Facebook was hacked (again), exposing 50 million users to potential data breaches. Instagram and WhatsApp accounts could also be affected.
As Intel experiences chip shortages, their plan is to focus on getting the high end chips at the door.
Ohh… Elon Musk is getting sued.
Acquisitions
- Slack buys Astro and shuts down its email app
It may seem curious for Slack, the giant chat app with the goal of killing email, to buy an email app — but the pairing makes a good deal of sense. Astro’s focus was on business users, and it built out some smart integrations inside of Slack. With the two teams combined, Slack can use Astro’s experience to build a native solution for dealing with emails right inside the chat app.
There is some bad news, though: Slack is shutting down Astro’s email app. The app will stop functioning on October 10th. That’s unfortunate, given that good third-party email clients have become increasingly hard to come by, and Astro had some features that really made it stand out.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/24/17897658/slack-astro-acquisition-email-app-shut-down-integration
- With Sirius behind it, can Pandora now stage a comeback?
Sirius XM is all about selling subscriptions to listen to Howard Stern and stations based on genres like 70s, 80s and 90s, and for those who want on-demand music, “now Sirius can cross sell a Spotify clone,” he says. “It’s a winning combination.”
Pandora’s biggest issue has been its double-edged sword. It is under contract to the record labels in paying higher copyright fees than on-demand outlets, and thus, the more listeners it gets, the more money it has to pay out. Pachter says Pandora has lost over $100 million in 2017 and 2016 due to sky high royalty rates.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2018/09/25/sirius-xm-pandora-comeback/1416707002/
- DXC Boosts Cloud-First Approach With System Partners Buyout
System Partners, a provider of customer-centric services like advisory, strategy designing, tailored managed services and the like, boasts more than 100 Salesforce certified consultants in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.
Management at DXC Technology believes that the buyout is a strategic move to support and cater to existing customers more efficiently, and strengthen its position in the cloud market
https://www.nasdaq.com/article/dxc-boosts-cloud-first-approach-with-system-partners-buyout-cm1029023
Artificial Intelligence
- Tech Giants Launch New AI Tools as Worries Mount About Explainability
About 60% of 5,000 executives polled in a recent study by IBM’s Institute of Business Value said they were concerned about being able to explain how AI is using data and making decisions in order to meet regulatory and compliance standards. That’s up from 29% in 2016.
Cloud
- Rising Cloud Bills May Get a Breather
It is a big food chain that’s gotten much bigger quickly. Total capital spending by the four aforementioned companies has jumped by an average of 45% on a year-over-year basis for the past six quarters. The four spent a total of $34.7 billion in the first six months of this year—up 59% from the same period last year. But analysts for Morgan Stanley expect that pace to decelerate to growth of 45% for the second half and warned in a note this week that it could slow further to “low double digits” next year.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/rising-cloud-bills-may-get-a-breather-1538128800
- Microsoft, IBM sign up to cheaper cloud alliance
GeekWire is reporting that Cloudflare has brought in Microsoft, IBM, Digital Ocean, Automattic and Backblaze under a single banner called the Bandwidth Alliance.
Scheduled to be announced today, during Cloudflare’s eighth birthday party, the group’s goal is to make sure Cloudflare’s customers using their services pay either significantly cheaper prices, or pay nothing at all, for the traffic that passes through locations where their networks are connected to Cloudflare’s services.
https://www.itproportal.com/news/microsoft-google-sign-up-to-cheaper-cloud-alliance/
Security
- France records big jump in privacy complaints since GDPR
France’s CNIL agency said today that it’s received 3,767 complaints since May 25, when GDPR came into force, up from 2,294 complaints over the same period last year — which it notes was already a record year.
CNIL says this represents a 64% increase in complaints, which it suggests shows that EU citizens have “seized the GDPR strongly” — attributing public engagement on the issue to media attention on the new regulation and on data protection stories such as the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data misuse scandal.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/25/france-records-big-jump-in-privacy-complaints-since-gdpr/
- Facebook Is Breached by Hackers, Putting 50 Million Users’ Data at Risk
Three software flaws in Facebook’s systems allowed hackers to break into user accounts, including those of the top executives Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, according to two people familiar with the investigation but not allowed to discuss it publicly. Once in, the attackers could have gained access to apps like Spotify, Instagram and hundreds of others that give users a way to log into their systems through Facebook.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/technology/facebook-hack-data-breach.html
Infrastructure/Hardware
- Intel acknowledges supply issues, will prioritize premium chips
In the short term, Intel plans to prioritize the premium market, including Xeon and Core processors, so it “can serve the high-performance segments of the market.” Beyond that, the company plans to invest $15 billion in capital expenditures this year, including $1 billion going toward the manufacture of 14nm silicon in the U.S., Ireland and Israel.
These issues have left the broader PC industry in a rough spot. On the face of it, a shortage due to increased demand seems like a good problem to have, but ultimately a lack of processors could create a major issue if the market continues to grow, perhaps ultimately reversing some of that success.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/28/intel-acknowledges-supply-issues-will-prioritize-premium-chips/
- Verizon hits 1.45Gbps 4G LTE speeds in New York
The milestone saw it aggregate six channels of spectrum (both licensed and shared — a first in the US). According to Verizon VP of Technology Planning and Development, Bill Stone, the company is laying a “foundation” for its “evolution into 5G.”
The trial involved aggregating four carriers of licence-assisted access (LTE-LAA) spectrum with licensed PCS and AWS spectrum, according to ZDNet. It also relied on 256 quadrature amplitude moderation (256 QAM) and 4×4 multiple-input multiple-output (4×4 MIMO) technologies — the latter antenna tech is available in 1,100 locations nationwide. Meanwhile, it’s facing fierce 5G competition from rivals AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/28/verizon-peak-4g-lte-speed-new-york/
Other
- SEC charges Tesla CEO Elon Musk with fraud
The SEC complaint alleges that Musk issued “false and misleading” statements and failed to properly notify regulators of material company events. The SEC held a press conference Thursday evening regarding the complaint.
Among other remedies, the SEC is seeking to bar Musk from serving as an officer or director of a publicly traded company if found guilty.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/27/tesla-falls-4percent-on-report-elon-musk-sued-by-sec.html
Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash