Articles 2024
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Why “Star Trek Into Darkness” Is Smaller Than Life
Bloomberg View, May 22, 2013
Like most blockbuster summer movies, “Star Trek Into Darkness” sells escapism. But not all versions of cinematic escapism are the same.
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Dove’s Fake New ’Real Beauty’ Ads
Bloomberg View, April 25, 2013
Dove, the Unilever Plc (ULVR) personal- care brand, has another viral hit. Its “Real Beauty Sketches” tops the latest Advertising Age viral-video chart. The film, which portrays women having their likenesses drawn by a forensic artist, racked up 29.4 million views and more than 660,000 Facebook shares in its first 10 days, according to Visible Measures Corp., which compiles the chart. (The video comes in three-minute and six-minute versions, and the campaign also includes separate short interviews with the artist and three of the women.)
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JC Penney's Johnson Forgot the First Rule of Retail
Bloomberg View, April 09, 2013
Ron Johnson, fired as chief executive officer of J.C. Penney this week, failed not because his vision was necessarily wrong, but because in executing it he forgot the first rule of retailing: To sell people things, you first have to get them into the store.
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How Mr. Selfridge Created the Modern Economy
Bloomberg View, April 04, 2013
When the British drama “Mr. Selfridge” debuted on PBS this week, American viewers saw two things rarely on display in contemporary popular culture: a businessman hero and, more remarkably, a version of commercial history that includes not just manufacturing but shopping.
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Why Silicon Valley Is Winning the Robocar Race
Bloomberg View, March 16, 2013
An ad from 1957 shows a family playing dominoes in a bubble-top car as it cruises down an six-lane divided highway, its steering wheel pointedly unattended. “One day your car may speed along an electric super- highway, its speed and steering automatically controlled by electronic devices embedded in the road,” reads the copy. “Highways will be made safe -- by electricity! No traffic jams ... no collisions ... no driver fatigue.” Now it finally seems to be happening.
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Why You Want to Escape With Denzel Washington
Bloomberg View, February 20, 2013
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hands out Oscars this weekend, the smart money is on Daniel Day-Lewis to take home the best-actor award for the title role in “Lincoln.” It would be his third Oscar.Day-Lewis is a remarkable actor, and his performance as the Civil War president is absolutely convincing. He disappears into the role. He probably deserves the award.But one of his Oscar competitors has achieved something more impressive. In December, Denzel Washington, who is nominated this year for his performance as an alcoholic pilot in “Flight,” came in first when the annual Harris poll asked Americans to name their favorite movie star. It was his fourth time topping the poll.
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Fix Copyright for a Creative World
Bloomberg View, February 10, 2013
In a parallel universe, President Barack Obama, a progressive Democrat, says the following in his State of the Union address:
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No Flying Cars, but the Future Is Bright
Bloomberg View, December 15, 2012
It has been 40 years since the last astronauts left the moon. That anniversary, which passed last week, has put some prominent technologists in a funk.“You promised me Mars colonies. Instead, I got Facebook,” reads the cover of the current issue of MIT Technology Review. In an essay titled “Why We Can’t Solve Big Problems,” editor Jason Pontin considers “why there are no disruptive innovations” today.
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A Free-Market Fix for the Copyright Racket
Bloomberg View, November 28, 2012
While most of the punditocracy was chattering earlier this month about Mitt Romney’s “gifts”gaffe, another Republican took an unexpectedly bold stand about a huge and controversial special-interest handout that largely benefits Democratic constituencies.A young Capitol Hill staff member named Derek S. Khanna published a Republican Study Committee policy brief titled “Three Myths About Copyright Law and Where to Start to Fix It.” The paper attacked the current copyright system, particularly the continual and retroactive extension of copyright terms at the behest of entertainment-industry lobbyists.
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Cancer Breakthroughs Meet Market Realities
Bloomberg View, October 30, 2012
When Apostolia M. Tsimberidou was a young hematologist, a diagnosis of chronic myelogenous leukemia meant a patient had only a few years to live.The median survival time when she started medical school in 1985, she recalls, was just 3.5 years. Then came Novartis Inc.’s (NOVN) Gleevec, or imatinib, which the Food and Drug Administration approved in 2001. Unlike traditional chemotherapy drugs, which work by poisoning the body’s fast-growing cells, Gleevec is a so-called biologic that works by altering the behavior of abnormal protein molecules -- in this case, inhibiting an enzyme that makes the cancer cells proliferate.