Tag: Apple

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Supplier Report: 5/18/2018

Supplier Report: 5/18/2018

Net Neutrality may have a second chance thanks to the Senate and the CRA. While this is good news for consumers, it could take a while for the protections to be reinstated.

Oracle informed Australian authorities that Google might be inappropriately capturing and collecting data from the people down under.  Meanwhile the New York Times still thinks that Google’s data collection is less creepy than Facebook’s methods.

What is the next thing all the tech companies are going to fight over?  It could be access to lithium.

Acquisitions

  • Google acquires Cask Data to beef up its tools for building and running big data analytics

    In the latest development, Google has picked up Cask Data, a Palo Alto startup that specializes in building solutions to run big data analytics services based on Hadoop.

    The news comes less than a week after Google announced the acquisition of Velostrata, a startup from Israel that helps businesses migrate and run data, apps and other IT functions in the cloud and across hybrid environments.

    Financial terms are not being disclosed. Cask Data had raised around $40 million in funding to date, according to PitchBook, with a long list of big-name investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, AME Cloud Ventures, Battery Ventures, Cloudera, Data Collective, Ericsson and Ignition Venture Partners. PitchBook’s records indicate that Ignition sold its stake on April 25, which might have been when the deal closed. The most recent valuation noted in PitchBook was for $57 million, back in 2015.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/16/google-acquires-cask-data-to-beef-up-its-tools-for-building-and-running-big-data-analytics/

  • Giuliani says ‘the president denied’ AT&T-Time Warner deal approval

    “The president denied the merger,” Giuliani, a new member of President Trump’s legal team, said in an interview with HuffPost on Friday.

    Giuliani was seemingly trying to defend the president against any suggestion that Michael Cohen improperly influenced the administration after the revelation that Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal attorney, was paid large sums of money by AT&T and several other corporate clients. “Whatever lobbying was done didn’t reach the president,” Giuliani said, repeating a claim he made to CNN’s Dana Bash on Thursday.

    But then Giuliani went further, telling HuffPost’s S.V. Date that “he did drain the swamp… The president denied the merger. They didn’t get the result they wanted.”

    http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/11/media/rudy-giuliani-trump-att-time-warner/index.html

  • Xerox pulls out of its Fujifilm merger plans

    The printer and copier giant changed its plans after it reached a settlement with two of its largest activist shareholders, Carl Icahn and Darwin Deason, reports the Wall Street Journal. The shareholders felt the merger severely undervalued Xerox. Under the settlement with the activist shareholders, new members were appointed to Xerox’s board, which then voted to sever the Fujifilm merger, which was announced in January. For its part, Fujifilm has announced it is considering legal actions against Xerox.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/40571872/xerox-pulls-out-of-its-fujifilm-merger-plans

  • PayPal confirms that it is buying payments startup iZettle for $2.2B in an all-cash deal

    The company has confirmed that it is buying iZettle — the Stockholm-based payments provider commonly referred to as the “Square of Europe” — for $2.2 billion in an all-cash deal.

    The deal — which is expected to close in Q3 2018 — will see iZettle’s co-founder and CEO Jacob de Geer stay on to lead iZettle. He will report to PayPal’s COO Bill Ready. Others in iZettle’s exec team will also stay on to run the business, which will become a “center of excellence” for in-store and offline payments in Europe, PayPal said.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/17/paypal-confirms-that-it-is-buying-payments-startup-izettle-for-2-2b-in-an-all-cash-deal/

Artificial Intelligence

  • AI will spell the end of capitalism

    It is the very pervasiveness of AI that will spell the end of market dominance. The market may reasonably if unequally function if industry creates employment opportunities for most people. But when industry only produces joblessness, as robots take over more and more, there is no good alternative but for the state to step in. As AI invades economic and social life, all private law-related issues will soon become public ones. More and more, regulation of private companies will become a necessity to maintain some semblance of stability in societies roiled by constant innovation.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/theworldpost/wp/2018/05/03/end-of-capitalism

Cloud

  • The War Over Amazon And A Huge Pentagon Cloud Services Contract Is Just Heating Up

    Amazon currently owns 44.2% of the cloud market. Its next closest competitor is Microsoft’s Azure at 7.1%. Google holds just 2.3% of the space, according to 2016 revenue stats from Gartner.

    If it’s the sole winner of the Pentagon’s contract, then its piece of the pie stands to get a lot bigger. Smaller companies have lobbied to get the government to choose several providers rather than one, but it won’t budge on the decision.

    “I never heard of something like a single cloud and I would challenge anyone to point at a significant commercial customer who has one cloud,” Oracle Chief Executive Sara Catz said to a group of journalists in mid-April.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/40569405/the-war-over-amazon-and-a-huge-pentagon-cloud-services-contract-is-just-heating-up

Security

  • Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality — but it has a long way to go

    In a 52–47 vote today, senators voted to overturn the Federal Communication Commission’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order, which took net neutrality rules off the books. They were able to do so using the Congressional Review Act, or CRA, which allows Congress to reverse recent decisions by government agencies. Republican control of Congress means that such a measure wouldn’t normally even make it up for a vote; but the CRA allows senators to force a vote by obtaining 30 signatures.

    All 49 Democrats voted in favor, as well as Republican Senators Susan Collins, of Maine; John Kennedy, of Louisiana; and Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska.

    https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/16/17357592/net-neutrality-senate-vote-cra-reinstate-fcc-rules

  • Google caught using $580 million worth of Australians’ phone data to spy on them by monitoring their movements

    Claims Google is using up to $580 million worth of user’s phone plan data in Australia to track customer’s movements are being looked into by the ACCC.

    Experts from technology corporation Oracle believe Google is taking an estimated one gigabyte of mobile data each month from Android phone accounts.

    It is believed the information keeps an eye on user’s whereabouts, and relays the details back to advertisers.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5723709/Google-caught-using-580-million-worth-Australians-phone-data-spy.html

  • Google’s File on Me Was Huge. Here’s Why It Wasn’t as Creepy as My Facebook Data.

    What I found was that my Google data archive was much larger than my Facebook file — about 12 times larger, in fact — but it was also packed with fewer unpleasant surprises.

    Most of what I saw in my Google file was information I already knew I had put in there, like my photos, documents and Google emails, while my Facebook data contained a list of 500 advertisers with my contact information and a permanent record of friends I thought I had “deleted” years ago, among other shockers.

    Whenever I was perturbed by parts of my Google data, like a record of the Android apps I had opened over the past several years, I was relieved to find out I could delete the data. In contrast, when I downloaded my Facebook data, I found that a lot of what I saw could not be purged.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/technology/personaltech/google-personal-data-facebook.html

Datacenter/Hardware

  • Apple invests $10 million in a greener method of aluminum production

    Today Apple says it’s partnering with the aluminum producer Alcoa and the smelting tech company Rio Tinto to develop a new way of producing aluminum that releases oxygen, not carbon dioxide. The three companies, along with the governments of Canada and Quebec are investing a combined $144 million in the R&D, which is being done near Alcoa’s headquarters in Pittsburg. Apple’s share is $10.1 million (U.S.). The governments are investing about $47 million (U.S.).

    Alcoa and Rio Tinto believe the new method will be done and packaged in 2024. At that point the two will begin licensing the tech to other aluminum producers, and, presumably, Alcoa will begin using it on a wide scale itself.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/40570988/apple-invests-10-million-in-a-greener-method-of-aluminum-production

  • What Do Tesla, Apple and SoftBank Have in Common? They’re All Hot for Lithium

    Both lithium and cobalt, which is also used in these batteries, face potential shortages in the years ahead as electric-vehicle use increases.

    That concern is driving a number of companies like technology firms and car makers reliant on lithium and cobalt to strike deals now, even if it means joining with suppliers that haven’t started producing yet.

    Tesla reached a three-year supply agreement with lithium firm Kidman Resources Ltd. , which begins when the Australian company begins producing battery-grade material, Kidman said Thursday. The firm isn’t expected to begin producing lithium compounds before 2021.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-lithium-and-cobalt-producers-are-the-hot-new-acquisition-target-1526558400?ns=prod/accounts-wsj

Other

  • Why Apple, Microsoft Are Focusing on Services

    At the moment, Apple leads the pack in providing a complete ecosystem of hardware, software, and services. But if you have been watching Microsoft over the last four years, you know that it’s doing the same, with services like Office 365 and more recently, Microsoft 365.

    A dedicated, sand-boxed store in which only approved apps are allowed gives Microsoft more control over security and brings it new revenue streams. But PC partners don’t love it, pushing some to alternative OSes like Google’s Chrome OS.

    Still, while there is money to be made in hardware, PC sales continue to shrink and a focus on services is critical to the long-term survival of companies like Apple, Microsoft, and others.

    https://www.pcmag.com/commentary/361058/why-apple-microsoft-are-focusing-on-services

  • Tim Cook told Trump China tariffs were the wrong move

    “I talked about trade and the importance of trade, and how I felt that two countries trading together make the pie larger,” Cook said, adding that while there are existing problems with U.S./China trade policies, Trump’s approach is not the right way forward. “I felt that tariffs were not the right approach there, and I showed him some more analytical kinds of things to demonstrate why.”

    The tariffs are largely regarded as one key element in a looming trade war between the two superpowers. Apple, for its part, could easily get caught in the crossfire, as the company relies on China as a key to its international sales.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/15/tim-cook-told-trump-china-tariffs-were-the-wrong-move/

Photo by Jed Owen on Unsplash

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Supplier Report: 4/27/2018

Supplier Report 4/27/2018

IBM made national headlines again, not for their products or services, but for the methods they used to eliminate older workers. As the company’s transition to AI, blockchain, and cloud progresses – are they cutting too close to the bone?

Microsoft reported excellent earnings this week (35% net income increase) bolstered by their cloud efforts and LinkedIn acquisition.

Google is reportedly taking losses in their home device market, but they have managed to avoid public ire over their data collections methods. The company is rumored to be collecting more data than Facebook and yet they have avoided public backlash (but they are still dealing with the EU over their monopoly settlement).

Acquisitions

  • LinkedIn among Microsoft’s fastest growing businesses as $26B investment begins to pay off

    LinkedIn brought in more than $1.3 billion in revenue this quarter, up from $976 million in its first full quarter under the Microsoft umbrella. LinkedIn is still operating at a loss, mostly due to long-term costs associated with the acquisition, and that figure has declined every quarter since the deal closed.

    LinkedIn is part of Microsoft’s Productivity and Business Processes segment, which reported just over $9 billion in revenue for the quarter. LinkedIn accounted for about 14 percent of that segment’s revenue.

    https://www.geekwire.com/2018/linkedin-among-microsofts-fastest-growing-businesses-26b-investment-begins-pay-off/

Artificial Intelligence

  • IBM Security launches open-source AI

    The toolkit, called the Adversarial Robustness Toolbox, goes beyond the usual collection of attacks used to test an AI’s ability, Sridhar Muppidi, IBM Fellow, VP and CTO IBM Security told SC Media at RSA this week. The toolbox has been released on Github and is available for download.

    “So far, most libraries that have attempted to test or harden AI systems have only offered collections of attacks. While useful, developers and researchers still need to apply the appropriate defenses to actually improve their systems,” he said.

    The toolbox uses multiple attacks against an AI system and then the security team tasked with increasing the AI’s effectiveness can choose the most effective defense. The way it does is to try and trick an AI with intentionally modified external data. Muppidi said the data sent against the AI is made “fuzzy” causing the AI to misclassify the data.

    https://www.scmagazine.com/ibm-security-launches-open-source-ai/article/760190/

  • European Commission: “We Need to Invest €20 billion in AI”

    “AI is transforming our world. It presents new challenges that Europe should meet. The Commission is playing its part: today, we are giving a boost to researchers so that they can develop the next generation of AI technologies and applications, and to companies, so that they can embrace and incorporate them,” he added.

    Warning of a brain drain, the Commission said it will support business-education partnerships to attract and keep more AI talent in Europe, set up dedicated training schemes with financial support from the European Social Fund, and support digital skills, competencies in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), entrepreneurship and creativity.

    https://www.cbronline.com/news/eu-multi-billion-ai-investment

Cloud

  • Microsoft’s Cloud Has Business Booming Again

    The company’s net income rose 35 percent from a year earlier, to $7.4 billion. Revenue rose 16 percent to $26.8 billion in the quarter, exceeding the Wall Street consensus forecast of nearly $25.8 billion.

    Microsoft’s earnings per share increased 36 percent to 95 cents a share, well above the analysts’ average estimate of 85 cents a share, compiled by Thomson Reuters.

    Since Satya Nadella became chief executive in 2014, the cloud portion of Microsoft’s revenue has soared from 3 percent to more than 21 percent this year, according to estimates by Credit Suisse.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/technology/microsoft-cloud-quarterly-report.html

Security

  • Who Has More of Your Personal Data Than Facebook? Try Google

    Google also is the biggest enabler of data harvesting, through the world’s two billion active Android mobile devices. Because Google’s Android OS helps companies gather data on us, then Google is also partly to blame when troves of that data are later used improperly, says Woodrow Hartzog, a professor of law and computer science at Northeastern University.

    A good example of this is the way Facebook has continuously harvested Android users’ call and text history. Facebook never got this level of access from Apple ’s iPhone, whose operating system is designed to permit less under-the-hood data collection. Android OS often allows apps to request rich data from users without accompanying warnings about how the data might be used.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-has-more-of-your-personal-data-than-facebook-try-google-1524398401?ns=prod/accounts-wsj

  • Advanced Hackers Infect X-Ray Machines In Healthcare Espionage

    The hacker group, dubbed Orangeworm, is mainly targeting American healthcare organizations, though there are a number of victims worldwide, including in Asia and Europe. But rather than do anything destructive, Orangeworm is likely using leverage on those medical devices – designed to process and view images from X-Ray and MRI machines – to learn more about them as part of an ongoing corporate espionage operation, Symantec said.

    “Due to the fact that the attacks attempted to keep infections active for long periods of time on these devices, it’s more likely the group are interested in learning how these devices operate. We have not collected any evidence to suggest the attackers have planned to perform any sabotage type activities at this time,” said Alan Neville, Symantec researcher.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/04/23/x-ray-machines-taken-over-by-healthcare-hackers/#6d775f9844c8

  • Cracking the Crypto War

    That public and private key pair can be used to encrypt and decrypt a secret PIN that each user’s device automatically generates upon activation. Think of it as an extra password to unlock the device. This secret PIN is stored on the device, and it’s protected by encrypting it with the vendor’s public key. Once this is done, no one can decode it and use the PIN to unlock the phone except the vendor, using that highly protected private key.

    So, say the FBI needs the contents of an iPhone. First the Feds have to actually get the device and the proper court authorization to access the information it contains—Ozzie’s system does not allow the authorities to remotely snatch information. With the phone in its possession, they could then access, through the lock screen, the encrypted PIN and send it to Apple. Armed with that information, Apple would send highly trusted employees into the vault where they could use the private key to unlock the PIN. Apple could then send that no-longer-secret PIN back to the government, who can use it to unlock the device.

    https://www.wired.com/story/crypto-war-clear-encryption/

Software/SaaS

  • Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to Allo, double down on RCS

    The company told The Verge that it is “pausing” work on Allo, which was only launched as recently as September 2016, in order to put its resources into the adoption RCS (Rich Communication Services), a messaging standard that has the potential to tie together SMS and other chat apps. RCS isn’t new, and Google has been pushing it for some time, but now the company is rebranding it as “Chat” and putting all its efforts into getting operators on board.

    The new strategy will see almost the entire Allo team switch to Android Messages, according to The Verge.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/19/google-changes-its-messaging-strategy-again-goodbye-to-allo-double-down-on-rcs/

    Chat is Google’s next big fix for Android’s messaging mess

    Google’s plan this time around is much more complicated than just launching a new messaging app. To get it started, it has had to corral more than 50 carriers and nearly a dozen manufacturers into adopting a new standard. It had to ensure that Chat would work the same, everywhere, and that it would actually have a decent set of features. Oh, and all those companies are fierce competitors who distrust each other and Google.

    It is as close to the hardest, most winding road that I can imagine for fixing the messaging mess on Android. It’s also probably one of the only roads Google had left to try.

    https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2018/4/19/17252486/google-android-messages-chat-rcs-anil-sabharwal-imessage-texting

  • Amazon’s new blockchain service competes with similar products from Oracle and IBM

    “Some of the people that I talk to see blockchains as the foundation of a new monetary system and a way to facilitate international payments. Others see blockchains as a distributed ledger and immutable data source that can be applied to logistics, supply chain, land registration, crowdfunding and other use cases,” he wrote. “Either way, it’s clear that there are a lot of intriguing possibilities and we are working to help our customers use this technology more effectively.

    AWS Blockchain Templates give AWS users working on blockchain apps a faster way to set up Ethereum or Hyperledger Fabric networks. Its launch comes six months after Oracle unveiled its cloud service built on the open-source Hyperledger Fabric project during Oracle OpenWorld and about a year after IBM announced its own Hyperledger-based blockchain-as-a-service offering.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/22/amazons-new-blockchain-service-competes-with-similar-products-from-oracle-and-ibm/

Datacenter/Hardware

  • Why Facebook is following Apple and Google to build its own computer chips

    “Big tech companies realize that silicon and hardware is a key to differentiated experiences and services,” said Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “It’s kind of ironic, but hardware is driving software right now. The biggest reason is the simplification of software design tools and the incredible competitiveness of foundries like GlobalFoundries and TSMC” that actually manufacture the chips.

    https://siliconangle.com/blog/2018/04/19/report-facebook-wants-follow-apple-google-build-computer-chips-ai/

  • LG can’t meet Apple’s demand for iPhone OLED displays

    The Wall Street Journal reports that efforts to get LG Display’s OLED screens into the iPhone production line have hit manufacturing issues. Apple is reportedly divided on whether LG will be able to succeed as the second source of OLED displays for the iPhone.

    Analysts have been warning for months that Apple is in “urgent” need of finding another iPhone OLED supplier besides Samsung. Apple currently uses Samsung’s OLED displays for the company’s iPhone X model. The reliance on a single supplier means Samsung controls pricing on the displays that Apple is buying — and there’s no other alternative at the moment.

    https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/20/17261008/apple-iphone-x-lg-display-oled-supply-rumors
    This better explains why the company is looking to create their own screens moving forward.

  • Google is bleeding cash trying to take on Amazon in the smart home

    Because Nest was rolled back into Google proper earlier this year, Alphabet recast its quarterly earnings figures for 2017 to account for the fact that Nest revenues and losses would be moved from the “Other Bets” section of Alphabet’s business to the standard Google revenue line item. Comparing the differences in quarterly revenues and operating income, we can see that Nest made about $726 million in revenue, yet it ultimately contributed a $621 million loss to the “Other Bets” section throughout the year. In other words, Google spent more than half a billion dollars last year to establish Nest in sectors like security cameras, alarm systems, and video doorbells.

    https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/23/17272748/alphabet-google-q1-2018-earnings-nest-smart-home-amazon-competition

Other

  • IBM Could Go From Good To Great With This One Increasingly-Likely Change

    Forbes’ Peter Cohan is one of those doubters. He said in response to the company’s first quarter earnings, “Can IBM turn this around and become a company that persistently beats analyst expectations for revenue and profit growth and raises its forecasts? I don’t think so. That’s because it lacks a sustainable competitive advantage.” The reason for the missing competitive advantage? Cohan goes on to say “The right CEO can make a big difference — just look at how well Microsoft has done thanks to the successful cultural change managed by Satya Nadella. Until IBM gets a new one, it will lack a sustainable competitive advantage.”

    https://seekingalpha.com/article/4164267-ibm-go-good-great-one-increasingly-likely-change

  • How IBM quietly pushed out 20,000 older workers
  • Ajit Pai Is Intentionally Delaying His Net Neutrality Repeal and No One Knows Why

    The most popular theory is that ISPs and the FCC wanted more time to garner support for their effort to pass a bogus net neutrality law. A law they promise will “solve” the net neutrality feud once and for all, but whose real intention is to pre-empt tougher state laws, and block the FCC’s 2015 rules from being restored in the wake of a possible court loss.

    While it may seem like ISPs scored a major victory with last December’s vote at the FCC, that’s simply not the case. Given the FCC’s bizarre behavior during the repeal (ranging from ignoring comment fraud and identity theft during the public comment period to making up a DDOS attack), the repeal remains on some shaky legal ground courtesy of FCC ethical gaffes.

    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wj793y/ajit-pai-net-neutrality-repeal-not-official-yet

Photo by Ryan Loughlin on Unsplash

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Supplier Report: 4/20/2018

Dog not happy about IBM stock

IBM had a rough week with stock prices dropping almost 6% due to stagnating sales.  Some analysts are saying that “big blue” is now too small to compete against the cloud giants and does not have enough cash reserves ($12B) to make any major acquisitions to help them catch up. Bad news aside, the company did unveil the world’s smallest computer which costs 10 cents to make and has the computer power of a 1990’s era PC (think IoT applications).

Qualcomm is planning on cutting 4% of their workforce to yield $1B in cost reductions.  Apple would like to find and cut the person leaking insider information, which was discovered by the press… due to a news leak. The company is also having problems finding customers for their HomePod personal assistant in a market saturated with devices listening to every conversation you have in your home.

Acquisitions

  • Adobe acquires voice interface platform Sayspring

    Adobe today announced that it has acquired Sayspring, a startup that helps developers prototype and build the voice interfaces for their Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant apps. The company says the Sayspring team will join Adobe tomorrow and that it’ll then start integrating the company’s technology into its own products.

    All of Saysprings services are now available for free — but there is a catch. If you want to sign up for the service now, you’ll need an invite. Sayspring says it’ll select invitations and roll out new invites on a rolling basis.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/16/adobe-acquires-voice-interface-platform-sayspring/

Artificial Intelligence

  • Elon Musk says ‘humans are underrated,’ calls Tesla’s ‘excessive automation’ a ‘mistake’

    “Excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake,” Musk wrote, responding to a Wall Street Journal reporter’s tweet. “Humans are underrated.” He also talked about this with CBS News’ Gayle King, adding “we had this crazy, complex network of conveyor belts….And it was not working, so we got rid of that whole thing.”

    Tesla has faced mounting public pressure amid a production slowdown for its Model 3, its lower-priced car. The company recently revealed that it missed its target to produce 2,500 cars a week, disappointing investors.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/13/elon-musk-says-humans-are-underrated-calls-teslas-excessive-automation-a-mistake/

  • AI isn’t ready for prime time because of bad data, say marketers

    During a closed-door town hall session on April 12, one brand executive asked fellow marketers if the data being fed to AI programs today is bad data that may lead to ill-informed results. “I don’t think it’s a question. We’re making decisions off of bad data,” responded one.

    Fortunately for marketers, they aren’t yet using AI to make major business decisions. The examples that attendees most frequently cited during the summit were tailoring product recommendations and personalizing marketing communications. And even to the extent that marketers use AI to make major decisions, they are using it as a gut check. “I think AI is all about decision support. It’s there to tell you what not to do,” said one attendee.

    But brands hope to eventually use AI to automate more of their businesses. One brand exec said she hopes AI can automate approval processes and ensure her company adheres to regulatory requirements.

    https://digiday.com/marketing/ai-isnt-ready-primetime-bad-data-say-marketers/

  • Half of all jobs can today be automated — and within 50 years, all of them can be

    “A large part of the increased income from productivity accrues to already rich people…you may get a proliferation of low-income service jobs rather than a further increase in productivity,” said Turner.

    An example of this effect is the British online food delivery company Deliveroo where, as a result of improved technology, minimum-wage jobs of delivering food on a bicycle have proliferated, he said.

    This phenomenon is also evident in the United States, as the jobs expected to grow the most from 2014 to 2024 are personal care aides, food serving workers, and operation managers, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    “These low-paying service jobs are growing because they for now cannot be automated and because wages are low enough to make automation uneconomic,” Turner explained.

    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/half-of-all-jobs-can-today-be-automated-and-within-50-years-all-of-them-can-be-2018-04-11?ns=prod/accounts-mw

Cloud

  • Oracle Is Leading Anti-Amazon Lobby on Pentagon Cloud Bid

    The Oracle-led effort relies on a loose coalition of technology companies also seeking a slice of the Pentagon work, including Microsoft Corp. and International Business Machines Corp., said the people, who described the matter on condition of anonymity. Dell Technologies Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. are also participating, said one of the people.

    Their goal is to make sure that the award process is opened up to more than one company and unseat Amazon as the front-runner for the multibillion-dollar deal. As part of the campaign, the people said, Oracle is holding regular calls with tech allies, courting trade and mainstream media and lobbying lawmakers, defense officials and the White House.

    Also: (this ties back to SourceCast 113)

    While Oracle’s $187 billion market value is less than a third of Amazon’s, it punches way above its weight in Washington, where it has a team of seasoned policy officials and personal relationships that go all the way to the top.

    Trump personally ordered the Justice Department to hire Oracle’s Ezra Cohen-Watnick to advise Attorney General Jeff Sessions on national security matters, according to people familiar with the matter. Cohen-Watnick went to Oracle in August after leaving the National Security Council, where he had been caught up in a controversy over the release of intelligence material to a member of Congress, according to people familiar with the matter.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-13/oracle-is-said-to-lead-anti-amazon-lobby-on-pentagon-cloud-bid

  • A Tech Giant No More: IBM Is Too Small to Compete in the Cloud Era

    Its latest quarter shows revenue of $19.1 billion, and net income of $1.7 billion, $1.81 per share. That’s just two thirds of what Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) brought in last quarter. Microsoft’s market cap of $742 billion is more than five times IBM’s $137 billion market cap.

    The best reason to buy IBM for years has been its dividend, now yielding 4.03%. But that dividend, $1.50 per share per quarter, is soaking up an ever-greater portion of earnings and will take almost $1.4 billion to service. It means the company only has $12 billion in cash. By contrast Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), the least well-capitalized of the “Cloud Czars,” has $40 billion in cash and short-term securities to sustain its investments.

    IBM simply lacks the financial firepower to win the DoD contract, because it prioritized shareholders over investment early in this decade. Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) did make the commitment to investment, and as a result, history passed IBM by.

    https://investorplace.com/2018/04/international-business-machines-corp-ibm-too-small-to-compete-in-the-cloud-era/

Security

  • In a Leaked Memo, Apple Warns Employees to Stop Leaking Information

    Leaked information about a new product can negatively impact sales of current models, give rivals more time to begin on a competitive response, and lead to fewer sales when the new product launches, according to the memo. “We want the chance to tell our customers why the product is great, and not have that done poorly by someone else,” Greg Joswiak, an Apple product marketing executive, said in the memo.

    The crackdown is part of broader and long-running attempts by Silicon Valley technology companies to track and limit what information their employees share publicly. Firms like Google and Facebook Inc. are pretty open with staff about their plans, but keep close tabs on their outside communications and sometime fire people when they find leaks.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-13/apple-warns-employees-to-stop-leaking-information-to-media

  • Smart Speakers And Their Potential Privacy Concerns

    “‘When you read parts of the applications, it’s really clear that this is spyware and a surveillance system meant to serve you up to advertisers,” Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court told The New York Times. These companies are “basically going to be finding out what our home life is like in qualitative ways.”

    He supports his notions through the patent details.

    “The processor [of the computing system] is configured to use the first data to determine which user is occupying a smart-device environment” and “the properties comprising age, gender, fashion-taste, mood, preferred activities, medical condition, or some combination thereof,” the official filing reads.

    http://dailycaller.com/2018/04/14/smart-speakers-privacy-concerns-alexa/

Software/SaaS

  • Why Amazon Now Wants to Disrupt the P2P Payments Industry

    Just weeks after news leaked that Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) might be interested in launching a checking account-like product, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the company might also be looking into debuting a new peer-to-peer (P2P) payment platform. While details are far from set on how such a service might operate, one idea being floated is to enable Alexa, Amazon’s voice-based smart-home companion, to make payments to friends and family members.

    If the information leaked to The Wall Street Journal is accurate, it wouldn’t be Amazon’s first foray into P2P payments. Years ago, Amazon operated WebPay, a service that allowed Amazon Payments members to send and request money by entering the amount and a contact’s email address on a web page. Amazon eventually shut the service down after it failed to gain traction. As the company explained on its site at the time, “We are not addressing a customer pain point particularly better than anyone else.”

    https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/04/13/why-amazon-now-wants-to-disrupt-the-p2p-payments-i.aspx

  • Microsoft built its own custom Linux kernel for its new IoT service

    Why use Linux? “With Azure Sphere, Microsoft is addressing an entirely new class of IoT devices, the MCU,” Rob Lefferts, Microsoft’s partner director for Windows enterprise and security told me at the event.” Windows IoT runs on microprocessor units (MPUs) which have at least 100x the power of the MCU. The Microsoft-secured Linux kernel used in the Azure Sphere IoT OS is shared under an OSS license so that silicon partners can rapidly enable new silicon innovations.” And those partners are also very comfortable with taking an open-source release and integrating that with their products.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/16/microsoft-built-its-own-custom-linux-kernel-for-its-new-iot-service/

Datacenter/Hardware

  • IBM Unveils World’s Smallest Computer And Its Amazing

    For the terribly tiny size, it sure packs a punch of processing power. It has a processing power of an X86 chip from 1990. You may think that it is not that powerful but remember, we need a microscope to clearly see the chip.

    The computer will cost less than ten cents to manufacture, and will also pack “several hundred thousand transistors,” according to the company. These will allow it to “monitor, analyze, communicate, and even act on data.”

    https://www.technotification.com/2018/04/ibm-worlds-smallest-computer.html

  • Is Apple’s HomePod failing?

    For me, it’s Apple’s refusal to compromise on the practical things that kills any reason for me to buy the HomePod, despite being a fully paid-up Apple fanboy. I’d love, for instance, to use the HomePod with Spotify like I do with the Google Home Mini. Or, even better, use an optical-in connection to connect it to my TV and use it as my home’s primary speaker. The same product with one tiny concession to the real world would be a much more popular product, for sure. And don’t get me started on the lack of Bluetooth. You can argue that even with AptX it’s lower quality audio, but its omission is a raised middle finger to everyone.

    https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/13/apple-homepod-failing-editorial/

Other

  • Supreme Court Weighs Widening States’ Reach on Online Sales Taxes

    The current tax rules—from the era of mail-order catalogs—helped fuel the rise of internet commerce and spurred frustration among brick-and-mortar retailers, shopping-mall owners and state governments.

    Tax and legal experts expect the court to overturn the precedent, freeing states to collect levies on future cross-state transactions. It isn’t clear what new standard might take its place or what rules states might impose.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-set-to-weigh-online-sales-taxes-1523790801?ns=prod/accounts-wsj

  • Backpage.com CEO pleads guilty to human trafficking

    Documents unsealed today by the Justice Department (PDF) reveal Backpage.com CEO Carl Ferrer pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges in Arizona on April 5th, a day before the site was seized and shut down. Additionally, attorneys general in California and Texas announced today that the site itself has entered a guilty plea to charges of human trafficking in Texas, while Ferrer pleaded guilty to conspiracy and three counts of money laundering in California. Several corporate entities tied to the site, including Backpage.com LLC, also entered guilty pleas to charges of money laundering.

    As a part of the deal that will see him serve a maximum of five years in prison, the prosecutors say Ferrer has surrendered the URLs of the site and its data to law enforcement, and that he will cooperate in the prosecution against others involved with the company — namely co-founders and controlling shareholders Michael Lacey and James Larkin, who were indicted April 9th.

    https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/12/backpage-ceo-pleads-guilty-to-human-trafficking-money-launderin/

  • IBM Falls After Quarterly Margins Narrow and Sales Stagnate

    International Business Machines Corp. reported first-quarter sales of $19.1 billion, beating the average analyst estimate of $18.8 billion. That’s a 5 percent gain since last year, but only when the weak U.S. dollar was factored in. Without it, revenue growth was unchanged. Growth in the key “strategic imperatives” business lines — which includes the company’s cloud, analytics and mobile-focused businesses — was up 10 percent from a year earlier to $9 billion when adjusted for currency changes.

    The stock dropped as much as 5.8 percent, to $151.54, in extended trading after ending the day up 1.9 percent.

    Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty is working to pull IBM back from over five years of revenue declines. She reversed the trend late last year though that boost wasn’t fueled as much by the new businesses as by cyclical demand for mainframe servers. Investors are watching closely to see whether she can ramp up gains in IBM’s newer software and services to sustain the improvement when the bump from hardware sales fades.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-17/ibm-sales-buoyed-by-weaker-u-s-dollar-shift-to-new-businesses

  • Qualcomm Job Cuts Total 4.4% of Workforce So Far

    Qualcomm is cutting 4.4% of its workforce starting in June, according to documents filed with the state of California. The layoffs include 1,231 employees in San Diego, where the chip maker has its headquarters, and 269 in San Jose and Santa Clara, according to the documents.

    The company employed 33,800, including part-time workers, as of September 2017, according to a regulatory filing.

    The $1 billion cost-reduction program is part of a profit-boosting plan unveiled in January, intended to persuade investors the company would be more valuable on its own than combined with Broadcom Corp. , which at the time was pursuing a hostile takeover bid. President Donald Trump scuttled Broadcom’s overture with a March executive order blocking a deal on national security grounds.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/qualcomm-cuts-jobs-to-boost-profit-1524115042?ns=prod/accounts-wsj

Photo by Brianna Santellan on Unsplash