While you were sleeping, innovation was swiping your credit card and giving you a ride through the streets of London on an inordinately hefty bicycle.
1. Now that Tony Hayward is gone from BP, are you missing him? (Anyone who wants to track him down should maybe go to Russia, as he’s rumored to be visiting next week, alongside his successor, Bob Dudley.) The Telegraph wonders whether his muted reaction to the disaster, three months ago, was the right one. BP, meanwhile, is fighting to get the 300 lawsuits related to the Deepwater spill heard by a court in Texas rather than Louisiana. Exxon Mobil’s profits, meanwhile, have doubled this quarter, making it more powerful than both BP and Shell. And the permanent plugging of the blown-out well could begin this weekend, says the Washington Post.
2. Spotify is going back to zero in its negotiations with the U.S. record labels, Billboard says. The majors have not been particularly impressed with its vision, and so the Swedish firm has had to go back to the drawing board. Not great news, considering all the cloud-based music systems that are rumored to be on their way. Meanwhile, Spotify rival Pandora is blithely unconcerned by its competition, says founder and CSO Tim Westergren, who also puts the iPhone down to his firm’s success.
3. Today is the day that London’s cycle hire system launches, and the Guardian is liveblogging it. (09.44: put credit card in swiper. 09.45: Take bike for ride. 09.46: Fall off.) There’s already a Google map with the docking stations on it for the 11,000 people who have already signed up to the scheme.
4. For some odd reason, the Galapagos have been taken off Unesco’s danger list, following a recommendation from Brazil that Ecuador’s government had been trying to improve the threats to the volcanic islands, home to many species. Not happy is the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, as there is “still work to be done.”
5. And finally, Disney has finally divested itself of Miramax, the studio responsible for Pulp Fiction and Shakespeare In Love–and the Weinsteins. Although the brothers, Harvey and Bob, attempted to wrest back control of the film company, it’s been flogged to investor group Filmyard Holdings, led by L.A. construction magnate Ron Tutor, for $660 million.
