backfill the gaps in federal funding, she said. The bottom line is this transition to clean, affordable, reliable and resilient energy, especially across the U.S. South where rates are high, energy burden is high, disaster strikes are highthat transition can deliver so many benefits, Rogers said. Not only for historically disinvested communities, but for our economy and our democracy as a whole. Terry L. Jones, Floodlight Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action. Beyond Petrochemicals, which is quoted in this story and provided images, is a funder of Floodlight. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which is mentioned in the story, is also a Floodlight funder.
Category:
E-Commerce
PepsiCo is sick of being left out of the prebiotic soda crazeand to catch up with competitors, the multinational food and beverage corporation just dropped $1.65 billion to acquire the functional soda startup Poppi. The deal, announced this morning, will bring Poppis range of 14 colorful, low-sugar, prebiotic-packed sodas into Pepsis expansive existing beverage portfolio. The move comes as young consumers are increasingly turning away from traditional soda in favor of more health-conscious, functional beverages, which typically come with a mood or health benefit derived from a specific set of ingredients. Popular prebiotic brands like Poppi and Olipop fit in this category, as do hydration-based drinks like Mio and Magna. While Pepsi already owns Gatoradewhich continues to dominate the hydration market, despite an influx of new entrantsthe corporation has yet to make a move in the prebiotic space. Meanwhile, its main competitor, the Coca-Cola Company, just announced its own prebiotic soda brand called Simply Pop early last month. Now, Pepsi is ensuring that it leaves no functional beverage category unchecked. “As we look to reorient our portfolio offerings to address white space consumer needs, the Poppi brand’s unique intersection with wellness and culture is a perfect addition to our portfolio,” Ram Krishnan, CEO of PepsiCo Beverages U.S, said in a press release on the acquisition. What’s your function? According to data from NielsenIQ, U.S. sales of functional beverages grew 54% to $9.2 billion between March 2020 and March 2024. As of last March, functional beverages accounted for an impressive 10% of the nonalcoholic beverage market. Poppi has been well-positioned to capitalize on this growing interest: In 2024, the brand made more than $500 million in sales. Poppi’s healthy soda premise attracts young consumers, but where the brand really hooks potential drinkers is through its influencer marketing tactics (like its controversial decision to send entire vending machines to TikTokers for the Super Bowl) and an ultra-vibrant, colorful branding approach designed to court Gen Z. Founder Allison Ellsworth says that these efforts have helped to distinguish prebiotic sodas as a new modern soda section on grocery store shelves. Over the last five years, we’ve worked with our buyers and retailers to define this whole new category. It’s what we call the modern soda set, Ellsworth told Forbes in an interview this month. It’s a dash destination within the store for this whole new category. Americas soda-drinking habits are changing, with young consumers leading the wayand Pepsis latest acquisition demonstrates that prebiotic soda might just be the next sparkling water.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||