Supplier Report: 3/27/2020
Photo by Christopher Windus on Unsplash
As more travel and movement restrictions are announced, there is less technology news being released… which is disappointing as I am looking for any news other than Corona.
Thankfully there is SOME news out there. I am glad to see that AT&T is canceling plans to buy back stock and keeping cash reserves for the impending financial doom that is likely to come.
SAP Ariba did hold a virtual version of their Ariba Live conference last week and I have been picking over the videos.
Acquisitions/Investments
- The Airlines Want A $58 Billion Bailout After Spending $45 Billion On Stock Buybacks
Help in the U.S. is needed because “this crisis hit a previously robust, healthy industry at lightning speed,” Airlines for America said in a statement. The trade group outlined a proposal for $50 billion for passenger airlines and $8 billion for cargo carriers.
But the request for taxpayer assistance via loans, grants and tax relief comes after a decade of massive consolidation — and billions in profits — that put the industry in a far more robust condition than before.
What’s more, from 2010 to 2019, U.S. airlines spent 96% of their free cash flow, some $45 billion, to purchase shares of their own stock, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The world’s largest carrier, American Airlines Group Inc., was the biggest buyer, spending $12.5 billion.
- SoftBank reportedly balks at commitment to buy $3B in shares from WeWork shareholders
Citing a notice sent to WeWork shareholders, the Journal reported that if SoftBank reneged on the buyback, it would not go back on its commitment to give the office sharing company a $5 billion lifeline.
According to the Journal’s reporting, the deal to buy back shares isn’t canceled, and could just be an effort to renegotiate terms in light of the global economic slowdown caused by the world’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
- AT&T Warns Coronavirus Financial Impact ‘Could Be Material,’ Nixes $4 Billion Stock-Buyback Plan
AT&T called off plans to repurchase $4 billion in stock during the second quarter — and has halted all other buybacks — saying it has decided to keep the cash to invest in its networks and in taking care of employees during the coronavirus pandemic.
The telco, which made the disclosure Friday in an SEC filing, said that while its business “continues to operate effectively” during the COVID-19 outbreak the ongoing crisis could have a material impact on financial results.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has [affected] and will continue affecting economies and businesses around the world. The impacts of the pandemic could be material, but due to the evolving nature of this situation, we are not able at this time to estimate the impact on our financial or operational results,” AT&T said in the filing.
https://variety.com/2020/biz/news/att-coronavirus-material-cancels-stock-buyback-plan-1203540168/
Software/SaaS
- Google halts upcoming releases of Chrome and Chrome OS to keep things stable for everyone working from home
It makes sense that Google doesn’t want to risk unforeseen bugs popping up and making life more difficult for Chromebook owners and everyone doing their work in Chrome during these stressful days. This is also an admission that it’s difficult to balance Chrome stability and new features with the team so decentralized. So Google is wisely prioritizing the former.
- SAP’s Ariba Live online: ‘The Network Effect for Buyers and Suppliers’
Volume growth appears to be coming from three key areas — free supplier enablement options (for lower volume suppliers), general network/transaction growth for existing and new customers, and direct materials/EDI growth.
However, from a network-value effect perspective, it is true that many of the benefits that we normally see in supplier portals and supplier networks are more oriented to the communication and exchange of documents between buyers and suppliers (rather than deeper and more complex collaboration) — with benefits generally being of greater value for the buyers than for suppliers.
In Sean’s videoconference he mentioned that they have been working closely with its Supplier Advisory Board to understand what the most important supplier needs and wants are from an ecosystem perspective, and not surprisingly what suppliers want is more sales to drive more revenue and an easier way to use the Ariba Supplier Network (changing the way buyers & suppliers interact, better ways to manage the information, and more network-centric applications). It’s interesting that they didn’t mention a free network, at least for certain services and transactions; but that’s another story we’ve repeatedly addressed in Spend Matters’ coverage.
- OK, Fine, Let’s All Get Back on Facebook
It’s been almost exactly two years since Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal. It’s also around two years since I wrote about why Facebook didn’t need to listen in on our mics. After all that, I didn’t #deletefacebook, but I vowed to take a step back from its products.
The reality is, the company collects more personal data than it needs to perform the services it offers users, and has been evasive and even dishonest when asked about all of that data collection.
Yet just one week into self-isolation, I’m pointing a Facebook-connected camera at my son.
It’s the ultimate test of what we’re willing to live with after all we’ve learned over the last two years: To make our lives better—or at least easier—will we give the tech giant a pass on its fast and loose take on privacy?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ok-fine-lets-all-get-back-on-facebook-11584763207
Hell No… join Slack or get a Discord server.
Infrastructure/Hardware
- YouTube joins Netflix in reducing video quality in Europe
YouTube is reducing the quality of its videos in Europe, as an increase in home usage strains the continent’s internet during the novel coronavirus outbreak, Reuters reports. “We are making a commitment to temporarily switch all traffic in the EU to standard definition by default,” the company said in a statement.
The decision comes after EU industry chief Thierry Breton called on streaming platforms to help reduce their load on the continent’s infrastructure. Internet traffic is increasing as more people spend time at home in line with social-distancing guidelines during the pandemic. There are fears about the strain this could place on the internet’s infrastructure, and cause further disruption to remote workers and e-learning activities now that businesses and schools have been shuttered.
Other
- ‘They don’t care about safety’: Amazon workers struggle with pandemic demand
Workers say the hectic pace of work amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak is devastating for their physical and mental health as they try to keep up with massive new demand. They also have to deal with their own worries and problems coping with the pandemic.
“My kids are off from school. A lot of businesses are letting workers work from home. But Amazon workers are going in extra time, we’re doing the opposite of what everybody else is doing and due to the nature of our work, it’s hands-on. We have to do that,” said an Amazon warehouse worker in Troutdale, Oregon, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.
“I usually work 40 hours a week, four 10-hour shifts. We’ve all been called in for a mandatory extra day, a 10-hour shift, which is usually reserved for holiday peak season,” the worker added.
- Anthony Levandowski pleads guilty to one count of trade secrets theft under plea deal
Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer and serial entrepreneur who was at the center of a lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, has pleaded guilty to one count of stealing trade secrets while working at Google under a plea agreement reached with the U.S. District Attorney.
While Levandowski still faces a possible prison sentence of between 24 to 30 months, the outcome is much rosier than it could have been. In August, federal grand jury indicted Levandowski on 33 counts of theft and attempted theft. He was looking at a protracted legal fight and a trial that wasn’t expected to begin until 2021.
Supplier Report: 4/12/2019
Google had a very rough week.
First it was discovered that they lost AI researcher Ian Goodfellow to Apple, who has made a habit of stealing Google’s AI talent of late.
Then the company announced the dissolution of their AI ethics board…after only one week. Some of their board selections received critical feedback both internally and externally.
Finally, Google’s temp labor teams published a letter requesting better treatment. Google responded to these demands by announcing their temporary labor services suppliers will provide better pay and benefits, but the temps say that isn’t enough, as they are looking to be treated with dignity.
Acquisitions
Artificial Intelligence
- IBM Watson knows when you’re planning to quit your job
At CNBC’s Work Talent + HR Summit, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty revealed that the company AI has got so adept at detecting employee satisfaction that it’s now in the “95 per cent accuracy range.”
Rometty wouldn’t be drawn on what data points Watson consults, but Googling the spelling of “curriculum vitae”, alongside extended periods on LinkedIn would be our first clue. Nobody has ever visited LinkedIn recreationally, after all.
Watson’s “predictive attrition program” is used to retain talent, because as Rometty says, “the best time to get to an employee is before they go.” The company estimates that the early interventions will have saved it nearly $300m in retention costs.
- What AI Will Do to Corporate Hierarchies
The obvious answer may be that the management structure is likely to get more centralized and rigid. After all, AI will help managers track more detailed data about everything their subordinates are doing, which should make it easier—and more inviting—to exercise stricter controls.
This will no doubt be true in some cases. But look more closely, and I believe the opposite is much more likely to happen in many cases. That’s because when AI does the routine tasks, much of the remaining nonroutine work is likely to be done in loose “adhocracies,” ever-shifting groups of people with the combinations of skills needed for whatever problems arise.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-ai-will-do-to-corporate-hierarchies-11554158120
- Apple has poached another of Google’s top AI researchers
Ian Goodfellow is one of the most prominent names in artificial intelligence, and previously worked at both Google and the Elon Musk-founded lab OpenAI. But, as first reported by CNBC, Goodfellow recently updated his LinkedIn profile to note that he is now working at Apple as a director for machine learning at the company’s Special Projects group.
It’s not the first time Apple has used Google as an AI talent incubator, with the iPhonemaker luring away Goodfellow’s former boss, Google’s head of AI, John Giannandrea, last April.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/5/18296473/apple-google-ai-research-poached-ian-goodfellow
- Google dissolves AI ethics board just one week after forming it
Google today disclosed that it has dissolved a short-lived, external advisory board designed to monitor its use of artificial intelligence, following a week of controversy regarding the company’s selection of members. The decision, reported first today by Vox, is largely due to outcry over the board’s inclusion of Heritage Foundation president Kay Coles James, a noted conservative figure who has openly espoused anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and, through the Heritage Foundation, fought efforts to extend rights to transgender individuals and to combat climate change.
The advisory board, called the Advanced Technology External Advisory Council (ATEAC), included a number of prominent academics in fields ranging from AI and philosophy to psychology and robotics. But it also included those with policy backgrounds, like James and members of former US presidential administrations.
Cloud
Security
- Facebook will stop asking new users for their email passwords
Facebook told Axios that “a very small group of people have the option of entering their email password to verify their account when they sign up for Facebook,” but noted that people could choose instead to confirm their account with a code or link sent to their phone or email.
“That said, we understand the password verification option isn’t the best way to go about this, so we are going to stop offering it,” the company said in a statement.
Software/SaaS
- PwC Tests Blockchain for Validating Job Candidates’ Credentials
If the technology becomes widely used, staffers won’t have to verify a candidate’s credentials by calling universities and previous employers, which can sometimes take weeks, Mr. Cushley said. The challenge, though, will be getting enough schools and companies on board to make blockchain truly valuable for validating credentials, he said.
- American Express, SAP Ariba join forces for End-to-End B2B payments
Sources close to the move claim that American Express, as a network extension partner, will use Ariba Network APIs to allow its virtual Card potentials within the SAP Ariba platform & process to facilitate secure payments, seamless commerce, and easy settlement between businesses on a single platform.
Moreover, businesses, through the new integration, will have the opportunity to use their current American Express® Corporate Cards to make virtual Card payments, further making it easy for customers to get started without the need to create and maintain a standalone account.
http://solutionrocket.com/american-express-sap-ariba-join-forces-end-end-b2b-payments/
- Why Oracle is happy to lose to AWS and MongoDB
Put another way, how is it that Oracle can be such a miss with developers and yet still print billions of dollars in revenue? I’m guessing Hurd doesn’t care much about developer adoption. He likely doesn’t care that, measured in popularity, Oracle has been in terminal decline for many years, as DB-Engines’ data suggests. In fact, if you look at the database technologies for which developers ask the most questions (indicating production use) on Stack Overflow, only MongoDB and PostgreSQL are booming (of the top-five database technologies).
No, what Hurd cares about, as he acknowledges in his remarks to CNBC, is the fact that Oracle still controls roughly half of the global database market, worth tens of billions of dollars. Never mind that, as Gartner analyst Merv Adrian has highlighted, Oracle has lost market share every year since 2013, and collectively the old guard relational database players have shed nearly five percentage points.
https://www.infoworld.com/article/3387123/why-oracle-is-happy-to-lose-to-aws-and-mongodb.html
Infrastructure/Hardware
- Samsung Expects 60% Decline in First-Quarter Operating Profit
The world’s largest smartphone and memory chips maker by shipments has felt the economic slowdown acutely. Companies and consumers, hesitant to spend amid the U.S.-China trade fight, according to tech industry executives, have delayed smartphone purchases and moderated investments into areas like data servers.
Samsung’s results are closely watched because of its dual role as one of the world’s biggest hardware makers and a major supplier of electronics companies—including to rivals such as Apple Inc., which buys displays and chips from the Suwon, South Korea, company.
- Verizon’s 5G network is blazing fast, but it barely exists
Yesterday, the leading US carrier triumphantly announced the debut of 5G service in “select areas of Chicago and Minneapolis,” and said that “for the first time ever, customers can access a commercial 5G network with the world’s first commercially available 5G-enabled smartphone.” Verizon welcoming customers onto its 5G network came a week earlier than initially planned. Verizon hasn’t said why it abruptly moved things up, but carriers in South Korea also went live with 5G yesterday, so it’s possible the company didn’t want to get beat by its global peers.
I know you want speed tests, so to get started, yes, Verizon’s 5G data speeds are quite fast compared to what your smartphone can handle right now. I’m hitting between 400 and 600 Mbps on downloads. I can also tell you that, at least in Chicago, this feels like a premature launch, and 5G can be awfully hard to come by. When you do find it, you’ve basically got to stay where you are to see what it’s capable of.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/4/18295600/verizon-5g-network-first-tests-data-speed
Other
- Jeff Bezos, Amazon C.E.O., and MacKenzie Bezos Finalize Divorce Details
Mr. Bezos will keep 75 percent of the couple’s Amazon stock and all of their ownership of The Washington Post and the Blue Origin space company, Ms. Bezos wrote. Mr. Bezos will also have “sole voting authority” over Ms. Bezos’ Amazon shares, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
After the divorce, Ms. Bezos will own roughly 4 percent of Amazon, a stake that was worth almost $36 billion on Thursday. By keeping 75 percent of the couple’s Amazon shares, or about 12 percent of the company, Mr. Bezos will most likely remain the richest person in the world. His remaining stake in the company was worth almost $108 billion on Thursday. (Bill Gates, the second wealthiest, is worth $102 billion, according to Bloomberg.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/technology/bezos-divorce-mackenzie.html
- UN says US fears over Huawei’s 5G are politically motivated
The secretary general of the UN’s internet and telecoms agency has suggested US concerns about 5G networks built using Huawei equipment have more to do with politics and trade, rather than legitimate worries over security. “There is no proof so far,” Houlin Zhao, head of the International Telecommunication Union, said regarding claims about Huawei’s security. He noted it’s in telecoms’ best interests to make sure their infrastructure is secure as they might otherwise feel the wrath of authorities.
“I would encourage Huawei to be given equal opportunities to bid for business, and during the operational process, if you find anything wrong, then you can charge them and accuse them,” Zhao said, according to Reuters. “But if we don’t have anything then to put them on the blacklist — I think this is not fair.”
https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/05/un-huawei-5g-network-security-allegations/
- Google staff condemn treatment of temp workers in ‘historic’ show of solidarity
TVCs make up 54% of Google’s global workforce, and more than half of the people on the personality team, according to the letter. The TVCs on the personality team sit alongside Google FTEs in offices around the world, but they are employed by a staffing agency on contracts ranging from two to six months at a time.
On 8 March, about 80% of the TVCs on the team – 34 people – were informed that their contracts were ending ahead of schedule, either on 5 April or, in a few cases, on 31 July, according to the letter.
The layoffs took place around the globe, starting in Seoul, and hitting London just as TVCs in New York were heading to work.
“During the process, our managers and the full-time workers on our team were silent,” the letter states. “Google told them that offering support or even thanking us for years of work would make the company legally liable. Our teammates were told to distance themselves from us at the moment when we were most in need – just so that Google could avoid legal responsibility.”
- The EU Is Pissed at Steam for Region-Locking Games
“Valve believes that the EC’s extension of liability to a platform provider in these circumstances is not supported by applicable law,” he wrote. Lombardi claimed that without the ability to geo-block games in the EU, publishers will have to raise prices in “less affluent regions” to avoid people in more affluent regions buying games there rather than at home. Traditionally, prices on Steam vary from region to region.
The recipients of the Commission’s objections will now have the opportunity to examine the Commission’s investigation files, respond in writing, and request a hearing. If the Commission concludes that there was an infringement, it could prohibit the alleged conduct and impose a fine of “up to 10% of a company’s annual worldwide turnover.”
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/panj7v/the-eu-is-pissed-at-steam-for-region-locking-games
Photo by DJ Johnson on Unsplash
Supplier Report: 8/10/2018
Big mergers seems to be getting push back. The AT&T acquisition of Time-Warner is still under scrutiny (as is the Judge that approved it) and the Sinclair acquisition of Tribune was officially shut down. Elon Musk also might be over running a publicly traded company and is thinking about taking Telsa private.
In other news, IBM is still struggling with Watson and bots might pick your veggies in the near future.
Acquisitions
- AT&T Not Out of the Legal Woods Yet
In the original case, the government argued that AT&T would be able to dictate higher carriage fees to competing distributors by threatening to withhold its cable networks from rival pay-TV providers, leading to higher prices for consumers. Judge Leon concluded that the facts didn’t uphold that. Antitrust experts say the government is likely to argue that the judge defined the market too loosely, allowing AT&T’s argument that its competition includes tech firms like Netflix , Facebook and Amazon.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/at-t-not-out-of-the-legal-woods-yet-1533549600
DOJ’s Behind-the-Scenes Struggles With Judge in AT&T CaseJeffrey Jacobovitz, an antitrust lawyer with Arnall Golden Gregory LLP who isn’t connected with the case, said judges have their own styles for administering trials, though sidebar conferences generally happen more in jury trials, so jurors won’t be influenced. There was no jury in the AT&T trial.
“It’s unusual for a judge to have voluminous sidebars when it’s the judge resolving the ultimate issues,” Mr. Jacobovitz said.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/dojs-behind-the-scenes-struggles-with-judge-in-at-t-case-1533682305
- Sinclair’s Bid to Monopolize Local TV News Is Officially Dead
Said behavior included what critics say were “sham” divestment deals, where Sinclair attempted to offload some stations to companies it still controlled in a bid to pretend the deal would fall within media ownership limits. Currently, the law states no one broadcaster can reach more than 38% of households (Sinclair would have reached 72% had the deal been approved).
Sinclair’s efforts were so brazen, they forced even the historically mega-industry-friendly FCC chief Ajit Pai to shovel the deal off to an administrative law judge, a move traditionally seen as a death knell for such megadeals.
- Elon Musk is seriously considering taking Tesla private
“The reason for doing this is all about creating the environment for Tesla to operate best,” Musk began. Being a public company means being subjected to wild swings in stock prices (it even spiked earlier today after his tweet talking about taking the company private), and such volatility can be a “major distraction” for both Tesla’s workforce and shareholders. It’s the latter Musk seems to want to mute by going private, as he lamented the pressure that putting out quarterly reports (which are mandated by law for public companies) puts on the company to make decisions that will look better in the short term but not serve Tesla best in the long run. He also noted that going private would avoid stock shorting attempts to harm the company.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/07/elon-musk-admits-want-take-tesla-private/
Artificial Intelligence
- Employees at Google, Amazon and Microsoft Have Threatened to Walk Off the Job Over the Use of AI
There is certainly a lot to worry about. Widespread use of facial-recognition technology by law enforcement can spell the end of speech, association and privacy rights (just think about the ability to identify, catalog and store thousands of facial images from a boisterous political rally). As O’Neill reminds us in her book, the algorithms employed in large chain store hiring processes and credit worthiness decision are opaque and lack self-correction mechanisms. They give off an air of objectivity and authority while encoding the prejudices of the people who programmed them. Weapons systems combining face recognition and social-media access can pick off opponents more efficiently than the most ruthless assassin. The images of swarm-drone warfare in Slaughterbots are the stuff of nightmares.
- Your vegetables are going to be picked by robots sooner than you think
Root AI is focused on the 2.3 million square feet of indoor farms that currently exist in the world and is hoping to expand as the number of farms cultivating crops indoors increases. Some estimates from analysis firms like Agrilyst put the planned expansions in indoor farming at around 22 million square feet (much of that in the U.S.).
While that only amounts to roughly 505 acres of land — a fraction of the 900 million acres of farmland that’s currently cultivated in the U.S. — those indoor farms offer huge yield advantages over traditional farms with a much lower footprint in terms of resources used. The average yield per acre in indoor farms for vine crops like tomatoes, and leafy greens, is over ten times higher than outdoor farms.
- IBM Has a Watson Dilemma
Recommending personal medical treatment is a taller order. The software needs to be trained with data on what has worked in the past, including details on patients’ medical histories and treatment outcomes. That information is often recorded in different formats and owned by different companies, and isn’t always complete or consistent.
Moreover, human doctors still have a lot to learn about the science of disease, including cancer.
Oncology won’t be “a great space for making [AI] products” until there’s better data about patients, spanning genetic, environmental, lifestyle and health information, said Bob Kocher, a medical doctor and partner at venture-capital firm Venrock in Palo Alto, Calif. In the near term, most of the benefits from AI in the health-care field will come in administrative tasks such as billing, he added.
Cloud
- AWS error exposed GoDaddy business secrets
The information involved in the security breach appeared to describe GoDaddy’s architecture, as well as “high-level configuration information for tens of thousands of systems and pricing options for running those systems in Amazon AWS, including the discounts offered under different scenarios,” according to UpGuard.
Configuration files for hostnames, operating systems, workloads, AWS regions, memory, CPU specifications, and more were included in the exposed cache, which described at least 24,000 systems.
“Essentially, this data mapped a very large scale AWS cloud infrastructure deployment, with 41 different columns on individual systems, as well as summarized and modeled data on totals, averages, and other calculated fields,” the cybersecurity firm said.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/aws-error-exposed-godaddy-server-secrets/
- DXC Technology and AWS join forces for new integration practice
DXC Technology and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are joining forces to build a new integrated practice focused on delivering IT migration, application transformation and industry-specific cloud services.
The multibillion-dollar DXC – AWS Integrated Practice is part of a multi-year, global agreement that also encompasses joint development, marketing, sales, and delivery of AWS solutions. Specifically, these services include managed security and compliance services for AWS; dedicated VMware Cloud on AWS migration solutions and analytics and application services on AWS.
Security
- iPhone supplier TSMC shut down factories after virus attack
TSMC is the largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world, and supplies components for companies like ADM, Apple, Nvidia, and Qualcomm. The company told Bloomberg that the virus infected a “number of its fabrication tools,” but that the “degree of infection varies” from factory to factory. Several have resumed their operations, but others won’t come back online until tomorrow. The company indicated that its factories weren’t infected by a hacker.
Software/SaaS
- Oracle introduces autonomous transaction processing database – pounds on AWS
We’re the easiest database in the world to use. There’s nothing to learn, there’s nothing to do. It’s much much less labor involved so it’s much, much lower in cost. It’s truly elastic because you only pay for the infrastructure that you use. So when the application is not running then Oracle deactivates servers – it’s called a serverless system. And if you’re at a busy time then it will automatically add servers while the system is is still running.
- SAP Ariba Named a Leader in Gartner 2018 Magic Quadrant for Strategic
SAP Ariba today announced it has been positioned in the Leaders quadrant of the Gartner 2018 Magic Quadrant for Strategic Sourcing Application Suites. (Gartner, Inc. Magic Quadrant for Strategic Sourcing Application Suites, Magnus Bergfors, Patrick M. Connaughton, et al., August 1, 2018). In May, SAP Ariba was also recognized in the Gartner 2018 Magic Quadrant for Procure-to-Pay Suites alongside SAP Fieldglass.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180806005442/en/SAP-Ariba-Named-Leader-Gartner-2018-Magic
- Salesforce Promotes Keith Block to Co-CEO
Mr. Block, a former Oracle Corp. executive who joined Salesforce in 2013 as vice chairman and president, now will report directly to Salesforce’s board of directors. Mr. Benioff, who will go from being sole CEO to co-CEO, will continue leading the company’s “vision and innovation in areas including technology, marketing, stakeholder engagement and culture,” while Mr. Block will run the company’s “growth strategy, execution and operations,” Salesforce said.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/salesforce-promotes-keith-block-to-co-ceo-1533704207
Datacenter/Hardware
- Samsung is still trying to make DeX happen
The idea of a pocketable laptop-like machine has its merits, and in theory, DeX is promising. It’s the combination of a small accessory for the Galaxy S8, Note 8 and S9 with a software mode (like on the Tab S4) that provides a faux desktop system. To minimize the number of loose accessories you have to carry around, Samsung introduced HDMI compatibility on the Note 9, so you can plug it into any supported display with an HDMI to USB-C converter and use the DeX software to immediately get to work. You can leave the converter cable on your desk or attached to the screen, so all you need to bring is your phone. Neat.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/10/samsung-dex-success-outside-mainstream/
I am all about this type of technology. It needs to happen and corporations should get behind it.
Other
- The greedy ways Apple got to $1 trillion
We still turn to Apple because it makes the best core products. But the edges of the customer experience have frayed like the wires of a Lightning cable. The key to Apple’s fortune is obviously selling high margin iPhones, not these ways it nickels and dimes us. But the company has an opportunity to raise its standards after this milestone, and win back the faith that could push it to a $2 trillion market cap.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/04/the-greedy-ways-apple-got-to-1-trillion/
Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash