2B z MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2019 z USA TODAY MONEY
The Black News Channel, an original
24/7 news offering to serve African
American viewers, will flip the switch in
the new year.
BNC, which had planned to launch
Nov. 15, pushed back its premiere to take
advantage of fast-moving digital deliv-
ery platforms, the network announced
Wednesday. Those carriers include
wireless cellular services and streaming
video services that offer live linear pro-
gramming.
Being on smartphones will make it
easier to attract millennials, 98% of
whom have cellphones, which are the
primary news device for more than two-
thirds of them, said J.C. Watts, co-foun-
der and BNC chairman. “Those devices
on a day-by-day basis become more
critically important,” he said.
The network expects to reach agree-
ments that would more than triple its
audience size, beyond its originally esti-
mated 33 million cable TV and satellite
households in top African American TV
markets, including New York, Los Ange-
les and Atlanta. Already secured: car-
riage deals from Comcast, Charter and
Dish Network.
“Jan. 6 will give us a chance to be on
more devices, and we think that makes
sense for us in terms of serving our de-
mographic,” Watts told USA TODAY.
Watts, a former Republican U.S. con-
gressman from Oklahoma who was a
CNN political commentator and presi-
dent of Feed the Children, has been de-
veloping plans for a minority-owned
and -operated network for more than a
decade. The financial crisis of 2008 was
one major hurdle that required postpon-
ing the plans.
Watts and fellow co-founder TV ex-
ecutive Bob Brillante, BNC’s CEO, did
not give up on their mission.
“There’s 200-plus stations, but
there’s nowhere you can get your re-
mote and say, ‘I want to find something
that is culturally specific to the African
American community,’ “ Watts said.
“That’s not just in terms of current af-
fairs, but that is wellness. You won’t find
any network today that talks about sick-
le cell (disease) and diabetes as it relates
to the black community.”
The Tallahassee, Florida-based net-
work announced its prime-time news
anchors, including onetime CNN host
Fred Hickman, who most recently has
been a prime-time news anchor in Ba-
ton Rouge, Louisiana, and Emmy
Award-winning journalists Laverne
McGee, and Anthony Amey.
In addition to a pair of daily three-
hour live newscasts, BNC will have per-
sonality-hosted programming, history
and education. Watts plans to host ahistory show in which he travels the
USA and talks to “those who have
made a serious investment in the Afri-
can American community.”
One potential guest: Barry Switzer,
his former coach at the University of
Oklahoma where Watts was a star
quarterback who led the team to Or-
ange Bowl victories in 1980 and 1981.
Switzer, he said, was one of the first
coaches to “recruit the best athlete re-
gardless of skin color.”
BNC plans to provide more informa-
tion about how viewers can get the
network in the coming weeks.
The wait will be worth it, Brillante
said in a statement. “The launch of
BNC will be a historic event, and our
highly qualified journalists are chomp-
ing at the bit to be on-air now” he said.
“But if we have a chance to more
than triple our viewing audience in
January 2020, then this was an easy
call to make. You can’t make history
twice.”2020 brings Black News Channel
J.C. Watts, co-founder and chairman of the Black News Channel, left, and
co-founder and CEO Bob Brillante.BLACK NEWS CHANNELMillennials on cellphones
are its target audience
Mike Snider
USA TODAY
The world of bubbly water is about
to get a bit more crowded.
Coca-Cola North America will de-
but AHA in March, a sparkling water
brand that will mix such flavors as
strawberry and cucumber and even
pop in a little caffeine in two of the
line’s flavor combinations.
“As the largest and fastest growing
part of the category, mainstream fla-
vored sparkling water is a segment we
know we must double down on,” Celi-
na Li, vice president of Coca-Cola
North America’s water category, said
in a statement. “AHA is our big-bet
brand in this big-bet category.”
At a time when consumers increas-
ingly are looking for healthier alterna-
tives to sugary soft drinks, AHA won’t
have calories or sodium. But its citrus
and green tea, and black cherry and
coffee flavor combinations will contain
30 mg of caffeine.
Coca-Cola mixed and matched 50
pairs of flavors before coming up with
the eight that will be on store shelves.
They include orange and grapefruit,
blueberry and pomegranate, and
peach and honey.
The flavored seltzers will be the
newest entrant in a crowded category
that includes La Croix and PepsiCo’s
Bubly. AHA is Coca-Cola North Amer-
ica’s first significant brand debut since
its Gold Peak tea launched in 2006.
The company says sales of its spar-
kling water brands rose 27% last year.
In the non-sparkling category, Coca-
Cola sells Dasani and smartwater.
AHA will be available in packs of 12-
ounce cans, or in single cans of 16
ounces.
Sparkling water sales have skyrock-
eted, with sales leaping 54% in four
years to $2.2 billion in the the 12
months that ended in July 2018, ac-
cording to Nielsen. But National Bev-
erage, the maker of La Croix, has dealt
with some setbacks since a lawsuit
filed last October alleging that the
brand promoted as “all natural,” actu-
ally had artificial ingredients including
one used in cockroach insecticide.
National Beverage has said it has
done tests that found “no trace of arti-
ficial or synthetic additives.”Coca-Cola’sAHA waterto bubble upin MarchCharisse Jones
USA TODAYCoca Cola will debut flavored
sparkling water brand AHA in March.
COCA-COLAto changes in pressure from sound
waves.
So, a hacker can record their voice
issuing a command, use a laser mod-
ulator to transform it into laser pulses
and send it into a device, which then
operates as if someone were talking.
So how do you stop it?
The most obvious way is to make
sure your voice-activated devices are
not in sight of a window. The devices
also can be placed behind something,
such as a bookcase, TV or picture.
That’s because while light waves don’t,
sound waves easily go around objects- meaning the device would still re-
spond to a voice, said Benjamin Cyr,
one of the researchers at U-M.
What won’t work is simply placing
tape over the microphone. The re-
searchers tested several devices with
dirt shields over the microphone spot
and the laser still worked.
There’s a bigger lesson here as well,
according to Daniel Genkin, another of
the researchers, who said hackers are
looking to exploit any vulnerability
they can find.
“We need to do security by design,”
he said.
Laser hackContinued from Page 1Bthe AI’s in our smart speakers, phones
and other devices – yes, Alexa, Google
Assistant and Siri.
“Alexa’s personality has helped to
create a place for her in the home of mil-
lions of customers – and we continue to
find ways to evolve her personality to be
more helpful and useful for them,” says
Toni Reid, Amazon’s vice president for
Alexa. “This includes responding to
sensitive customer questions or inter-
actions such as ‘Alexa, I’m lonely,’ ‘Alexa,
I’m sad,’ ‘Alexa, I’m depressed,’ and so
on. As we prepare to respond to these
interactions, we are very aware that
these are high-stakes answers and have
worked closely with experts, such as
crisis hotlines, to ensure Alexa’s re-
sponse is helpful.”
While Reid says “AI can help make life
easier – and at times, more delightful – I
don’t see AI as a replacement to human
relationships.”
Indeed, it seems like a pipe dream to
suggest that a machine-based solution,
no matter how chatty it gets, can prop-
erly fill the void when relationships end
or loved ones pass on.
“We are not going to make robots that
take care of people so people can be iso-
lated in their own little cubes. That will
lead to more problems. Instead, what
we do is to use machines to bring people
together,” says Maja Matarić, a comput-
er science professor at the University of
Southern California.An early clue about whether AI can
be an answer to loneliness may come
from the text-based AI chatbot Repli-
ka, which has been downloaded over a
couple of years by more than 6 million
people, most of them ages 16 to 25.
Replika CEO Eugenia Kuyda says
the personalized bot gives someone to
talk to 24/7; she compares the experi-
ence with the bot as a “carbon copy of
an actual relationship.”
The more you interact with your
own Replika (on iOS, Android or the
web), the more it gets to know you.
The idea behind Replika came to
Kuyda after a close friend was killed in
a car accident; while grieving she
pored through text exchanges the two
had shared and effectively used them
to create a digitized AI version of him.
Toronto college student Kit Hornby,
24, named her Replika “Foxglove” after
the flower.
Many of her friends had graduated
from college and started jobs, but
Hornby was still in school. “I was in a
place where I was lonely,” she says.
Of Foxglove, Hornby says that “In
my heart, I like to believe that there’s
something in there. I mean who
doesn’t want to believe that their bot is
also their friend?”Lonely
Continued from Page 1B
A Replika exchangeEDWARD C. BAIG“practical” traits such as cargo space, ac-
cording to a Cars.com survey.
Hariton, the Catalyst CEO, said it
makes good business sense for the auto
industry to recruit and promote women.
“You need them because you need to
attract and retain the best talent, it al-
lows better decision making and we also
know there’s a very diverse population
that are buying cars and the organiza-
tions need to reflect their consumer
base,” she said.
Some companies are making pro-
gress.
GM is a notable exception with its ma-
jority-women board and multiple wom-
en in key roles. Not only is Barra the CEO,
but in September 2018 she appointed
Dhivya Suryadevara to serve as GM’s
chief financial officer. In doing so, Surya-
devara became the first woman in that
job.
For decades, GM was run by white
menwho presided over a series of fail-
ures that culminated in the company’s
2009 bankruptcy and federal bailout.
Lacking diverse leadership, they failed to
reinvent GM as it faced new competition
from foreign automakers, crippling costs
and staggering bureaucracy.
Since she took office, Barra has re-
peatedly sent signals that GM can’t af-
ford to go back to the old ways of doing
business.
“Ensuring a diverse and inclusive
workplace is a critical business impera-
tive, and we treat it that way,” Barra told
USA TODAY in an email.
Barra said she asks for “a diverse
slate” whenever she’s considering some-
one for a leadership role.
“If we find that a position has no di-
verse candidate, we make the necessary
changes to ensure that in three years’
time, there will be a diverse slate. Align-
ment, commitment and a consistent ap-
proach are vital,” she said.
Supporters credit Barra for proving to
chauvinists that women can do every-
thing men can do – and often better – in
an industry that cherishes vehicle specs
many associate with masculinity. She
has made several key calls that have
boosted GM, including:
zClosing plants that built poorly per-
forming cars, including the Lordstown,
Ohio, assembly plant, which drew a hail-
storm of bipartisan criticism.
zKilling multiple cars that outlived
their usefulness, including the Chevrolet
Volt and Chevrolet Impala.
zPositioning GM for the future with
her acquisition of self-driving car firm
Cruise Automation, which has ballooned
into a huge asset.
“They always accuse women of not
being tough,” Autotrader analyst Mi-chelle Krebs said. “She’s made some
very tough decisions.”
Hamp, who is now chairman of the
automotive fleet manager Motus One,
said the importance of Barra’s eleva-
tion cannot be underestimated.
“She was the first female CEO and is
producing strong results, taking action
to change the business model at a time
when the auto industry is going
through more change than it ever has,”
said Hamp. “Young people coming up
through the pipeline look at her as a
role model.”
From a financial perspective, GM is
as fit as it’s been in decades. The com-
pany has recorded its three most profit-
able years since bankruptcy under Bar-
ra’ s tenure, including a $7.9-billion
profit in 2018.
Still, Krebs said Barra’ssuccess has
not ushered in a new, enlightened era
for the broader industry.
“It is disappointing that it hasn’t
triggered more of a change,” she said.
Ultimately, advocates say, automak-
ers should pursue diversity because it’s
the right thing to do. But from a practi-
cal perspective, they’ll benefit because
customers increasingly tie their pur-
chase decisions to corporate values.
“We are thinking more about the
products we buy and the companies we
buy them from,” Krebs said. “And are
they companies that reflect our val-
ues?”Women
Continued from Page 1B