Good morning, Broadsheet readers. A former Secretary of State could be exactly what the NFL needs, and Avon may be in serious trouble. Read on to hear what Intel president Renee James thinks about the future of wearable tech devices. Have a great Wednesday!
EVERYONE'S TALKING
• Condi Rice could save the NFL. Since 2002, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said her dream job is to be commissioner of the National Football League. Now, as the NFL faces a reputation crisis stemming from the Ray Rice situation, it might be time for Condi to replace Roger Goodell. “I really consider myself a student of the game,” Rice has said. “I find the strategy and tactics absolutely fascinating.” WaPo
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
• Marissa Mayer's day of reckoning? Yahoo may face a shrinking stock price as investors stop buying Yahoo to gain exposure to Alibaba (in which Yahoo owns a 23% stake). The Chinese Internet company is expected to go public next week. Quartz
• Martha Coakley wins in Massachusetts. The Attorney General won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination on Tuesday. The close primary victory over Steve Grossman will now pit Coakley against Republican Charlie Baker. She would be the first female governor of Massachusetts if she wins. Boston Globe
• Barra pushes driverless cars. GM's CEO is focusing her company on a future in which computers will take over many driving functions now done by humans. “We are on a journey that one day, in the not so distant future, intelligent and connected vehicle technologies could help eliminate the crash altogether,” said Jon Lauckner, GM's chief technology officer. Fortune
• Is Avon in trouble? Chief Financial Officer Kimberly Ross resigned to work for oilfield services company Baker Hughes. As the beauty-products company struggles, Citigroup analyst Wendy Nicholson wrote that "the symbolic importance of Ross abandoning ship at this stage is hard to overstate." Barrons
• Joan Rivers honored. The Broadway League, an organization that represents theater owners, honored Joan Rivers on Tuesday night by asking theaters to dim their lights for one minute. The League originally stated that Rivers did not meet the requirements for this top honor, but later reversed course. Time
• Japan PM supports women in tough jobs. Shinzo Abe met with four women who work in professions like construction in an attempt to publicize Japan’s shortage of women working in "tough jobs." WSJ
BROADVIEW
Intel President Renee James on the world of wearables
While Apple was announcing its long-awaited smartwatch (and two updated smartphones), chipmaker Intel was unveiling its own vision for the future of wearables up the Peninsula at San Francisco’s Moscone Center. The semiconductor company announced several new offerings at its annual developer forum on Tuesday morning, including an updated "board" developers can use to build all sorts of wearable devices. Called Edison, the postage stamp-sized product features a dual-core system-on-a-chip, Wi-Fi, memory, support for USB and more.
Company president Renee James has her own take on where wearables are going--post Apple smartwatch. Fortune writer Michal Lev-Ram caught up with James to find out more about her company's vision for the newish market, the competition and what needs to happen for wearables to really take off.
Lev-Ram: Wearables were a big topic at last year's event. Is it still a big topic?
James: It’s a big deal today but it’s more real today. We’re on the second generation of everything we announced last year, but today what we talked about is the software developer kits. So basically you can get a hardware board, a full software development kit tools and actually build stuff easily and quickly. So what I would say is one year later, everyone’s like, ok, it’s real. They’re on their second rev of the developer board—Edison and they’ve got a full kit. Cause developers just want to know how to hook software to it and build stuff. This conference is all about software developer kits that make it easy to work on Intel platforms. So we announced a kit for internet of things, we announced for wearables and one for high performance computing.
I know Intel is somewhat agnostic on the actual products, but what do you think is going to really take off on the wearables side?
In my experience in this industry the things that have been breakthrough have all been about connecting human beings to each other, communicating with each other. Do I really care about my heart rate all the time? But the fact I can get my text messages without looking at my phone. If you can make it so that I could touch somebody remotely through a wearable because it has haptic feedback—like I could give a hug and it would touch you or pinch you—that would be killer. People want to chitchat, they talk, they text. I think that’s it. I think that they don’t do anything that your phone can’t do yet and they need to do something more, not only be more stylish.
Click over to Fortune.com for Lev-Ram's full interview with James.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
• Tinder closes sexual harassment suit. The complaint brought by former Tinder executive and co-founder Whitney Wolfe, which sparked a national conversation about how women are treated in tech startups, has been settled for an undisclosed amount. Buzzfeed
• 'War on women' motivates voters. Women are more likely to vote when they feel access to birth control and abortion are threatened, and when women and families' economic security is in danger, according to a new poll exclusive to Time. "As long as they [the GOP] continue to ignore the real needs of working families, the gulf between them and women voters will only continue to grow,” says Stephanie Schriock, president of Emily’s List, a group that elects pro-choice women. Time
• 17 rare images tell the real story of women in tech. U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith recently told Makers how disappointed she was by the shortage of women shown in Jobs, the movie about Apple founder Steve Jobs's life. Here are 17 photos that depict the key role women play in driving today's Internet innovation. Policy Mic
ON MY RADAR
The problem with Hollywood's typical female superhero Policy Mic
Pipeline Fellowship CEO: Apps I Live By NBC News
Here's where to aim the hammer that shatters the glass ceiling Crain's
Minimize stress by learning to say 'no' BizWomen
Business lessons from Shark Tank's Barbara Corcoran Inc.
QUOTE
Be confident in your abilities, your value, and yourself, and do not back down. Fight. Fight fair, fight with integrity and professionalism, but fight hard. If you don’t get answers, take it up the ladder. Asking questions about gender equity is not a firing offense. And if nothing changes, leave. Take your talents, your energy, your skills, elsewhere. You deserve no less than your male colleagues. Do not EVER believe otherwise. Full stop.
Journalist Tess Vigeland talks about fighting the gender wage gap.
