Tag: Digital

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Entertainment

The Joyce Theater Broadcasts Its First Full Digital Season

The Joyce Theater Announces Its First Full Digital Season

Ayodele Casel will present a new work in April as part of the Joyce Theater’s online spring season. The piece follows Ms. Casel’s celebrated collaboration with jazz pianist and composer Arturo O’Farrill at Joyce in 2019.

The spring list also includes new appearances by Brooklyn-based troupe Ballez; Ephrat Asherie Dance; and Dormeshia, Jason Samuels Smith, and Derick K. Grant. Ballez’s performance of “Giselle of Loneliness”, which was originally planned for the Joyce 2020 Pride Festival, will be broadcast live and then made available upon request. The others are filmed on stage and edited slightly before being released.

In October, Dance returned to Joyce with multiple cast members including Sara Mearns and Shamel Pitts and performed Molissa Fenley’s 1988 solo “State of Darkness” on the stage of the theater for a video compilation. Since then, Pam Tanowitz Dance and Ronald K. Brown’s Evidence company have streamed live from the Chelsea theater.

“The livestreams feel like a really big step,” Joyce’s program director Aaron Mattocks said in an interview. “It was important for the field to get some of these companies up and running again and to show that it can be done.”

The staging of works exclusively for the virtual audience is expensive and “the return is very, very low”.

“I don’t think it’s a sustainable model for the future,” he said.

In addition to the performances taped in the theater, the Joyce will stream digital programs throughout the spring from the Paris Opera Ballet, Batsheva Dance Company, Step Afrika !, Trisha Brown Dance Company, and others.

For more information, including the full schedule, please visit joyce.org.

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Business

China Costs Forward With a Nationwide Digital Forex

China Charges Ahead With a National Digital Currency

But no major power is as far as China. His early steps could signal where the rest of the world is going with digital currencies.

“This is more than just money,” said Yaya Fanusie, a staff member at the Center for Economic and Financial Power, a think tank and author of a recent paper on the Chinese currency. “It’s about developing new tools to collect data and use that data to make the Chinese economy smarter and based on real-time information.”

While the Chinese government has not said if and when it will officially roll out the eCNY nationwide, several officials have mentioned that it is ready for tourists arriving for the Beijing 2022 Olympics. Recent articles and speeches from officials at People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, underscored the project’s ambitions and desire to be the first.

“The right to issue and control digital currencies is becoming a ‘new battlefield’ of competition between sovereign states,” said a September article in China Finance, the central bank’s magazine. “China has many advantages and opportunities in issuing fiat digital currencies, so it should accelerate to take the first path.”

The People’s Bank of China did not respond to a request for comment.

The development of a national digital currency began in 2014 when the People’s Bank of China set up an in-house group to work on one soon after Bitcoin caught the country’s attention. In 2016, the central bank created a division called the Digital Currency Institute. Last year, according to research by Sino Global Capital, a financial investment firm, trials of eCNY were started in the cities of Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiongan and Chengdu.

People invited to trial through a lottery on WeChat or other apps could click a link and receive a balance of 200 electronic yuan, which was sometimes displayed in their banking app over an image of an old-fashioned Chinese banknote with Mao Zedong’s face . To spend the money, users can use an eCNY app to scan a retailer’s QR code or create a QR code that the retailer can scan.

ECNY’s design borrows few minor technical elements from Bitcoin and does not use what is known as blockchain technology, a ledger-like system that most cryptocurrencies rely on, officials at People’s Bank of China have said.

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World News

A digital greenback would assist the U.S. and its allies maintain China in test

A digital dollar would help the U.S. and its allies keep China in check

Chinese officials have made no secret of the fact that their accelerated efforts to introduce and spread the digital yuan are a first step in their long-term strategy to undermine and expand the dollar’s global supremacy.

Nevertheless, leading US finance officials rolled their eyes at every hint that the global race for digital currencies lurked deeper dangers for the dollar and thus also for the national security of the US. Even as China marched forward and Bitcoin’s value hit $ 1 trillion, the Federal Reserve was in no hurry to be a candidate.

Until now.

This week marked a public turning point for top US government officials involved in international finance – Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. Josh Lipsky, director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomic Center, tweeted that this was “firing a starting weapon.”

At a New York Times event Monday with Secretary Yellen, CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin called for their most comprehensive approval to date of a digital dollar, central bank digital currency, or CBDC. Although Sorkin drew Yellen’s attention to a poll by the Atlantic Council at the Belfer Center at Harvard that found 70 countries now have digital currency projects, Yellen instead focused on the domestic good a digital dollar could bring to Americans.

“I think it makes sense for the central banks to look at this,” said Yellen in a historical clip from Snapchat.

“I found that staff from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston are working with researchers from MIT to study its characteristics. We have a problem with financial inclusion. Too many Americans really don’t have access to simple payment systems and bank accounts. This is something that a digital dollar, a central bank digital currency, could help with. I think this could lead to faster, safer and cheaper payments. “

A day later, Fed Chairman Powell testified in Congress and also broke new ground. He called the digital dollar “a high priority project for us”. He added: “We are determined to solve the technology problems and to advise the public very comprehensively and very transparently with all interested constituencies on whether we should do this.”

But while the Fed is in consultation, China will be executed.

Neither Yellen nor Powell mentioned China’s growing lead in developing digital currencies, but that was the context. Their call to action coincides with China’s announcement of a significant partnership with the SWIFT cross-border payments system earlier this month, removing any doubts that Beijing intends to internationalize the digital yuan.

At the same time, China has signed a free trade agreement (FTA) with Mauritius, the first free trade agreement with an African state, with which a digital financial audit facility is to be created. “While China continues to develop its plans for digital currencies, it is ultimately Mauritius that leads Africa in this area,” write experts Lauren Johnston and Marc Lanteigne for the World Economic Forum. The free trade agreement declares its readiness to “promote the development of a renminbi clearing and settlement facility in the Mauritius area”.

All of this is because Beijing authorities used the February 12th Chinese New Year celebrations to launch three large pilot projects to distribute digital yuan worth approximately $ 1.5 million in “red packages” each perform about $ 30. Then, this week, China expanded its digital currency handout testing program to include Chengdu City, capital of Sichuan Province and the fifth largest city in the country, where it is distributing approximately $ 6 million worth of digital yuan.

A red package in digital Chinese currency can be seen on an arranged photo on a mobile phone as Chengdu City begins handing out 200,000 red E-CNY packages valued at 40 million yuan on February 24, 2021 in Yichang, Hubei Province .

VCG | Visual China Group | Getty Images

China’s goal appears to be to lay the foundation for the digital yuan coming-out party at the XXIV Winter Olympics in Beijing in late 2022. It is speculated that Chinese organizers might require all contestants and athletes to download an app that will ensure that all payments at the Games for hotels, tickets, food, souvenirs and more are made in the new digital currency. Even if you don’t see a physical boycott of the Olympics in China, watch out for digital boycotts from the US and other teams.

It’s hard not to compare China’s current lead in developing digital currencies, so far shaken off by American officials, with its early global lead in developing the 5G or fifth generation broadband cellular standard. Until the Trump administration responded alongside Western manufacturers, no one could compete with Chinese 5G providers and device manufacturers worldwide, including Huawei.

China’s consistent prioritization of technological progress underscores its realization that in history the country that reached the technological peak in its era was mostly also the dominant international actor.

If the US loses the importance of financial technology innovation, combined with a weakening of the global dominance of the dollar, the benefits for Beijing would be considerable.

China’s different approaches to privacy give it a competitive advantage. The need for the US and Europe to address privacy concerns will complicate CBDC development. Conversely, Beijing sees the digital yuan as a way to further strengthen its already formidable surveillance state while improving its ability to fight money laundering, corruption and terrorist financing.

In a recent article published by CNAS, authors Yaya J. Fanusie and Emily Jin capture how deeply China understands the geopolitical significance of their project for digital currencies. They tell how Yao Qian, former head of digital currency research at People’s Bank of China, compared the advancement of his country’s digital currency with previous Chinese advances in robotics, big data, and artificial intelligence.

Speaking at a United Nations conference on information technology, Yao said, “Yao set up the digital currency as part of the” next war, “” referring to an article in that title in The Economist that highlighted the central role of technology in competition between the US and the US China was discussed.

The Fed fears that it will prematurely introduce a digital dollar in view of its use as the world’s reserve currency. The bigger geopolitical threat, however, is how quickly it is falling behind.

The US can still win this competition if they not only develop a digital dollar quickly, but work together to create a digital euro, a digital pound, and a digital yen. The total firepower of these currencies would quickly fill the innovation gap. It would also demonstrate the value of working with allies, a core part of Biden’s foreign policy.

Frederick Kempe is a best-selling author, award-winning journalist, and President and CEO of the Atlantic Council, one of America’s most influential think tanks on global affairs. He worked for the Wall Street Journal for more than 25 years as foreign correspondent, assistant editor-in-chief and senior editor for the European edition of the newspaper. His latest book – “Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place in the World” – was a New York Times bestseller and has been published in more than a dozen languages. Follow him on Twitter @FredKempe and subscribe here to Inflection Points, his view every Saturday of the top stories and trends of the past week.

More information from CNBC staff can be found here @ CNBCopinion on twitter.

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Business

The place can digital nomads work? Croatia, Dubai, Estonia and tropical islands

Where can digital nomads work? Croatia, Dubai, Estonia and tropical islands

People who work from home have more opportunities to make a living abroad than ever before.

In addition to the countries originally opened to remote workers last year, new destinations have launched programs to encourage workers to leave their home offices because of tropical shores and year-round sun.

What is necessary Employment outside of the intended destination (a must), proof of sufficient funds to support long-term residence (usually required), health insurance (a good idea, although not mandatory) and of course, negative Covid tests. Add in registration fees and a few other superficial requirements – travelers can secure jobs on the beach until winter 2022.

Here are seven new options.

Montserrat

Tourists cannot go to Montserrat at the moment, but distant workers can.

The Montserrat Remote Workers Stamp, announced on January 29, allows travelers to live and work on the tiny Caribbean island for up to 12 months.

“The response to this initiative has been extremely positive,” Warren Solomon, Montserrat Tourism Director, told CNBC Global Traveler. “The geographical distribution of applicants corresponds to our main international source markets, namely the USA, Canada, Great Britain and Europe.”

Known as the Emerald Isle, Montserrat is home to the Soufrière Hills volcano, which erupted in 1995.

Westend61 | Westend61 | Getty Images

Remote workers (including freelancers and consultants) must have health insurance and an annual income of at least $ 70,000. Fees are $ 500 for individuals – or $ 750 or more for families.

Applicants know within a week whether they are admitted.

Montserrat, one of 14 UK overseas territories, is home to around 5,000 people, which, according to the island’s tourism website, means “everyone knows everyone”.

Remote workers must test negative for Covid-19 for 14 days in an accommodation of their choice and quarantine. So far, only 20 Covid cases have been confirmed on the island.

“Postage stamps” cannot be renewed, although workers can reapply to stay for another year.

The Bahamas

Individuals who believe they might get tired of staying on an island can apply for the Bahamas Extended Access Travel Stay program.

With the new 12-month permit, known as BEATS for short, remote workers and students can live and relocate between 16 different islands in the Bahamas, including Andros, Exumas, Eleuthera and Paradise Island.

The Bahamas has more than 700 islands and bays; Remote workers and students can make a living on 16 of them, including Eleuthera (shown here).

Sylvain Sonnet | The image database | Getty Images

Applications are processed within five days and cost $ 25 per person. Employees must provide proof of employment, while students must provide proof of enrollment and funds to cover living and travel expenses. For an additional fee, students can gain access to the University of the Bahamas for technical support and other educational services.

If approved, the lead applicant must pay $ 1,000 and $ 500 for each accompanying family member. Extensions are possible for a maximum stay of up to three years.

Travelers must have a negative Covid-19 test result (no more than five days prior to their arrival) to apply for a Bahamas Travel Health Visa, which is an additional requirement. From November 1st of this year, visitors will no longer need to quarantine upon arrival.

Dubai

All nationalities can apply for Dubai’s new remote working program. assuming they make $ 5,000 a month.

Travelers who are unsure whether they want to get involved in the program can enter Dubai on a tourist visa and then apply for the work program during their stay.

At $ 287, the fees are lower than most other programs. Applicants must have valid health insurance in the United Arab Emirates and provide proof of income in the form of pay slips and bank statements.

As with other programs, workers can leave and re-enter as they please. However, stays can be revoked if travelers leave for six consecutive months.

Dubai is known for its modern architecture, including the Burj Khalifa, which at 2,700 feet is almost twice as tall as the Empire State Building.

Fraser Hall | The image database | Getty Images

Workers can hire nannies and drivers, rent cars, and enroll their children in Dubai’s school system.

To enter Dubai, travelers must arrive with a negative PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test, which is carried out no later than 72 hours before departure. Additional testing may be required upon landing, and residents of South Africa or Nigeria are currently not allowed to enter.

The emirate enacted tough new measures earlier this month to curb record-breaking infection rates after a heavily criticized travel season in December. The surge in infections coincides with a robust vaccination campaign that puts the UAE in second place after Israel in terms of percentage of the population vaccinated.

Mauritius

Remote workers looking for a “Covid-safe” place to weather the pandemic can consider Mauritius, according to local tourism officials for the island nation in southeast Africa.

The country of almost 1.3 million people has so far registered 610 Covid cases, only a few of which occurred in 2021.

Digital nomads and retirees willing to adhere to their “strict” health measures can apply for a “premium visa” for one year, according to the country’s official tourism website. To participate, travelers must be quarantined for two weeks and passed four Covid-19 tests.

Concierge services are planned to help digital nomads and retirees find homes, cars, banks, and telephone companies, according to the Mauritius Official Tourism Website.

Andrea Comi | Moment | Getty Images

There is no fee to apply, although applicants will need long-term housing plans, travel and health insurance, and proof of sufficient funds to stay in Mauritius, which equates to a monthly income of at least $ 1,500. Savings of USD 18,000 are sufficient, said Muhammad Muhsin Mowlabaccus of the Mauritius Economic Development Board.

The new visas, which were introduced in November 2020, are open to residents of more than 100 nations, although travelers who have been to the UK, South Africa, Japan and Brazil in the last 15 days will not be able to enter until February 28.

Croatia

As expected, Croatia started welcoming digital nomads in January.

Applying for a life in this popular Mediterranean coastal country is not as easy as it is in other travel destinations. However, this could soon change, said Jan de Jong, President of the Digital Nomad Association Croatia.

“Currently it is only possible to apply to the local police station in Croatia,” de Jong told CNBC. “We assume that we will be able to accept online applications from March.”

Remote workers who need a separate visa to enter Croatia can apply for the program at the nearest Croatian embassy or consulate – there are 10 in the U.S. – but de Jong said they could email documents at too Send police stations in Croatia.

“Croatia has a chance to be among the top travel destinations for digital nomads,” said Jan de Jong, who said workers are drawn to its islands and coastlines, as well as its inland mountains, forests and national parks.

Jörg Greuel | Stone | Getty Images

The workers must also prove that they have enough money to support their stay. However, this can be evidenced by monthly income or savings, de Jong said.

“The minimum amount you will need per month is 16,142.50 kunas ($ 2,590 USD),” he said. “For those digital nomads who don’t have a stable income every month, it would also be enough to show that they have enough savings for those 12 months, which equates to about $ 31,000.”

Remote workers should also plan not to stay longer than a year. Temporary stays for digital nomads are “granted for up to a year (possibly even less) and cannot be extended,” according to a government website. Employees can reapply six months after an earlier stay has expired.

Madeira

Madeira not only welcomes digital nomads, but also hopes to create a whole community for them.

The archipelago, an autonomous region of Portugal 320 miles from Morocco, is home to an initiative called Digital Nomads Madeira. The pilot program provides for free work space in the village of Ponta do Sol from February 1st to June 30th.

“The work area can accommodate 30 to 40 people per day,” said Micaela Vieira, project manager at Startup Madeira, an organization that works with the local government to develop the program. “So far we have received over 4,800 registrations from [more than] 90 countries. “

Vieira says there are currently more than 250 digital nomads working on the island, either in the free work areas or in cafes and restaurants with free WiFi.

Most of them come from countries in the European Union or the Schengen area due to EU travel restrictions.

Still, it is possible for others to join via “a popular visa used by digital nomads, the D7,” said Vieira, referring to the visa that allows non-EU citizens to get Portuguese residency if they can Earn at least € 7,620 per year passive (not derived from salary) income.

Puerto Rico

Although there is no official program, Puerto Rico is open to American remote workers who do not want to worry about application forms or fees.

As an unincorporated region of the United States, US citizens can enter Puerto Rico freely. According to Discover Puerto Rico, the island’s official destination marketing organization, they don’t need a passport and can even bring their pets.

Americans can work and live in Puerto Rico without a remote worker visa.

Megan Vazquez / EyeEm | EyeEm | Getty Images

American travelers must provide evidence of a negative PCR test result, but Covid testing is not required to return to the United States

The area has several coworking spaces and hotels with packages for remote workers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has rated Puerto Rico as a Level 4 Destination and do not recommend traveling there. To date, the territory of 3 million people has confirmed more than 133,000 Covid cases.

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World News

Why digital artwork and sports activities collectibles are abruptly so fashionable

Why digital art and sports collectibles are suddenly so popular

Russell Westbrook # 0 of the Houston Rockets plays the ball against the Los Angeles Lakers during the first game of the Western Conference SemiFinals of the NBA Playoffs on September 4, 2020 at AdventHealth Arena in Orlando, Florida.

Jesse D. Garrabrant | National Basketball Association | Getty Images

The world of cryptocurrency is full of conversations about digital collectibles, unique virtual tokens that can represent anything from art to sports memorabilia.

People paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for these NFTs or non-fungible tokens. An investor, Sheldon Corey of Montreal, Canada, told CNBC that he paid $ 20,000 for one of thousands of computer-generated avatars called CryptoPunks.

CryptoPunks is not a new phenomenon – it was released in 2017 by developers Larva Labs. However, recently it has been gaining popularity. According to the website NonFungible, the company had sales of $ 45.2 million in the last seven days alone and inspired a broader “crypto-art” movement.

CryptoKitties, one of the original NFTs, had sales of $ 433,454 for the past week, according to NonFungible. The digital cats, developed by a start-up called Dapper Labs, were once so popular that they clogged the digital currency ether network.

NBA Top Shot, a platform developed by Dapper Labs in partnership with the basketball league, had sales of $ 147.8 million in the past seven days, according to NFT data tracker CryptoSlam. This service allows users to buy and sell short clips that show game highlights from top basketball players.

The increasing momentum for these tokens is due to the fact that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have grown significantly in recent months and at a time when people are spending more time indoors due to coronavirus restrictions.

What are NFTs?

NFTs are non-fungible tokens – that is, you can’t swap an NFT for another – that run on a blockchain network, a digital ledger that records all transactions in cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

However, it differs from Bitcoin and other tokens in that each NFT is unique and cannot be replicated. Everyone collects value independently. Crypto investors say NFTs derive their value from how rare they are. They are kept in digital wallets as collectibles. In addition to arts and sports, people have found uses for NFTs in virtual real estate and games.

Nadya Ivanova, chief operating officer at BNP Paribas-affiliated research company L’Atelier, says digital collectibles can be considered a better version of an MP3 file. Musicians are struggling to benefit from their work in the digital age, and Ivanova says some are turning to NFTs to prove ownership of their work and find an additional source of income.

“It allows content creators to actually own the ownership of what they create, which allows them to benefit in different ways from what they cannot do with physical art,” she told CNBC, adding that crypto art the fastest growing subsection is the digital collectibles market.

According to a study by NonFungible and L’Atelier, the total value of NFT deals tripled to $ 250 million last year. The number of digital wallets they were traded on nearly doubled to over 222,179 while some traders were able to make profits in excess of $ 100,000.

“We are seeing a new generation of traders in the NFT market. People who are digitally native and looking for digitally native asset classes outside of the established asset markets,” said Ivanova. “These are people who have amassed reputation and wealth and want to invest it in purely virtual assets like NFTs.”

According to Ivanova, the NFT market has matured. Famed auction house Christie’s auctioned an NFT-based artwork from Beeple, a well-known digital artist who created videos and graphics for celebrities like Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber.

Crypto mania

An NBA top shot video highlight starring LeBron James recently sold for a record $ 208,000. Sales can be volatile, however – NBA Top Shot and CryptoPunk trades have declined in the past 24 hours, according to NFT data tracker CryptoSlam.

The rise in the price of these virtual items has led to fears of a repeat of speculative crypto mania. It reminds some investors of the first coin offering (ICO) in 2017 when several startups issued new digital tokens to raise funds. Hardly any of the ICO projects exist today, and some have even scammed investors out of millions of dollars.

There are some parallels to the ICO frenzy – for example, celebrities like Lindsay Lohan and Mark Cuban recently sold NFTs.

“We had a very similar moment in 2017,” Billy Rennekamp, ​​grant manager of the blockchain research firm Interchain Foundation, told CNBC. “Every gallery thought about an NFT. Every blue chip artist thought about it. But there was just too much risk when the market fell and it was embarrassing to be involved in NFTs when prices fell.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we went through another whole bull and bear market,” added Rennekamp.

Still, the companies behind these tokens don’t believe it’s a fad.

“NFTs are here to stay,” Caty Tedman, director of partnerships at Dapper Labs, who led the NBA Top Shot project, told CNBC. “Flow will be the blockchain that enables mass consumer adoption. The future is now.”

NBA Top Shot now has over 100,000 active collectors and has had sales of $ 215 million to date, Tedman said. It is working on a digital collectible game based on the UFC Mixed Martial Arts League and has also been sponsored by Warner Music to develop NFTs for music fans.

“The billions spent on Fortnite skins show how important our online lives and personas are and how valuable they are to people,” Matt Hall, co-founder of Larva Labs, told CNBC.

“What NFTs offer is a formalization of digital ownership and a way for that ownership to last beyond the life of a business, game or platform.”

Hall said Larva Labs does not take any fees from users of its marketplace – although it does pay blockchain processing fees. “We are CryptoPunk owners like everyone else,” he added. “As the overall market grows, those we own become more valuable.”

The cheapest “punk” available on CryptoPunks is currently worth $ 36,000, Hall said. Larva is working on a successor to CryptoPunk, Hall added, without going into the company’s plans.

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World News

China’s digital yuan must beat Alipay, WeChat Pay first: PIIE

China's digital yuan needs to beat Alipay, WeChat Pay first: PIIE

China’s digital yuan must first dethrone the country’s domestic e-payment giants before it can think about competing against the greenback internationally, says Martin Chorzempa of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“A lot of people talk about (the digital yuan) as a driver of renminbi internationalization,” Chorzempa, senior fellow at PIIE, told CNBC’s Street Signs Asia on Wednesday. “I think they have to beat Alipay and WeChat Pay in China before they can contain the US dollar.”

“It will essentially be the central bank versus the big tech companies, and that will be very interesting to watch,” he said.

“It’s going to be essentially the central bank versus the big tech companies, and that’s going to be pretty interesting to watch.”

Martin Chorzempa

Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics

China’s central bank developed the digital yuan and is expected to work in a similar way to transactions through existing payment apps. The country’s capital, Beijing, recently spent $ 1.5 million on a digital currency test during the New Year celebrations after similar experiments were conducted in Shenzhen and Suzhou.

Photo taken on Feb. 12, 2021 shows a digital red RMB envelope during the Digital Wangfujing Snow and Ice Shopping Festival in Beijing, capital of China.

Costfoto | Barcroft Media via Getty Images

Chorzempa said one of the main reasons behind the push for the digital yuan was the desire for a government-sponsored and controlled alternative to established giants like the Alibaba-affiliated Alipay app and Tencent’s Wechat Pay, which currently process about 95% of digital payments in China.

Unlike most of the other major economies around the world, mobile payments – primarily through the Alipay app and Wechat Pay – have ousted cash as the predominant form of consumer payment in China in recent years.

“(The digital yuan) is something that is truly unprecedented in the major economies,” said Chorzempa. “China is … by far the most advanced in digital currency and it’s exciting to see.”

“Nothing like Bitcoin or Ethereum”

However, Chorzempa said China’s digital yuan has very little to do with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, which are known for their high price volatility.

“I would say that the level of security (the digital yuan) is very high and the risk is low,” he said. “It’s the same value as any regular renminbi, so there shouldn’t be any fluctuations in price to worry about.”

Intermediaries selling the digital currency in China are also likely to be “fairly safe and carefully regulated” as long as they are approved by the government, Chorzempa said.

“I wouldn’t worry about the safety of a digital renminbi in a central bank regulated wallet,” he added.

According to the PIIE researcher, Sweden is expected to be among the first advanced economies after China to adopt a digital currency.

Ever since Facebook first proposed the launch of the Libra cryptocurrency, which has now been renamed Diem, there has been a “great surge of interest” among central banks fearing that a private tech company “might take over their currency,” much like Alipay and WeChat Pay payments dominate in China, he said.

“I assume that the central bank’s digital currencies will continue to expand worldwide,” said Chorzempa.

– CNBC’s Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report.

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Business

The Races Are Digital, and So Are the Advertisements, however the Cash Is Actual

The Races Are Digital, and So Are the Ads, but the Money Is Real

It takes more than gas to get a racing car running.

It takes money. And money needs sponsors. And sponsors need viewers who they hope will become customers. Which became a problem for motorsport when Covid-19 closed tracks around the world early last year. The financial drought brought teams, tracks and racing series from extinction.

The industry turned to an emerging phenomenon – simulated racing. In these extremely realistic video games, cars obey the laws of physics and run on reproductions of real routes that are accurate down to the last lane.

In an experiment, NBC and Fox replaced the canceled races with sim races. Nobody knew if digital cars would attract viewers and pay off for sponsorships. Traditionally, racing cars served as high-speed billboards with consumers asking for the engine oil that proved the winning car superior. Could a sim car sell engine oil that has no engine or oil?

Ten months into the experiment, sim races seem to be paying off as the television and web audiences helped save the 2020 season. And now Sim Racing is giving the teams a new source of income, giving sponsors a more responsible form of marketing, and engaging a young audience that motorsport has had a hard time conquering. Sim Racing will soon be facing the real test: Can it bind fans and sponsors when real cars are back on real tracks and real spectators are in the stands?

Racing video games are not new. In 1977 Atari you could play Indy 500 and Street Racer. In the 1990s, more demanding Formula 1 games – albeit with blocky graphics – flourished. The graphics were further developed in successive generations of game consoles from Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo. At a glance, you may not even notice that the races are being simulated.

Desktops also run highly complex networked games such as iRacing, which has been chosen as the platform for a number of racing organizations including NASCAR, IMSA, IndyCar and the W-Series. Formula 1 chose its own commercial game from Codemasters.

Many professional racing drivers used the games privately for training. Due to the fidelity of the tracks, drivers can at least remember the layout. Some teams use special simulator software to optimize the setup of their actual cars before a race.

Sim Racing builds his driving skills to the point that some players, like William Byron, have created real cars. Mr. Byron, a NASCAR Cup series driver, now owns an eNASCAR team that won $ 100,000 in prize money in the 2020 eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing series.

For years, professional drivers have sneaked into online competitions unannounced. For fans, it’s like joining a pickup basketball game and finding LeBron James on the court.

Automakers see the branding value of games. Chevrolet announced news when its simulated C8.R mid-engined Corvette was added to iRacing’s IMSA range in September. Like manufacturers as diverse as Mazda and McLaren, Chevy licenses its vehicles for dozens of games, including Forza, Project CARS, and Gran Turismo Sport.

Gamers may not be the primary market for a $ 60,000 Corvette, said Kevin Kelly, a Chevrolet spokesman, “but it’s a chance to stay loyal to the brand.”

Sim racing was an afterthought until technology, social media and real racing grew together about three years ago, said Bryan Cook, who was hired by Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR to fans) to handle social media in 2009. He expanded to iRacing four years ago and started a private league where JGR professional drivers competed against “your average Joes,” he said.

A year before the pandemic, iRacing became an official part of the JGR marketing program, offering sponsors a younger audience and social media data for a fee.

“You get to the point where the drivers have to be paid,” said Mr. Cook. “There are equipment needs. We said we really have to cover our costs here. “

Sims had their big break on March 22nd, when both eNASCAR and virtual Formula 1 races were shown on television instead of canceled races. The eNASCAR race drew 910,000 spectators, less than the three million typical for NASCAR, but more than the 400,000 typical for a virtual race.

“We realized this could be a real replacement for these NASCAR races,” said Brad Zager, Fox Sports’ production and operations manager.

The first F1 replacement race, the Virtual Bahrain Grand Prix, drew a total of four million viewers on digital and television, less than the 34 million average for an actual race but ahead of the 1.8 million average for pro-digital Run.

Last year “F1 Esports offered a new level of awareness for F1 Esports”, said Julian Tan, head of the department for digital business initiatives and esports at Formula 1. “We have digital record numbers of engagement in Austria and even in our esports Content seen Our official virtual championship last winter had record numbers. “

Broadcast TV is validated, but only part of Sim Racing’s reach. Livestreams could reach 400,000 viewers via YouTube, Facebook and Twitch, said Anthony Gardner, president of iRacing.com Motorsport Simulations. The social interactions – tweets, likes, comments – during the races are more valuable.

“The social media contacts are millions of times in a race,” said Gardner. These interactions provide customer data and the ability to speak directly to consumers.

Suddenly the sim racing audience was big enough to deserve attention but too new for marketers to capitalize on. Sponsors took different approaches, but all targeted an elusive new audience. NASCAR’s fan base has declined with age since 2005. Sim Racing attracts a younger and more racially diverse audience – attractive to sponsors and leagues.

“It’s really hard to reach this 18- to 35-year-old,” said Patrick Daugherty, who manages Valvoline sponsorships. “Gaming over-indices with young DIY enthusiasts.”

The company signed with Parker Kligerman, a celebrity racing driver and eNASCAR driver, before Covid-19 hit. “The audience and engagement exceeded our expectations,” said Daugherty. “We were really lucky and will renew ourselves with these guys in 2021.”

Despite being NASCAR’s official grill, Pit Boss Grills couldn’t afford to sponsor a front-line racer that is said to cost up to $ 35 million. That has changed with eNASCAR.

“This gave us the opportunity to become a major sponsor,” said Carlos Padilla, Director of Brand Partnerships. “It made it possible for us to be on a live broadcast about a car, if you want to call it that, at a price that is feasible for a company of our size.”

It cost four numbers per race to be seen by a million TV viewers – a bargain.

Discouraging iRacing seems like a circuit’s best interests, but Richmond Raceway first sponsored a team about three years ago. It built a simulator in a disused racing car for fans to try out. This innovation prompted Daytona International Speedway to borrow the car.

Not only has this raised Richmond’s profile, but sponsors’ money has also turned it into a five-figure profit.

“Marketing was the original goal,” said Brent S. Gambill, a spokesman who previously worked for the route and now for NASCAR’s mid-Atlantic region. “When it started, we spent money to be part of something. In the second year we made money. “

The online audience gives sponsors a chance to measure responses to certain offers, taglines, and prices in ways that television doesn’t.

However, a tsunami of data is not always helpful. “It would be fantastic for us if we could say that a million people watched last week and bought 200,000 cars this week. I don’t know if we’ll ever make it, ”said Paul Doleshal, general manager, Motorsports and Assets for Toyota Motors North America. “We’re drowning in information now.”

That makes it difficult to compare Sim Racing’s sales performance with Real Racing’s. But it can be a contentious question for a couple of reasons.

On the one hand, the two worlds are intertwined – the performance on the virtual track can have real effects.

When Darrell Wallace Jr., known as Bubba, finished a virtual race in frustration in April, sponsor Blue-Emu dropped him and tweeted in part: “Bye bye Bubba. We care about drivers, not slackers. “Kyle Larson, a driver, made a racial mistake during a sim race, lost sponsors, and was banned from NASCAR and iRacing. He will return to NASCAR in October.

The second reason is that while winning helps, it is not the only reason a fan will buy a car product.

“It’s not just about the literal oil,” said Eric Schwartz, a professor of marketing at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. “It’s about being a trustworthy brand that understands this world of racing.”

After all, Sim’s simplest brand attraction is that it delivers viewers. “This is a way to get eyeballs for the brand to keep track of,” Schwartz said. “If Valvoline doesn’t sponsor a team, the competitor will.”

It will take time to know if sim race fans are turning into real racing enthusiasts and vice versa, but Fox has five sim races planned for its FS1 network this year.

“You have so many options with iRacing,” said Fox’s Zager, envisioning a field race one week and Daytona the next. “ESports became a very big buzzword when the pandemic hit,” he added. “But iRacing just went to the front of the field and no one caught up.”

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Entertainment

Baryshnikov Arts Pronounces Digital Season

Baryshnikov Arts Announces Digital Season

The upcoming digital season at the Baryshnikov Arts Center will premiere seven video works commissioned by the organization in September from artists including Kyle Marshall, Bijayini Satpathy and Justin Hicks. Debuts begin on February 1st with the release of Satpathy’s “Vibhanga”, a piece based on Indian classical dance forms, and end in late June with Marshall’s “STELLAR”, a choreographed result of improvisational sessions he will perform at Zoom This Spring. Each video can be streamed on demand for free for two weeks on bacnyc.org.

“It’s a huge experiment for us, but why not?” Mikhail Baryshnikov, the center’s founder and artistic director, said in an email. “When has there ever been a better time to get creative and rethink our work?”

Baryshnikov said he was intrigued by the dynamics of art exchange over the internet. “The work presented on a digital platform is kind of a massive blind date,” he said. “With such a global reach, the possibilities that someone can make a real connection with what they see are limitless.”

Dance-based work makes up most of the slate: Mariana Valencia’s solo brownout will be available March 1-15, and Stefanie Batten Bland’s collaboration with installation artist Conrad Quesen, “Colonial”, will follow in May.

However, several other interdisciplinary projects are also offered. Hicks’ “Use Your Head for More” combines found sound and spoken text to create a series of portraits (February 15 through March 1). Holland Andrews’ “Museum of Calm” includes vocal music, meditation and performance art (March 15-29); and Tei Blow’s digital installation “The Sprezzaturameron” uses video game technology to tell the story of artists in an apocalyptic near future (May 17-31).

Baryshnikov Arts will continue to share performances from its archive throughout the spring. Planned highlights are the New York premiere of Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s dance duet “Verklierter Nacht” from 2019 (April 8-15) and a concert performance by the Tesla Quartet and soprano Alexandra Smither (April 15-22) in 2018.

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Business

Academics on TV? Faculties Strive Artistic Technique to Slim Digital Divide

Teachers on TV? Schools Try Creative Strategy to Narrow Digital Divide

The concept quickly spread to Fox stations in Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, all of which partnered with local school districts or teacher unions to get teachers on television. (The initiative ended in Houston and Washington after the spring, but it still airs every weekday in San Francisco and Saturdays in Chicago.)

In Houston, an average of 37,000 people watched the show every time it aired in the spring, and about 2,200 people watched the San Francisco version every day this fall, the television network said. We Still Teach, the Chicago version of the program that began in May, reaches 50,000 households in the region every weekend, according to Nielsen.

“We’re not solving the digital divide, but based on my experience of personal connection getting into a viewer’s kitchen or living room, I thought this could be an immediate way to fill that gap,” Ms. Spaulding Chevalier. “We’ll let you know you haven’t been forgotten.”

The educational gap between families who can afford laptops and strong Wi-Fi signals and those who cannot has been well documented and often affects rural areas and color communities. In 2018, 15 to 16 million students did not have adequate equipment or reliable internet connections at home. This comes from a report by Common Sense Media, a child advocacy and media rating group that receives royalties from Internet service providers who distribute their content.

The gap between owners and non-owners has been exacerbated by school closings. As recently as October, at least thousands of students in the United States were unable to enter remote classrooms because they did not have access to a laptop. According to Nielsen, 96 percent of Americans have a working television.

Ms. Spaulding Chevalier’s sister Tamika Spaulding, who is producing the Chicago version of the program with her friend Katherine O’Brien, said they acted urgently.

“There are many plans to close the digital divide, but there are four-year rollout plans,” said Ms. Spaulding. “So what are you doing today for the student who is not getting any educational content?”