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Technology

Amazon’s Greatest Gadget Hits in the Bezos Era: Kindle, Echo, and More

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This isn’t hardware, per se, but Alexa has proven to be one of Amazon’s biggest moves in the consumer product space. And the now-ubiquitous voice assistant debuted inside the first Echo speaker. It came along a full five years after Siri, but on arrival Alexa was markedly more useful and fun than Apple’s own voice assistant because it could reach much further into the internet’s knowledge banks.

The first Echo speaker is also the device that made Alexa a household name and brought conversational computing to the masses. Ask a question, get a response? It seemed novel at the time, but it also clearly pointed to the future. And it became the future quite rapidly after Amazon began pumping out dozens of Echo variants and licensing the voice tech in ways that allowed other hardware manufacturers to put Alexa into their own speakers … and alarm clocks, light bulbs, shower heads, microwaves, headphones, and smart watches. Sure, Alexa’s limitations as a conversation partner make it feel gimmicky even today, but the types of computing interactions Alexa popularized now seem completely normal. We just talk to our computers these days! No biggie.

2017: Echo Look

In April 2017, Amazon revealed what was perhaps its most bizarre gadget at that time: the Echo Look, a phallic smart camera with a four-microphone array that would snap hands-free photos of your outfits and tell you what to wear. This is not a joke. The camera was available only by invitation, though one of WIRED’s writers managed to buy one off eBay and review it for another publication at the time.

Ultimately, the Echo Look gave us a glimpse at our computer-vision futures. It used machine learning to make recommendations, like so many consumer products do these days, but it also got a lot of those “personalized” suggestions wrong and alarmed privacy advocates. In the spring of 2020, Amazon said it would discontinue the Echo Look and the camera would no longer function starting July 2020.

2017–2020: Echo … Everything

Here we break from our regular chronology. On a sunny Seattle morning in late September 2017, the tech press gathered at Amazon’s headquarters for … well, we didn’t know what to expect. Amazon, it turns out, had decided to join its tech brethren in hosting an official hardware launch. That day, and again in subsequent years, Amazon vomited up an uncountable number of new products (both hardware and software).

We’ve attempted to list a few key products here: Echo Plus; a shorter, fatter Echo; Echo Spot; Echo Buttons; Echo Connect; a Big Mouth Billy Bass with Alexa (again, this is not a joke); Echo Auto; Echo Sub; Echo Wall Clock; Amazon Basics Microwave (more on Amazon’s kitchen appliances below); Echo Link; Fire TV Recast; Ring Stick-Up Cam; Echo Dot Kids; new Eero routers; Ring Car Alarm, Car Cam, and Car Connect; a spherical Echo; and a cloud gaming service called Luna. Did we forget anything? Just kidding. We definitely did.

2017: Echo Show

One of the products that arrived on that September day in 2017 was the first Echo Show. It was a “smart display,” essentially a small tablet-like screen with speakers for playing music, a microphone for capturing your Alexa commands, and a camera for … wait, what was the camera for? For use with a new Alexa-based communication platform, which let people send audio, video, and texts to anyone with an Alexa device or the Alexa app on their phones.

That chat service didn’t really take off, and all the camera did was skeeze people out. The Echo Show did succeed in showing how much more useful Alexa could be when it was built into a dedicated touchscreen. Smart displays became a hit. Google made its own version that worked with its Google Assistant, and both companies licensed the tech to other hardware makers who helped these countertop devices proliferate. Thankfully, there are plenty of options out there today that come with camera shutoff switches.

2018: Ring

Photograph: Amazon

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Science

NASA hits pause on its Artemis moon lander competition

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NASA announced Jan. 27, 2021 that it would delay choosing which companies will move forward with its lunar lander competition.  (Image credit: NASA)

NASA has put its plan to choose which companies will continue to develop lunar landers for the Artemis moon program on hold.

The agency quietly announced the delay, first reported by the Verge, in a Jan. 27 notice to the three commercial teams participating in the Human Landing System (HLS) program. SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics are developing lunar landers for the agency’s Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the moon’s surface by 2024. In the new notice, NASA revealed that “a no-cost extension to each of their base period contracts will be required.” 

NASA awarded the three contracts last year and initially planned to pick two companies to continue on in the competition by Feb. 28. The extension gives the agency until April 30 to make that decision. 

Related: NASA unveils plan for Artemis ‘base camp’ on the moon beyond 2024

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The three contracts totaled $967 million in development funds, SpaceX was awarded $135 million and aims to use its Starship reusable vehicle as its lunar lander; Blue Origin was awarded $579 million and is beefing up its Blue Moon lander for humans with a “National Team” made up of Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper; and Dynetics, which is partnering with Sierra Nevada Corp, snagged the last contract, worth $253 million, to develop a new, two-stage vehicle.

The extension does not grant any of the companies extra funding. With this extension, NASA will have additional time to choose what companies might receive awards for developing the landers. 

“This extension is an administrative change and allows the three selected U.S. companies to continue HLS design and development activities as set forth in the firms’ base period contracts, awarded in May 2020,” NASA stated. 

This move was expected, according to the Verge, as congressional funding for NASA’s Artemis program fell short of requests and as President Joe Biden takes over the executive branch. “NASA’s fiscal year 2021 budget request sought $3.3 billion for the program, but the final omnibus appropriations bill enacted in December provided $850 million,” SpaceNews wrote about the Artemis funding shortage being the main reason behind the decision to postpone this next phase in narrowing down the lander contracts

Now, while $850 million is far less than the $3.3 billion NASA hoped for to stay on track with their ambitious aim to land humans on the moon by 2024, the agency is still “shooting for the 2024 timeframe,” Kathy Lueders, the NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations, said at a Jan. 14 NASA Advisory Council meeting, according to Space News. 

The Biden administration has not yet commented on its plans for the agency or whether it will adhere to the 2024 lunar deadline set by former President Donald Trump’s administration, however, the Democratic Party’s platform referenced returning humans to the moon, according to SpaceNews. 

Email Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@space.com or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Business

Someone in N.J. hits $33.2 million Powerball jackpot

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UPDATE: Winning ticket sold at N.J. convenience store in Morris County

—

Someone who bought Powerball ticket in New Jersey won Saturday’s night’s $33.2 million lottery jackpot.

New Jersey Lottery officials have not yet disclosed the retailer that sold the lucky ticket, which has a cash option of $24,831,027.77, according to Powerball officials.

Saturday’s winning numbers were: 1, 2, 7, 52 and 61. The Powerball drawn was 4 with a Power Play of 3X.

The drawing marked the second consecutive Saturday that a jackpot-winning ticket for the twice-weekly national drawing was sold in New Jersey. A $23.2 million ticket was bought at a Clifton convenience store for the Jan. 23 drawing.

In addition to the jackpot-winning ticket sold in New Jersey for Saturday’s drawing, four-second prize tickets matching five numbers but not the Powerball were sold across the country, officials said. Tickets bought in Delaware and Mississippi and worth $2 million because they were bought with the Power Play option for an extra $1. Tickets valued at $1 million apiece were purchased in Arkansas and Pennsylvania.

Wednesday’s jackpot resets to an estimated $20 million with a cash option of $15 million.

The odds of hitting the Powerball jackpot are 292,201,388 to 1. A player who buys a $2 ticket has about a 1 in 11,688,053 chance to match five numbers and win at least $1 million, while the odds are 913,129 to 1 of winning the third prize of at least $50,000.

Powerball is played on Wednesday and Saturday in 45 states, Washington D.C., the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JGoldmanNJ.

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Entertainment

‘I was appalled to be tarred as misogynist’: Variety critic hits back at Carey Mulligan’s sexism accusations | Film criticism

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Dennis Harvey, the veteran film critic whose review of Promising Young Woman has sparked a furore across the industry, has hit back at accusations of misogyny amid calls for Variety to fire him.

Harvey’s review was published more than a year ago, following the film’s premiere at the Sundance film festival. Largely positive, it called Mulligan’s performance “skilful, entertaining and challenging” while also querying the central casting. While “a fine actress”, wrote Harvey, Mulligan “seems a bit of an odd choice as this admittedly many-layered apparent femme fatale”.

Discussing the character’s deliberate artifice in more depth, Harvey noted that “Margot Robbie is a producer here, and one can (perhaps too easily) imagine the role might once have been intended for her. Whereas with this star, Cassie wears her pickup-bait gear like bad drag; even her long blonde hair seems a put-on.”

Mulligan objected to the review, telling the New York Times in December: “I felt like it was basically saying that I wasn’t hot enough to pull off this kind of ruse.

“It drove me so crazy … I was like, ‘Really? For this film, you’re going to write something that is so transparent? Now? In 2020?’ I just couldn’t believe it.”

Variety responded by adding an editor’s note at the top of Harvey’s review, apologising for “insensitive language” but leaving his words intact.

Mulligan reiterated her discomfort at the review earlier this week in a video interview hosted by Variety, prompting renewed abuse of the critic on social media.

Speaking to the Guardian, Harvey said he was ill at ease with the way in which Mulligan’s words to the New York Times describing her anger at the review had become received wisdom as to what his review actually said. “I did not say or even mean to imply Mulligan is ‘not hot enough’ for the role,” Harvey said.

“I’m a 60-year-old gay man. I don’t actually go around dwelling on the comparative hotnesses of young actresses, let alone writing about that.”

Harvey added that he had been “appalled to be tarred as misogynist, which is something very alien to my personal beliefs or politics. This whole thing could not be more horrifying to me than if someone had claimed I was a gung-ho Trump supporter.”

Harvey said he avoided the social media discourse triggered by the fallout on the advice of friends who said nobody commenting appeared to have read the review and that some people had said “I must be advocating rape, was probably a predator like the men in the film”.

“What I was attempting to write about was the emphasis in the film and [Mulligan’s] performance on disguise, role-playing and deliberate narrative misdirection. Nor was bringing up Margot Robbie meant to be any comparison in ‘personal appearance’.

“Robbie is a producer on the film, and I mentioned her just to underline how casting contributes to the film’s subversive content – a star associated with a character like Harley Quinn [Robbie’s Suicide Squad character] might raise very specific expectations, but Mulligan is a chameleon and her very stylised performance keeps the viewer uncertain where the story is heading.”

Photograph: Supplied by LMK

Harvey conceded he may not have expressed such a sentiment specifically enough in his review, but said that he was driven by a desire to withhold the plot’s twists and turns from the audience.

“I assumed that film-makers who created such a complex, layered movie wouldn’t interpret what I wrote as some kind of simpleminded sexism. And while Carey Mulligan is certainly entitled to interpret the review however she likes, her projection of it suggesting she’s ‘not hot enough’ is, to me, just bizarre. I’m sorry she feels that way. But I’m also sorry that’s a conclusion she would jump to, because it’s quite a leap.”

Mulligan’s publicists have not yet responded to the Guardian’s request for comment.

Harvey also highlighted the discrepancy between the reaction of the film’s star and its US distributor, who “immediately asked permission to use multiple pullquotes from the review in their marketing a year ago”.

He also queried the timing of the controversy, noting that his review had apparently been found unobjectionable enough to escape complaint for 11 months, “until the film was finally being released, promoted and Oscar-campaigned”. Only then was his review “belatedly labelled ‘insensitive’ and flagged with an official ‘apology’”.

Variety’s editors had not raised any concerns with the review when he first filed it, said Harvey, nor in subsequent months until the New York Times article.

His professional fate remains uncertain. “It’s left in question whether after 30 years of writing for Variety I will now be sacked because of review content no one found offensive until it became fodder for a viral trend piece.”

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Technology

Verizon FiOS Cable Cut, Internet Outage Hits East Coast

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Photo: Scott Olson (Getty Images)

A strange outage is impacting internet users in the Northeast U.S. It’s not entirely clear what is going on, but it sure is annoying.

Around noon on Tuesday, outage reports began pouring in, according to DownDetector, which tracks online service outages. But it’s not limited to one company; users reported issues with Comcast, Google, Zoom, YouTube, Slack, Amazon Web Services, and many others. (AWS’s own status page indicates that its services are operating normally, for what it’s worth.)

While the cause (or causes) remains unconfirmed, a cut Verizon fiber optic cable in Brooklyn, New York, may be the culprit. Verizon’s customer support confirmed on Twitter that one of its cables had been severed, and customers said they received notice of the outage via email.

Not all services, nor all users, appeared to be affected equally. Even among the New York-based Gizmodo staff, the problem seems just… weird. One editor could access Slack fine, but Google services were down. Others experienced slower response times while still being able to access all services they attempted to use.

At the time of writing, several services, including Google and Zoom, appear to be coming back online. Others remain inaccessible for some users.

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A Verizon spokesperson said in an email that they are looking into the issue.

An AWS spokesperson said the issue was related to an internet service provider and not AWS itself. In an email, a Google spokesperson echoed AWS, saying in a statement, “We are aware of reports regarding issues affecting access to some Google products, but have not found issues with our services. We’re continuing to investigate.”

We’ve also reached out to Comcast for clarity on the outage and will update when we hear back. If the outage is impacting you, let us know what you’re seeing in the comments.

Update 1:25 PM ET, Jan. 26: AWS confirmed that issues customers experienced were related to an internet service provider, not AWS. Google said it’s investigating the issue but has found no problems with its services.



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Sports

Quick Hits: MASN, – MLB Trade Rumors

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By TC Zencka | at

Justin Turner has four options on the table that would place him on a contender, with the Dodgers and Blue Jays two of the four, per MLB Insider Jon Heyman (via Twitter). Still, Heyman notes, the Dodgers are confident they will be able to bring Turner back to Chavez Ravine. The hold-up continues to be the length of the deal, as Los Angeles targets a two-year pact, while the 36-year-old seeks four years. Speculatively speaking, looking for other potential landing spots leads naturally to the NL East, where any of the Braves, Nationals, Mets, or Marlins could theoretically find room for Turner. Elsewhere…

  • The Nationals responded today with a statement to recent cuts made by the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network. The Nats’ years-long headache over MASN – the local sports network co-owned by the Nationals and Orioles, but controlled by the Orioles – took another turn this week as on-air personalities Dan Kolko, Bo Porter, and Alex Chappell were let go without prior notice being given to the Nats, per Ben Strauss and Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post. In the Nationals’ statement, provided by the Athletic’s Britt Ghiroli (via Twitter), they wrote, “…To say that we are incredibly disappointed and upset by MASN’s decisions would be a gross understatement. To be clear – these decisions were made by MASN and against our wishes…” Porter, of course, was a coach with the Nationals from 2011 to 2012 and later managed the Astros for the 2013 and 2014 seasons. He has teamed with Kolko on pre- and postgame shows since 2019, during which time Chappell has served as a dugout reporter.
  • Omar Minaya will accept an ambassadorship with the Mets to be a public presence for the organization, per Mike Puma of the New York Post (via Twitter). Minaya’s relationship with the Mets dates back to childhood, but his professional career began drawing notice during his time as an assistant general manager from 1998 to 2001. He became the Mets’ general manager from 2004 until 2010, when he was succeeded by Sandy Alderson. After four years with the Padres and some time working for the MLBPA, Minaya returned to serve as one of Alderson’s lieutenants in 2017. He stayed on with the team through the Brodie Van Wagenen era, but he was let go as part of the housecleaning under the new ownership of Steve Cohen. Minaya now returns for his fourth stint with the team. It does not sound as if Minaya will have any impact on baseball operations.

 

Baltimore Orioles Bo Porter Justin Turner Los Angeles Dodgers New York Mets Notes Omar Minaya Toronto Blue Jays Washington Nationals

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Health

N.J. reports 4,613 more confirmed COVID cases and 17 deaths as models predict state hits its 2nd wave peak

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New Jersey health officials on Sunday reported another 4,613 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 17 additional deaths as predictive models from the state suggest we’ve hit the peak of the second wave of the pandemic.

Gov. Phil Murphy announced the latest figures on social media.

They came the same day new predictive models from the state Department of Health showed Sunday could be the peak of the state’s second wave of the pandemic.

The scenarios show there could be 5,467 new cases and 3,796 people hospitalized as of Sunday under a moderate prediction (there were 3,186 people hospitalized as of Saturday). But as many as 6,833 new positive tests and 4,745 hospitalizations could also play out on the same day under the worst-case scenario.

The moderate model shows a steeper decline in cases and hospitalizations over the coming months with the potential for around 500 new cases a day and about 375 people being treated in hospitals by the end of June.

Under the worst-case modeling scenario, however, the decline in cases and hospitalizations would be much slower. That model forecasts the state could still have 4,706 daily cases and 3,268 patients hospitalized by the end of June. Both forecasts predict a bump in cases and hospitalizations in the coming days.

Much could depend on how quickly New Jersey receives and distributes vaccine doses.

Murphy has said he wants to have 70% of the state’s eligible population — nearly 5 million people — vaccinated by May.

Health officials, meanwhile, announced Friday the first two cases of the highly-contagious COVID-19 variant first identified in the U.K. have been discovered in the Garden State.

Scientists have said the mutation is up to 70% more contagious. But there is no evidence yet it is more deadly or more resistant to vaccines. New Jersey joins at least 20 states where the strain has been confirmed. The first case identified is from an Ocean County man in his 60s and the other is a child who was traveling to northern New Jersey.

NJ Residents Deaths by Month and Year 2015-2020

The pandemic has killed at least 20,951 people in the state since the first COVID-19 death in March.

Deaths from the coronavirus in New Jersey surpassed what is typically recorded for heart disease and cancer, the two leading killers year after year. On Dec. 31, the state’s official coronavirus toll reached 19,042 confirmed and probable deaths in a pandemic that devastated during the spring, then exploded again in the fall and winter in a second wave that is still roiling.

That exceeded the usual annual deaths produced by cancer, which killed nearly 16,200 people a year from 2014 to 2019, according to Department of Health data. It also exceeded that of heart disease, which claimed more than 18,650 lives on average over those six years.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

VACCINATIONS

The number of vaccine doses administered has pushed past 500,000, according to the state’s dashboard tracking vaccinations, which showed 524,865 as of Sunday afternoon. Of those, 459,635 were the first of two doses people will receive.

New Jersey has received 989,900 doses from the federal government, according to a running tally from the CDC.

The state hit a high of 31,859 doses administered in a single day Jan. 20, based on the most current data.

All six of the coronavirus vaccine mega-sites have opened throughout New Jersey to serve as vaccination hubs.

New Jersey has faced criticism for having a slower rollout than dozens of other states as it continues to deal with a second wave of the pandemic, according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The state has been doling out doses in phases. And even though officials last week greatly expanded vaccine eligibility, demand remains greater than supply, and residents are scrambling for scarce appointments. More than 4 million New Jersey residents are now eligible.

Officials stress that the state is depending on the federal government for its supply and is receiving only 100,000 doses a week, though New Jersey has the capacity for 470,000 a day.

Murphy on Saturday said the federal government has not provided additional doses that were promised.

HOSPITALIZATIONS

The 3,186 patients hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases across New Jersey’s hospitals as of Saturday night included 590 in critical or intensive care (18 fewer than the previous night), with 376 on ventilators (53 fewer).

There were 74 fewer people hospitalized Saturday compared to the previous night.

There were also 397 COVID-19 patients discharged Saturday, according to the state’s COVID-19 dashboard.

The governor has said any hospitalizations over 5,000 patients would likely trigger new rounds of restrictions. But the number of people being hospitalized has mostly ticked down slowly in recent days after hitting a more than seven-month high of 3,873 people on Dec. 22.

SCHOOL CASES

At least 597 students and staff in 121 school districts in New Jersey have caught COVID-19 through in-school outbreaks, according to the latest update from state health officials.

That’s an increase of 10 districts and 40 cases from the previous weekly report. There are now confirmed in-school outbreaks in all 21 counties, though the state does not identify the individual school districts.

Bergen County has the most outbreaks (26) and cases (115). The county also has the most confirmed cases overall with 55,349 as of Wednesday.

Those numbers do not include students or staff believed to have been infected outside school or cases that can’t be confirmed as in-school outbreaks. Though the numbers keep rising every week, Murphy has said the school outbreak statistics remain below what state officials were expecting when schools reopened for in-person classes.

New Jersey defines school outbreaks as cases where contact tracers determined two or more students or school staff caught or transmitted COVID-19 in the classroom or during academic activities at school.

AGE BREAKDOWN

Broken down by age, those 30 to 49 years old make up the largest percentage of New Jersey residents who have caught the virus (31.2%), followed by those 50-64 (23.7%), 18-29 (19.3%), 65-79 (11.1%), 5-17 (7.5%), 80 and older (5.4%), and 0-4 (1.6%).

On average, the virus has been more deadly for older residents, especially those with preexisting conditions. Nearly half the state’s COVID-19 deaths have been among residents 80 and older (47%), followed by those 65-79 (33%), 50-64 (15.6%), 30-49 (4%), 18-29 (0.4%), 5-17 (0%), and 0-4 (0%).

At least 7,668 of the state’s COVID-19 deaths have been among residents and staff members at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. That number has been rising again at a steeper rate in recent months, with deaths at the state’s nursing homes nearly tripling in December.

There are currently active outbreaks at 431 facilities, resulting in 7,054 active cases among residents and 7,619 among staffers.

GLOBAL NUMBERS

As of Sunday morning, there were more than 98.86 million positive COVID-19 tests across the world, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University. More than 2.12 million people have died from coronavirus-related complications.

The U.S. has reported the most cases, at more than 25 million, and the most deaths, at more than 417,500.

NJ Advance Media Staff Writer Riley Yates contributed to this report.

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Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com.



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Business

GameStop stock hits record high when short sellers clash with Redditors

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GameStop’s stock price, which had dropped steadily over the previous five years before beginning a climb last fall, closed at an all-time high on Friday following a tremendously volatile week in which Reddit-organized day traders made a lot of trouble for investment firms short-selling the stock.

Trading of GameStop stock on the New York Stock Exchange was halted twice Friday, but not before the price peaked at $73.09. It closed at $65.01, beating the previous record of $63.30 set on Dec. 24, 2007. GameStop closed on Thursday at $43.03, and when the surge began last week, it was around $20 a share.

What’s going on? Well, at the beginning of September, the stock started rallying out of the $5 doldrums where it had been for a little over a year. That’s because dog food tycoon Ryan Cohen (the founder of Chewy, which he sold for $3.35 billion in 2017) had just purchased a 10% stake in the beleaguered video game retailer. He and two allies have since joined GameStop’s board of directors, and those positions could help Cohen act on his tough talk about where GameStop’s priorities should be. Cohen says the Texas-based company needs to give up its continued brick-and-mortar retail focus altogether and move to “a technology-driven vision.”

What’s behind the eye-popping stock price surge this week, reports Ars Technica, is “a massive short squeeze bubble.” In the investing practice known as short selling, a party borrows shares of a stock and immediately sells them at the current market price; when the price later drops (as a short seller is betting it will), the short seller buys back the same number of shares to return them to the lender — and makes money by having to pay back less than what the shares were worth at the time of borrowing.

In this case, GameStop’s stock price is rising, forcing these short sellers to buy more shares at a higher price to cover their positions. That has put GameStop’s stock price in an upward spiral, one that analysts like Wedbush Securities’ Michael Pachter think will quickly come to an end.

“The smart money already got in and probably got out,” Pachter told Ars.

The smart money got in more than a year ago, reports Motherboard. Some of it came in from investors on the subreddit WallStreetBets, a community that styles itself as “Like 4Chan found a Bloomberg Terminal.” A Redditor there posted screenshots from 2019 of a $50,000 purchase of GameStop shares, when the stock price was below $1.

That’s because WallStreetBets (and others) reasoned that if they bought in to GameStop, short sellers would eventually have to cover their positions together, driving the price way up. “There is likely not an original GameStop-issued share left on the market,” noted one Redditor. In other words, GameStop has issued more shares than are actually available to buy. Higher demand plus scarce supply equals a higher price, of course, and short sellers buying up stock to cover their debts — along with, of course, interest from new investors looking to short the stock — is what’s driving the demand.

Citron Research is one of those short sellers, and on Friday the firm said it was no longer commenting on GameStop’s stock because “an angry mob” had made it a dangerously volatile stock, Bloomberg reported. Citron also alleges that these miscreants had tried to hack the company’s Twitter account, after the company criticized the stock on Tuesday and then made plans for a livestream on social media to discuss that.

GameStop’s closing price on Friday gave it a market capitalization of $4.5 billion, almost 20 times higher than what the company was worth as of late July. But none of this means GameStop has actually recovered or saved itself as a business. Indeed, its last quarterly earnings report, in December, showed revenues still declining and losses per share increasing over the same figures a year before.

In the past two years, the company has closed more than 750 stores out of the 5,700 locations it had as of 2019. The same year, the company got rid of top executives and fired more than 100 corporate staffers, in a round of layoffs that also gutted the staff of GameStop-owned Game Informer magazine.



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Entertainment

Jennifer Lopez hits the gym in Miami with a new souvenir after Biden inauguration performance

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Jennifer Lopez heads straight back to the gym in Miami after performing at Biden’s inauguration… and shows off a sparkly souvenir from the event

By Sarah Abraham For Dailymail.com

Published: | Updated:

Jennifer Lopez had the distinct honor of performing at President Joe Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday in Washington D.C.

On Thursday the 51-year-old megastar wasted no time to get back to her usual routine as she was seen hitting up the gym in Miami. 

A new souvenir in hand to commemorate the monumental day in America, Lopez was seen walking with a rhinestone tumbler that read #Inauguration2021 as she flashed her enviable curves. 

Back to the grind: Jennifer Lopez, 51, hits the gym in Miami with a sparkly new souvenir after stellar performance at Biden’s inauguration where she stunned in Chanel 

A 360 from yesterday’s pristine white Chanel getup, Lopez sported black leggings and a white long sleeve shirt with a white sports bra underneath. 

Ditching the glam for a more casual look, she tossed her hair up in a messy top knot and flexed a fresh pair of black sneakers. 

Oversized sunglasses and a sparkly face mask, she added a touch of glitz to match her new go-to hydrating cup. 

Patriotic performance: The megastar performed a medley of songs in DC on Wednesday, tossing in a line from her 2000 song Let’s Get Loud in addition to some more patriotic tunes

Lopez performed a medley of songs in D.C. as she belted, This Land Is Your Land and America the Beautiful, before casually tossing in a line from her 2000 hit song Let’s Get Loud. 

An emotional JLo took the stage at the Capitol for her take on the patriotic ballads, even reciting the last line of America the Beautiful in Spanish, before surprising the crowd with the nod to her own song.  

Twitter was quick to light up about the decision to slip it into the medley as it became one of the most talked about parts of the inauguration on social media next to the viral Bernie Sanders meme trend.   

A diehard supporter of the Biden campaign alongside fiance Alex Rodriguez, the pair spoke with the now President about the importance of the Latino vote during an Instagram live in October. 

Longtime supporter: JLo and A-Rod threw their support behind Biden from an early point, even chatting with the now President and wife Dr. Jill Biden on an Instagram live in October to discuss the Latino vote 

Blinged out: Seen on most gym occasions with a jeweled tumbler that has her initials, Lopez has now upgraded to one with a Presidential seal of approval 

After President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were sworn in to office, Lopez was seen having many-a ‘swoon’ moments as she walked by them prior to her performance.

In addition to Lopez, other performers included Lady Gaga, Garth Brooks and 22-year-old poet Amanda Gorman who led the daytime festivities. 

 On Thursday a still shaken JLo posted a montage of footage from the inauguration set to parts of her medley as she wrote, ‘Unity is the path forward.’

Making her voice heard: For her medley of songs she stunned in  head to toe white Chanel, topping the look off with a white beret and soft billowy curls 

Emotional: Walking to perform JLo was seen getting a bit choked up as she walked past President Biden and Vice President Harris 

Rodriguez gushed that he was ‘so proud of Jen’ as the power couple posed for some incredible shots on the steps of the Capitol. 

Once night fell on inauguration, Katy Perry, John Legend, Foo Fighters and Demi Lovato – to name a few – put on stellar performances as part of the Celebrating America special. 

On Tuesday evening, Jennifer was seen posing with members of the military stationed around DC for a selfie as she wrote:

 ‘What an honor to spend a few moments with these brave men and women. Thank you for your service and sacrifice. I honor you today and everyday.’ 

Making history: Taking pause for a photo op on such a monumental day, she posed in Rodriguez’s arms ahead of her performance as she savored the incredible moment

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