Microsoft purchased an open source database company continuing a trend they started with the acquisition of GitHub. As the company embraces open source, the open source community is grumbling about what happens when large software companies get involved with open source (see Amazon’s use and then discarding of MongoDB).
Speaking of Amazon, the company is getting serious about advertising, and they have access to massive amounts of personalized purchasing habit information. The company not only sells products, makes products, tracks behavior – it will have the ability to market to you as well. That certainly feels… intrusive.
Acquisitions
- Microsoft buys an open source database startup to give it an edge against Amazon Web Services
On Thursday, Microsoft announced it has acquired Citus Data, an open source database startup. Citus Data was first founded in 2010, and raised a relatively meager $13.2 million in venture capital funding in that time.
What Citus Data does is take PostgreSQL, a database management system that’s popular with developers, and transform it into databases that can be dispersed over multiple computers. That gives developers the ability to bring their databases to ever-larger scales, for even the most demanding apps.
https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-acquires-open-source-postgresql-startup-citus-data-2019-1
Artificial Intelligence
- One-quarter of jobs are at ‘high-risk’ of being automated
Roles in transportation, food prep, production and office admin are among those at highest risk, with robotics and artificial intelligence threatening to automate in the neighborhood of 70 percent of tasks, according to the study. Activities involving processing, data collection and physical labor are, unsurprisingly, most at risk here.
Automation is expected to have an outsized impact in certain regions in the country, and among less well educated workers. Likewise, it’s expect to impact different segments of the population in different ways.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/26/one-quarter-of-jobs-are-at-high-risk-of-being-automated/
- Blue Prism to issue $130M in stock to raise new funds
CEO Alastair Bathgate attempted to put the announcement in the best possible light. “The outcome of this placing, which builds on another year of significant progress for the company, highlights the meteoric growth opportunity with RPA and intelligent automation,” he said in a statement.
While the company’s revenue more than doubled last fiscal year, from £24.5 million (approximately $32 million) in 2017 to £55.2 million (approximately $72 million) in 2018, losses also increased dramatically, from £10.1 million (approximately $13 million) in 2017 to £26.0 million (approximately $34 million), according to reports.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/24/blue-prism-to-issue-130m-in-stock-to-raise-new-funds/
Cloud
- Amazon probed for potential conflict over $10B Pentagon contract
Amazon Web Services (AWS) re-hired a former employee who left the company briefly to work at the Department of Defense, where he reportedly worked for the military’s cloud division Opens a New Window. and on the contract in question, as first reported by The Washington Post.
A potential competitor for the bid, Oracle, has filed a lawsuit claiming the Pentagon needs to look into the role of the employee and whether the process is unfairly biased toward Amazon.
While an official for the department previously said the employee’s work on the project did not impact the integrity of the procurement, the filing also noted that the agency is considering whether there is a conflict of interest now that AWS has submitted a bid for the contract.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/amazons-bid-for-10b-pentagon-contract-under-review
- IBM Smashes Analyst Estimates, But Can it Catch Cloud Rivals Amazon & Google?
For the quarter, IBM pulled in $21.76 billion in revenue. While impressive, that figure is lower than what was reported for Q4 2017. Back then, IBM reported $22.54 billion in revenue.
IBM’s cloud service offerings fall into its strategic imperatives group, which reaped almost $40 billion in revenue in 2018. Cloud revenue contributed about $19 billion of that, which was 12 percent higher than it was in 2017.
https://www.ccn.com/ibm-smashes-analyst-estimates-but-can-it-catch-cloud-rivals-amazon-google/
Security
- Google fined $57m by French regulator for breaching GDPR
The regulator hit Google on two points: for making it difficult for users to see the detail on why and how they should give consent in order to be sent personalized ads, and for providing a pre-ticked option when requesting consent.
CNIL has decided that essential information such as data processing purposes, the data storage periods or the categories of personal data used for sending personalized ads are “excessively disseminated” across several documents. This means users can only view the details after clicking through several pages.
https://digiday.com/media/google-fined-57m-french-regulator-breaching-gdpr/
- Amazon knows what you buy, and it’s built a $125-billion dollar ad business off it that’s a marketer’s dream
But many ad agencies are particularly excited by another area of advertising that is less obvious to many consumers. The company has been steadily expanding its business of selling video or display ads — the square and rectangular ads on sites across the web — and gaining ground on the industry leaders, Google and Facebook.
In addition to knowing what people buy, Amazon also knows where people live, because they provide delivery addresses, and which credit cards they use. It knows how old their children are from their baby registries, and who has a cold, right now, from cough syrup ordered for two-hour delivery. And the company has been expanding a self-service option for ad agencies and brands to take advantage of its data on shoppers.
Software/SaaS
- Zuckerberg Plans to Integrate WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger
The services will continue to operate as stand-alone apps, but their underlying technical infrastructure will be unified, said four people involved in the effort. That will bring together three of the world’s largest messaging networks, which between them have more than 2.6 billion users, allowing people to communicate across the platforms for the first time.
The move has the potential to redefine how billions of people use the apps to connect with one another while strengthening Facebook’s grip on users, raising antitrust, privacy and security questions. It also underscores how Mr. Zuckerberg is imposing his authority over units he once vowed to leave alone.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/technology/facebook-instagram-whatsapp-messenger.html
- PNC, IBM, And Aetna Set To Explore Blockchain Technology For Medical Health Plans
According to IBM, more members will join this network in the months to come. These members will come from the healthcare industry, technology industry and other startups. After the announcement, the general manager for payers at IBM Watson Health, Barbara Hayes said:
“While IBM is among the founding members, it is not the only one with a stake. Every founding member involved has an equal stake. It is vital because you don’t have side by side competitors struggling for waste in the healthcare sector 40 to 50 cents on the dollar. In the healthcare sector, these inefficiencies are found in administrative and clinical areas. Sometimes, it may be just friction in the system that ripple into bad customer experience.”
https://smartereum.com/46967/blockchain-technology-pnc-ibm-and-aetna-set-to-explore-blockchain-technology-for-medical-health-plans-blockchain-news-today/
IBM is finally starting to realize that companies are not going to pay for unproven technology. It is a shame they weren’t open to partnering to this degree a few years ago.
Other
- Oracle underpaid thousands of women, minorities, government charges
The Department of Labor (DoL) accused Oracle of widespread discriminatory wage practices that resulted in the loss of more than $400 million in wages for female, black and Asian employees, according to a federal complaint filed on Tuesday.
According to the filing, the Silicon Valley giant underpaid women in jobs in its product development, information technology and support job functions, resulting in pay disparities as high as 20 percent, affecting more than 5,000 women. The DoL also alleged that it underpaid black employees, with disparities as high as 7.5 percent, and Asian employees, with gaps as high as 8 percent.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/oracle-deliberately-underpaid-thousands-of-women-minorities-lawsuit-says
Oracle Could Lose $100 Million Annually in Federal Contracts Over Pay Discrimination SuitThe situation threatens an estimated $100 million a year that Oracle gets in federal contracts. The original DOL complaint seeks “an order canceling all of Oracle’s federal government contracts and subcontracts.”
http://fortune.com/2019/01/23/oracle-discrimination-lawsuit/
- U.S. Believes It Doesn’t Need to Show ‘Proof’ Huawei Is a Spy Threat
U.S. intelligence officials have suggested at times that their views on Huawei are informed by definitive examples of malfeasance, though they have so far refused to share such evidence publicly. When the House Intelligence Committee in 2012 published an unclassified report naming Huawei as a security risk, it spoke generally about a lack of trust lawmakers placed in China but steered clear of providing concrete examples of the company being caught engaging in nefarious activity.