You won’t feel as proud of yourself for being able to shuffle a split deck at poker night after you watch the card manipulating skills of Huron Low, Kevin Ho, and Daren Yeow. The trio, also known as Virtuoso, can make a deck of cards leap through the air as if the effects of gravity aren’t actually felt during a performance.
Referring to these talented manipulators as card jugglers almost feels like it’s insulting the skills they’ve spent years perfecting. They prefer the term “cardisty†which feels a little pretentious, but watching them move cards around in mid-air like they wield the Force makes you realize they’ve probably earned the right to call their craft whatever they want.
On December 18, 1987, developer Square released its first Final Fantasy title to the Nintendo Entertainment System/Famicon console. While Hironobu Sakaguchi thought it would be his last video game, the title was a financial success, leading to a continuous stream of sequels released on every gaming platform since then, including a surprising recent foray onto iOS with Final Fantasy XV Pocket. The first Final Fantasy was included on the recent NES Classic, too, if you were lucky enough to grab one before Nintendo discontinued making them.
Now the publisher is known as Square Enix, and has since released 14 other main Final Fantasy games, with a host of spin-off games and crossover titles, as well. Games in the series tend to have deep (if confusing) plot lines, turn-based RPG mechanics and small groups of heroes bent on battling great evil while they learn more about each other as people in the process.
The publisher is celebrating the title’s 30th anniversary with a ton of commemorative items that it’s been selling all year, including T-shirts, discounted Final Fantasy titles, plush dolls and, yes, even themed ballpoint pens. Whether you’re a long-time fan or just learning about the long-running, ironically-named series, you might enjoy browsing the memorabilia and remembering the first time you played a Final Fantasytitle (mine was Final Fantasy Adventure on the Game Boy).
NASA wants to make sonic booms a little less…boom-y.
When a jet breaks the sound barrier, it generates shockwaves that are eventually heard—and felt—on the ground as sonic booms. The boisterous nature of supersonic flight is one of the primary driving forces behind the Federal Aviation Administration’s ban on supersonic flights over land. But NASA scientists are working to design an aircraft that can smash the sound barrier quietly, and that could cut travel times in the United States sig
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Unless you use a Kindle or another e-reader regularly, you probably don’t come into contact with e-ink displays. While they were once popular for high-end devices, they’ve largely been relegated to use in reading devices now that LCD and other display technology have grown in popularity and affordability.
But the company reMarkable is trying to expand e-ink’s use with the reMarkable paper tablet, a slab with a 10.3-inch e-ink display and an included stylus. Not only is it meant to be a reading device, but the reMarkable is designed to replace pretty much any papers you have to bring with you anywhere—books, documents, notes, sketches, and the like.
That’s not a new concept, as many of us have one device that holds most of the things we need daily. The reMarkable tablet goes after paper lovers specifically, boasting its e-ink display and companion stylus as better, more convenient alternatives to the traditional paper-and-pencil setup. But it’s a hard sell—priced at $599, the reMarkable tablet may offer a unique reading and writing experience compared to other tablets, but it has limiting features that prevent it from being great.
Design
ReMarkable built its tablet like a cross between a Kindle e-reader and an iPad. Measuring 6.9×10.1×.26 inches, it’s more rectangular than an iPad Pro and much larger than a Kindle device. It has to be bigger to allow a comfortable reading and writing experience, but as someone who is accustomed to using both the aforementioned Apple and Amazon devices, the reMarkable paper tablet felt a bit tall for my liking.
Specs at a glance: reMarkable tablet (as reviewed)
Screen
10.3†1872×1404 resolution (226 DPI) monochrome digital paper touch display
OS
Codex, a custom Linux-based OS optimized for low-latency e-paper
CPU
1 GHz ARM A9 CPU
RAM
512 MB DDR3L
Storage
8GB
Networking
Wi-Fi
Ports
One USB Type C
Size
177 x 256 x 6.7mm (6.9 x 10.1 x .26 inches)
Weight
.77 pounds (350 grams)
Battery
3,000mAh
Supported files
.pdf, .epub
Price
$600
Other perks
Included stylus
However, the overall slim frame and solid build of the tablet helped me overcome my initial issue with its dimensions. My model is a soft white with a shiny aluminum back plate that’s hugged at the top and bottom by silicone-like rubber strips. These help keep the tablet in place on a table or flat surface so you can write or draw on its e-ink display without the device sliding around.
The tablet has a PMMA cover lens that the company promises will protect it from drops and rough handling. While the reMarkable tablet certainly doesn’t feel flimsy, it doesn’t have the weighty design of an all-metal device. But that also makes it quite light at just over three-quarters of a pound, so it won’t weigh down any backpacks or bags.
Inside is a 3,000mAh battery, typical for devices of this size, but it works for much longer on this e-ink device than for most other mobile devices. ReMarkable’s website promises “days” of battery life, and that vague statement appears to be true. I used my tablet on and off for about three days before it hit 20-percent battery and made me consider recharging it.
The reMarkable tablet comes with a stylus, and the device recognizes its input, pressure, and orientation. E-ink strokes on the screen will change depending on how hard you press and the angle of the tip. The tablet also comes with replacement pen tips for when the original tip gets worn down (as it will over long periods of use). The stylus does not need a battery to work, which is a plus for any tablet stylus, as it removes the anxiety of having a depleted battery in the middle of an important meeting, class, or event in which you’ll be writing furiously.
Pros and cons of reMarkable’s big e-ink display
The large e-ink display was jarring at first for me because this device is considered a tablet. Currently, the tablet market is dominated by bright LCD and bold OLED displays, with each manufacturer trying to out-spec the next with the debut of each new tablet. The reMarkable tablet isn’t trying to do that; rather, it’s stripping away all the unnecessary tech in favor of a simple reading and writing experience. E-ink makes sense on a tablet like this, but it takes some adjustment by the user (if you’re like me, at least).
Since I started testing the reMarkable tablet with the mindset that it was, indeed, a tablet, it was a little jarring to see a message on the e-ink display when the device was powered off. “Your reMarkable is powered off. Hold power to start your reMarkable,” appears on the turned-off display, along with the company’s logo at the bottom of the screen. I don’t expect a tablet screen to show anything on its display unless I’m using it, but e-ink displays are different—Kindles often show suggested titles or advertisements on their displays when powered off.
But one way that e-ink and LCD displays can be similar is that they can both be backlit. Kindle devices have backlights that make the e-ink display much easier to read in dark environments, like an airplane. However, the reMarkable tablet doesn’t have a backlight, making it significantly less useful as an e-reader in less-than-perfect lighting situations.
Pressing and holding the power button for a second or two will make the screen flash in that inky black color typical of e-ink displays before this message appears: “Your reMarkable is starting. Give it a second to set things straight.” Unfortunately, the tablet takes a solid 15 to 20 seconds to power on completely and at least another 10 seconds after that to fully connect to Wi-Fi.
While the tablet appears to be a portrait in minimalism at first, its four buttons belie that assumption. The power button at the top edge is obviously necessary, but the three buttons at the base of the device are somewhat befuddling. The center square button takes you to the tablet’s homepage, while the other two turn the pages of the document you’re currently in.
This e-ink display may not be sophisticated enough to render apps or games, but it supports touch input. Anyone who has used a Kindle would assume a simple swipe from left or right could turn a page, but you cannot do that on the reMarkable tablet. You can, however, swipe up and down to scroll through paper template options (more on those later). The two page-turning buttons feel like a weird and unnecessary addition, and the fact that you can’t swipe to turn a page at all on this e-ink display is borderline unforgivable. A reMarkable representative told Ars that these swipe gestures may be included in future software updates.
The $600 reMarkable paper tablet.
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Three base buttons to flip pages and go home.
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It comes with its own stylus.
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Aluminum back plate.
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Homepage menu for file organization.
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Power button at the top edge of the tablet.
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USB Type-C charging port.
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Powering off the device.
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Message displayed when the device is turned off.
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A .pdf marked up on the tablet.
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The stylus doesn’t require a battery to work.
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Collapsible menu icon at the top-left corner of the display.
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A few of the available paper templates for new documents.
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Pen input options (pen, pencil, marker, and highlighter).
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Customizable thickness of each stroke.
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You can also change the “color” of the stroke (more like the opacity of the stroke, since the e-ink display is monochrome).
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Layers tool for new documents.
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A bunch of scribbles testing out all the pen inputs in various weights and opacities.
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Device settings page can show local storage data.
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Battery level indicated in settings.
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Reading, writing, and drawing experience
The reMarkable interface
Let’s start with how the reMarkable paper tablet organizes your content. The device is meant to hold books, documents, and other files that would be most comfortable to have in one place, as opposed to lugging everything around separately. The homepage of the tablet organizes files into a few folders, many of which overlap with one another: My Files, Notebooks, Documents, E-Books, and Bookmarks.
Every file on your tablet shows up under My Files, while only documents made on the device (like sketches and drawings) appear in Notebooks; .pdf files populate the Documents folder; and .epub files fill up the E-Books folder. Any important files that you choose to flag will appear in the Bookmarks folder.
The Documents and E-Books folders may be confusing if you’re unaware of the file types of all your documents. The reMarkable tablet only supports .pdf and .epub files, and its premade folders divide them as such. .pdf and .epub support may be enough for some, but you should pay special attention to this if you expected to transfer all your Kindle or other e-books to this device. Most Kindle books are .mobi files, so you’d have to break Amazon’s DRM and convert them to .epub files to make them accessible via the reMarkable tablet.
Even if the homepage is a bit busy, it organizes all your files in a fairly intuitive way. You have the option to sort files in different folders by last updated, file size, or name as well. However, there’s no way to search for a file based on keywords or topics, and the reMarkable tablet can’t recognize your handwriting to let you search through documents of handwritten notes.
Just above all the file folders is an icon that takes you to the device’s settings. This is where you can manage Wi-Fi networks, check battery status, manage account and security settings, change font sizes, and more. I only went to the settings menu to change from left-handed mode to right-handed mode (which changes the positioning of the on-screen writing menu) and to set up my Wi-Fi network.
The tablet automatically connects to Wi-Fi after the initial setup, and, while connected, the device can sync files and download firmware updates. The reMarkable tablet doesn’t support apps or any other programs, so all you can do while connected to Wi-Fi is update the files on your device by adding and removing them using either the mobile or desktop companion app. The only way you’ll know if your files are synced is if you open the reMarkable desktop or mobile app, and reMarkable’s cloud takes a few moments to sync all the new aspects of each document.
Reading
Reading any kind of document is a pleasure on the reMarkable tablet. That’s no surprise—it’s accepted now that e-ink and e-paper displays are some of the best ways to consume the written word, as far as non-paper technology goes. On that count, the reMarkable tablet is no exception. It’s much like reading on a Kindle, just at a larger scale. Viewing angles are wonderful, and reading in direct sunlight is great. While I still scowl at the lack of left- and right-swipe support, the physical buttons work fine to turn pages, and the center button provides a quick way to exit a document and return to the homepage.
Thanks to the large size of the tablet’s display, you can fit more content on each page than you can on a Kindle, but otherwise I don’t feel like size made a huge difference in the reading experience. If anything, it was weird to hold a “book” in my hand that was so much larger than my Kindle (and many physical books). However, the tablet isn’t so large that it’s unwieldy or ostentatious.
At the top of the screen is a three-dot icon that opens the general settings of the document you’re currently reading. You can change the document’s name or customize text settings by increasing or decreasing text size or changing the font, justification, page margins, and line spacing. These are typical e-reader settings that those with sight issues will immediately change to their liking, and I appreciate the short list of serif and sans-serif fonts to choose from.
However, pen input will be skewed if you change text settings after the fact: while in an .epub file, you can use the stylus to write or highlight on the pages. After highlighting a few sentences in a document, I changed the text settings to check out different fonts and line-spacing effects. I was annoyed to find that my highlighted passages were not maintained after changing some of the text settings. The lines of my highlights were off, and some covered blank portions of the page where paragraphs were broken.
Kindle devices fuse highlight strokes with words on the page, maintaining those called-out sections no matter which text settings are used. On the reMarkable tablet, it’s best to set your preferred .epub text settings first and then hope you never have to change them if you plan to highlight and edit documents with handwritten notes. A reMarkable representative told me that this issue should not occur in .pdf files, and that’s likely because you can’t change things like text size and line spacing in a .pdf.
From movies, to TV, to video games, there are countless sci-fi spacecrafts of varying size and power. These are the most iconic.
Note: While the Death Star is mobile, after much debate it’s been decided that particular vessel is classified as a space station, thus it is not included on this list.
Discovery One
As seen in: 2001: A Space Odyssey
This nuclear-powered ship is controlled by artificial intelligence and carries passengers from Earth to Jupiter. While it may not be loaded with firepower, Discovery One is one of the most iconic spaceships ever, powered by a nuclear reactor.
Image: Warner Bros.
Nostromo
As seen in: Alien
Another unforgettable spaceship, Alien’s Nostromo is a starfreighter that serves as home-away-from-home for Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver).
Image: 20th Century Fox
Eagle transporter
As seen in: Space: 1999
The signature passenger ship model from Space: 1999 is said to reach speeds of up to 23,000 miles per second. Being able to rocket around the galaxy that fast earns it a place in the most powerful spaceships.
Image: 20th Century Fox
Flying saucers from Mars Attacks!
As seen in: Mars Attacks!
While they may not be the most modern spacecrafts–instead looking exactly like what you’d expect from a Tim Burton movie about aliens–the flying saucers from Mars Attacks! lay waste to plenty of humans after descending to Earth.
Image: Warner Bros.
D79-TC Pelican
As seen in: Halo
Master Chief’s preferred mode of transportation–a gunship/dropship–holds 15-20 personnel and a pair of GAU/53 70mm MBHRC autocannons to blase enemies out of the sky.
Image: 343 Industries
Serenity
As seen in: Firefly
It may not come equipped with offensive weaponry, but that’s part of the Serenity’s charm. This ship has survived vicious battles and scary situations thanks to the clever maneuvering of its grade-A team of misfits.
Image: FOX
Axiom
As seen in: Wall-E
The Axiom is no fighter, that much is clear. However, a ship that size that can serve as a full-functioning city to the remainder of the people of Earth is impressively powerful–especially when you consider how the ship has to do literally everything for those onboard.
Image: Pixar
Alien mothership
As seen in: Close Encounters of the Third Kind
They came in peace, but the sheer size of the alien mothership in Close Encounters of the Third Kind cannot be dismissed. This massive vessel is a perfect example of otherworldly design and–while it’s not dangerous–its speaker system can be intimidating.
Image: Columbia Pictures
Eagle 5
As seen in: Spaceballs
Everything in Spaceballs is a joke, the Eagle 5 included. That said, it’s ability to achieve "hyperactive" mode makes it one of the fastest ships in the universe–something you cannot dismiss.
Image: 20th Century Fox
Heart of Gold
As seen in: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The infinite improbability drive makes the Heart of Gold the fastest ship in the universe, which is a power many covet. However, as shown in the 2005 movie adaptation, it’s also a ship that’s easily stolen. With all that power, you’d think they’d put an alarm on it.
Image: Buena Vista Pictures
Normandy SR-1
As seen in: Mass Effect
With stealth capabilities and the ability to travel faster than the speed of light, the Normandy is a spaceship that deserves to be taken seriously. It doesn’t hurt that it’s piloted by a guy named Joker.
Image: BioWare
TIE fighter
As seen in: Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope
While it’s a small spacecraft at only nine meters long, with the ability to carry one passenger, the TIE fighter is a deadly ship. Loaded with laser cannons and proton torpedoes, it’s destroyed hundreds, if not thousands, of enemy aircraft.
Image: Lucasfilm
X-wing fighter
As seen in: Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope
A signature vessel in the Star Wars universe, the X-wing is a quick and powerful fighter, boasting laser cannons and photon torpedoes. Still, while it was ultimately responsible for the destruction of the Death Star, it’s primary use is in one-on-one combat with the opposition’s TIE fighters. It’s powerful for its size but not the biggest and baddest in the universe.
Image: Lucasfilm
The Milano
As seen in: Guardians of the Galaxy
There aren’t many specs available for this ship, named after Alyssa Milano. But after seeing the battles it’s been through in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, we know this spaceship is not to be taken lightly.
Image: Marvel Studios
Klingon bird-of-prey
As seen in: Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
The bird-of-prey is a staple of the Star Trek franchise. With photon torpedoes, a warp drive and a tractor beam, it’s exactly the kind of ship you’d want if you were looking for trouble.
Image: Paramount
Romulan warbird
As seen in: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Its power is similar to that of the Klingon bird-of-prey. However, where the warbird gets the better of its fellow Star Trek vessel is its warp drive capable of Warp 9-plus speeds.
Image: Fox
Millennium Falcon
As seen in: Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope
With illegally-modified blasters, plenty of shields to keep it safe, and more speed than it needs, the Millennium Falcon one of the most iconic ships ever and worth every bit of its hype.
Image: Lucasfilm
NSEA Protector (NTE-3120)
Galaxy Quest may be a satire of Star Trek culture, but the 1999 movie’s featured starship is a serious machine with hundreds of crew members and a quantum flux drive capable of speeds of up to Mach 15.
Image: Warner Bros.
The TARDIS
As seen in: Doctor Who
The TARDIS–Time and Relative Dimension in Space–isn’t made for fighting and destruction. There are no lasers or missiles on this ship. That said, it’s practically impenetrable and can travel anywhere in space and time, giving it powers far beyond those of most other sci-fi ships.
Image: BBC
UNSC Infinity
As seen in: Halo 4
This massive carrier holds over 17,000 troops and contains 1,100 missile pods, making it perhaps the most powerful ship in the Halo franchise.
Image: 343 Industries
Borg Cube
As seen in: Star Trek: The Next Generation
It may not be aerodynamic, but the Borg Cube is a formidable foe in space. It’s loaded with an array of weaponry and is controlled by a merciless group that has no problem ending lives. Every encounter with the vessel has ended with multiple casualties, making the Borg Cube both a powerful enemy and a terrifying one.
Image: Fox
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), original timeline
As seen in: Star Trek
It may not be the quickest spaceship around, but with its stock of photon torpedoes, shields to keep it safe, and massive size, the USS Enterprise is a ship to be reckoned with.
Image: CBS
USS Discovery
As seen in: Star Trek: Discovery
The Discovery has all of the hallmarks of the USS Enterprise, complete with the standard Federation weaponry. However, the Discovery also contains the experimental spore drive that can instantly jump the ship to anywhere in the universe.
Image: CBS
Giant saucers
As see in: Independence Day
The huge saucers in Independence Day didn’t do much, aside from deliver a single laser blast. Of course, that long blast is strong enough to level an entire city.
Image: 20th Century Fox
Galactica (BS-75)
As seen in: Battlestar Galactica
Like the Normandy, the Galactica can travel faster than the speed of light. Unlike the Normandy, though, this ship is loaded with weaponry and a 5,000 member crew.
Image: Universal
Imperial-class Star Destroyer
As seen in: Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope
It’s not going to win a race against the Millennium Falcon anytime soon, but it could certainly blast it to pieces. With a collection of turbolasers and a crew of nearly 40,000, the Star Destroyer is the baddest ship in any galaxy — and one you don’t want to face off against.
Image: Lucasfilm
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The three Republican commissioners now in power at the FCC voted this week to erase the agency’s legal authority over high-speed Internet providers.They claim that competition will protect consumers, that the commission shouldn’t interfere in the "dynamic internet ecosystem," and that they are "protecting internet freedom." Now that the vote is done, the agency has little to do but mess around with spectrum allocations. The mega-utility of the 21st century officially has no regulator.
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About
Susan Crawford is a professor at Harvard Law School and the author of The Responsive City and Captive Audience.
In the meantime, fed up with federal apathy and sick of being held back by lousy internet access controlled by local cable monopolies, scrappy cities around the US are working hard to find ways to get cheap, world-class fiber-optic connectivity. It’s always been an uphill climb, as the “incumbentsâ€â€”giant carriers like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T—are constantly working behind the scenes to block competition. (Recently, Comcast spent nearly $1 million opposing a municipal-fiber vote in Fort Collins, Colorado. The company did not prevail, I’m happy to report.) But now there’s an additional obstacle: Powerful right-wing billionaires have joined the fight against municipal fiber efforts, using their deep pockets to fund efforts to block even the most commonsense of plans.
Bad news for internet access—the Koch brothers are fighting low-cost open fiber nets.
Look what happened in Louisville, Kentucky. It’s a city of about 750,000, the largest in the state. Earlier this year, the city noticed that the state of Kentucky was funding a "middle mile" fiber network designed to connect the state’s 120 counties and provide cheaper connectivity for municipal buildings—KentuckyWired. As part of the project, Louisville—also known as Jefferson County—would be able to run 100 miles of fiber alongside the state network for just the cost of materials.
That seemed like a great deal to Louisville. The city estimated that if it installed fiber for city use from scratch, it would cost $15 million. With the KentuckyWired offer, the same project would cost just $5.4 million—with half of that amount dedicated to placing fiber nodes in West Louisville, a struggling, de facto segregated area of concentrated poverty, poor health outcomes, and general economic distress.
The public benefits of jumping on the KentuckyWired offer would be substantial: Not only would West Louisville get a chance at better access for its homes and businesses, but the city could install fiber-controlled traffic signals, create better and cheaper connectivity for public-safety agencies, and ship data around inexpensively to improve its operations. In a nutshell, the city would build the infrastructure and lease capacity to private internet-service providers. "We were looking at this as our smart city foundation," Grace Simrall, Louisville’s chief of civic innovation, says. At least half of the new fiber capacity would be reserved for open access leases, to encourage last-mile retail providers to wire homes and businesses. All for just the cost of the fiber lines.
It seemed to be a no-brainer. “I can’t think of a more sensible plan," Simrall says. "I just didn’t think that we were going to face opposition on this. We thought surely people would understand that this was a way for us to leapfrog where we were for a fraction of the cost."
But when Simrall and her colleagues went to talk to members of the Louisville Metro Council in May, they found that interest groups, including the cable trade association in Kentucky and something called the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, had been there already. Suddenly, the city’s eminently sensible plan was in trouble. "The cable trade association in Kentucky was very vocal about how they thought that this was a waste of taxpayer money and had just spoken to numerous council members on the record about that," Simrall says.
Then Simrall and the city found out that the Washington, DC-based Taxpayers Protection Alliance had been posting frequently on social media opposing Louisville’s fiber plan. (Typical tweet: “Google suspended its fiber efforts in many cities due to cost – now wants Louisville taxpayers to foot the $5.4M bill.†The Louisville plan had nothing to do with Google.)
That’s when Simrall learned who had joined the forces determined to block Louisville from spending a dime on fiber for the city’s use: Charles and David Koch, the brothers backing environment-hostile fossil fuels and funding politicians who dole out goodies to the super-rich. "It’s widely known that they [the Taxpayers Protection Alliance] receive a lot of funding from the Koch brothers," Simrall says.
The connection between the TPA and the Koch brothers emerged from investigative reporting by ProPublica and others. This work has revealed that the Taxpayers Protection Alliance is a front advocacy group, part of a network of dark-money organizations supported in part by the Koch brothers. (The funding seems not to come from the Koch family directly but instead is funneled through other Koch-funded groups.) TPA’s most recent IRS filing shows it received about half a million dollars in contributions in 2016, but the sources of these contributions are blacked out. Tax-exempt organizations are not required to disclose the names of their donors publicly. David Williams, TPA’s president, told the Louisville Courier-Journal earlier this year that the group receives funding from “a lot of different sources," including groups affiliated with the Koch brothers.
A look at the TPA blog shows that the organization fights municipal fiber as part of its general anti-government and pro-private-sector activities, claiming that “taxpayer-funded broadband is a waste of money.†This week’s post, not surprisingly, congratulates the FCC on rolling back net neutrality regulations that TPA believes were “hurting taxpayers.â€
That made the Louisville fiber project a battle between those trying to help the city and outside money trying to preserve the status quo. With little time before the council vote in mid-June, and facing the prospect that the city would lose forever the opportunity to participate in KentuckyWired at cost, Simrall and her office swung into action. They patiently explained the economic and operational benefits of the city plan to council members and the public, creating a useful infographic to sum up the story. They urged residents to call council members. Simrall had come from the civic tech community in Louisville, and contacted everyone she knew. "Everybody said, ‘This is complete common sense,’" Simrall says. On June 8, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer tweeted: "Tell your council member to back #KyWired and stop the Kochs from meddling in Louisville’s progress."
Later that month, there were two dramatic public meetings on the city’s budget for the fiber project. The first vote went along party lines, with Republicans voting against any city involvement in fiber. Simrall and her team kept fighting, and managed to convince some Republicans that the city plan made a lot of sense—especially the Republicans from districts that have suffered from digital redlining by incumbents. In the end, at the final budget hearing, the council voted unanimously to approve the request. "It was really quite a thrilling thing," Simrall says.
At the end of the day, the Koch-funded campaign backfired. It helped fire up some council members who might not have understood the importance of city fiber; once they knew the Koch brothers were against it, the city’s plan got their attention. "That felt pretty good," Simrall says.
If the Koch brothers were willing to throw money at opposing an incremental, cheap effort to string fiber alongside an existing state network plan, just imagine what they’ll be capable of around more ambitious local efforts. There is a major onslaught looming.
Simrall doesn’t think the Kochs actually care about fiber. "It’s all their way of opposing particular municipal or state efforts," Simrall says.
The scary thing is that the TPA message can be effective to a public that doesn’t understand the importance of fiber and can be easily swayed by claims that internet access should be handled solely by the private sector. The same kinds of Koch-like scare-points were rolled out when the unregulated private sector was solely in charge of electricity 100 years ago. But, as Simrall points out, "At this point, who would go to a city that doesn’t have electric utilities? Who would go to a city that doesn’t have water, or access to highways? Fiber is that type of infrastructure plan."
That doesn’t matter to the funders of groups like TPA. No matter how limited the government involvement is, they’re going to go after it.
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The battle between Amazon and Walmart is widely known, but Target is now entering the space in a new way. Target announced its plans to buy Shipt, a grocery delivery startup, in a $550 million all-cash deal. Created in 2014, Shipt lets members order groceries online from various supermarkets and then sends a shopper to pick up and delivery the items on the same day.
Shipt is based in Birmingham, Alabama, and already has partnerships with some of the big grocery chains across the country, including Costco, Kroger, Publix, and HEB. Under the deal, Shipt will be a wholly owned Target subsidiary and will continue to operate independently while serving Target’s new same-day delivery efforts.
Target already offers same-day delivery in New York City, but online retail seemingly becomes more competitive each day. Target’s acquisition follows Walmart’s recent purchase of Parcel, a New York City-based delivery company that Walmart plans to use to offer same-day delivery in the New York metro area. Meanwhile, Amazon offers same-day delivery in thousands of markets cross the country, and its $99-per-year Prime membership offers free two-day shipping to most areas.
Using Shipt’s infrastructure, Target expects to offer same-day delivery of groceries, household essentials, and electronics in half of its stores across the country by the summer of 2018. Target plans to offer the service at the majority of its stores by the 2018 holiday season and will expand the products that can be ordered for same-day delivery through 2019.
The kicker here is the cost of Target’s new delivery service. Shipt already charges $99 per year for members to get unlimited same-day grocery deliveries, and according to a Bloombergreport, Target plans to use that same pricing model for now. It’s akin to Amazon’s Prime membership fee, but Target won’t initially offer as many same-day-delivery products as Amazon (nor does it provide as many other perks as Amazon Prime does). Target is also working on integrating Shipt’s ordering technology into its website and mobile app.
The ultimate goal is to get products to customers as quickly as possible. Brick-and-mortar stores have always had the upper hand in this area since customers can walk in, buy what they need, and walk out with it immediately. However, Amazon and other online retailers have closed the instant-gratification gap enormously with delivery times that seem to shorten every year. Walmart, Best Buy, and now Target are all experimenting with ways to hold their own next to online retailers, and their brick-and-mortar stores may help them do that. Target, for example, has more than 1,800 stores around the country, allowing it to reach more customers in more areas than Amazon may be able to with its dispersed warehouses.
Target’s acquisition of Shipt is expected to close before the end of 2017.
