Tag: Elon Musk

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News You Can Use: 10/3/2018

Social Media is Exhausting

  • You’re Probably Not Even Thinking About One of Social Media’s Biggest Dangers

    When people start sharing information with the public, it can open up doors for the information to be used against them. Details like full name, date of birth, hometown and even school locations and dates of graduation can become dangerous in the wrong hands. Social media platforms typically require your name and your date of birth, but most platforms will give you the option to not make the information shareable.

    Beyond basic information, be careful about what you post. Of course, you should not share your debit/credit card and social security numbers with people online, but images can be dangerous, too. A few examples would be things like posting a picture of your new car and not covering your license plate number or sharing event details that contain your home address.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/320172

  • More tech companies drop college degree requirement

    “In 2017, IBM’s vice president of talent, Joanna Daley told CNBC Make It that about 15 percent of her company’s U.S. hires don’t have a four-year degree. She said that instead of looking exclusively at candidates who went to college, IBM now looks at candidates who have hands-on experience via a coding boot camp or an industry-related vocational class,” according to this CNBC article.

    Now, Apple, Google and EY are joining the ranks of companies that don’t require a degree, according to a list from Glassdoor.com.

    https://www.cio.com/article/3309059/careers-staffing/more-tech-companies-drop-college-degree-requirement.html

  • Career advice from the “Edison of medicine”
  • LinkedIn’s Co-Founder Warns of Perils in Regulating Big Tech

    If Facebook was restricted and slowed down, maybe what we’d all have is [China’s] WeChat. So, instead of having Facebook as our platform, which is a thing we can evolve in, it’s actually in fact a Chinese company that’s doing it. It’s like simply saying, “Oh, we’re a monopoly in the whole world, and we’re gonna slow down our industry as a way of [solving tech problems],” but that is not a very rational policy.

    Tech needs to do a much better job being transparent. But I prefer a pattern where the government says, “We want you to show you’re having the following improving impact on society. If you’re doing that, we don’t need regulation.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/linkedins-co-founder-warns-of-perils-in-regulating-big-tech-1537967181?ns=prod/accounts-wsj

  • Elon Musk is sad and disappointed by the SEC’s fraud charges

    Reached for comment, a Tesla spokesperson sent the following statement from Musk:

    “This unjustified action by the SEC leaves me deeply saddened and disappointed. I have always taken action in the best interests of truth, transparency and investors. Integrity is the most important value in my life and the facts will show I never compromised this in any way.”

    Later, Tesla sent a second statement, this one a joint statement from the company and board of directors:

    “Tesla and the board of directors are fully confident in Elon, his integrity, and his leadership of the company, which has resulted in the most successful US auto company in over a century. Our focus remains on the continued ramp of Model 3 production and delivering for our customers, shareholders and employees.”

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90243445/read-the-secs-full-fraud-complaint-against-tesla-ceo-elon-musk

Photo by Aleksandar Cvetanovic on Unsplash

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Supplier Report: 8/24/2018

The Source: IBM wants to get you coffee

This week the news is very beverage focused: IBM wants robots to get you coffee and Pepsi bought Israeli company SodaStream.

Microsoft is under investigation for software fraud in Turkey while Amazon quietly gobbles up all of our energy (at a discounted rate).

Finally, Tesla is staying public because I am sure that was keeping everyone up at night.

Acquisitions

  • Pepsi buys SodaStream for a future beyond cola

    The deal will also help SodaStream expand its global reach. It currently distributes in 80,000 stores across 45 countries, with the bulk of its custom coming from Western Europe which is seeing an increasing backlash against single-use plastic. The company estimates their machines help consumers save up to 1,000 bottles and cans a year, no doubt a driver behind the extremely successful quarter it reported recently. Revenue climbed 31 percent to $171.5 million for the quarter to June 30, while net income jumped 82 percent. Of course Pepsi is going to want a piece of that.

    https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/20/pepsi-buys-sodastream-for-a-future-beyond-cola/
    It isn’t a tech deal, but it is Israeli-based (and I did a podcast about this topic).

Artificial Intelligence

  • AI Can Manipulate Video to Make Everybody Dance Now

    In a paper posted to the arXiv preprint server this week, researchers at the University of California Berkeley demonstrate how they designed AI that, given video of an expert dancer and an amateur, can transfer the moves from one to the other and create convincing video of the amateur pulling off some seriously impressive rug-cutting. But that’s not all.

    “With our framework,” the researchers wrote, “we create a variety of videos, enabling untrained amateurs to spin and twirl like ballerinas, perform martial arts kicks or dance as vibrantly as pop stars.”

    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43pebw/ai-can-manipulate-video-to-make-anybody-dance

  • IBM has invented coffee drones – and they predict when you need a cup

    IBM has secured a patent for a coffee drone that not only flies around public spaces to deliver cups of brew but also predicts which people need caffeine pick-me-ups.

    According to paperwork filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the device could be used in an office, cafe or event setting, where a preordered cup of joe would be delivered to the drinker or where a thirsty individual would flag it down. Facial- or voice-recognition software, an electronic ID tag or Bluetooth from a person’s smartphone ensures the coffee gets to the right person.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/08/22/ibm-has-invented-coffee-drones-and-they-predict-when-you-need-cup/1051161002/

Cloud

  • Amazon is one of the largest consumers of electricity but is offloading costs onto others

    Supporting the power requirements of astoundingly large data centers is no small feat. AWS is now responsible for nearly two percent of all electrical power consumption in the United States. Under secretive agreements between Amazon and energy providers, the true costs of running such massive data centers are well hidden from the public.

    In Ohio, Amazon opened three data centers in 2016 that are all operating with secret electric rates. Only five representatives on a public utility commission, a private development agency known as JobsOhio, and Amazon know how much is being paid for a public service. Amazon claims that its discounted rates are a trade secret and therefore must be redacted in any requests for public records.

    https://www.techspot.com/news/76042-amazon-one-largest-consumers-electricity-but-offloading-costs.html

Security

  • T-Mobile says hackers stole customer data in data breach

    The cell giant, currently merging with Sprint, said in a statement that hackers customer stole names, billing zip codes, phone numbers, email addresses, account numbers, and account type — such as if an account was prepaid or postpaid — in what the company described as an “unauthorized capture of data.”

    No customer financial or billing data was compromised, the company said.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/24/t-mobile-says-hackers-stole-customer-data-in-data-breach/

  • Who needs democracy when you have data?

    “No government has a more ambitious and far-­reaching plan to harness the power of data to change the way it governs than the Chinese government,” says Martin Chorzempa of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC. Even some foreign observers, watching from afar, may be tempted to wonder if such data-driven governance offers a viable alternative to the increasingly dysfunctional­looking electoral model. But over-­relying on the wisdom of technology and data carries its own risks.

    https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611815/who-needs-democracy-when-you-have-data/

Software/SaaS

  • Oracle’s Bad Boy Image

    Oracle exercises its contractual right to audit the use of its software at customer locations. When an audit turns up a violation or potential violation of the license agreement, the sides work out a solution that often involves additional license purchases. No one likes this.

    The process makes Oracle look bad in the eyes of the public, who think of licensing as supporting one or a few software deployments. However, although the audits are randomized, they often involve customers with hundreds, or even thousands, of licenses spread across far flung empires.

    https://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/85521.html

Datacenter/Hardware

  • Big Spenders Pinch Chip Equipment Makers

    The culprit? Semiconductor equipment companies live on the capital spending of chip makers. That spending has been cyclical historically, and has seen a big upswing over the past couple years thanks to booming demand for components like memory chips. But nothing lasts forever, and two of the world’s largest chip makers—Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing —seem to be trimming their outlays again.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/big-spenders-pinch-chip-equipment-makers-1534600801

Other

  • Microsoft Hit With U.S. Bribery Probe Over Deals in Hungary

    The investigation follows a series of similar probes into Microsoft business partners that surfaced in 2013 in five other countries. Microsoft made a push earlier this decade to expand in emerging markets, as well as smaller, middle-income countries like Hungary. In some cases, those bets have turned into legal and reputational challenges.

    The U.S. Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission are probing how Microsoft sold software such as Word and Excel to middleman firms in Hungary that then sold those products to government agencies there in 2013 and 2014, according to these people.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-hit-with-u-s-bribery-probe-over-deals-in-hungary-1535055576?ns=prod/accounts-wsj

  • Tesla will remain public, Elon Musk says

    Musk’s go-private plan didn’t just cause consternation among his shareholders — it also interested the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to The New York Times. “is ramping up an investigation about whether he misled investors and violated federal securities laws,” The Times reported earlier today. Previous reporting in The Wall Street Journal suggested that the SEC was already investigating Tesla for possibly misleading investors about its Model 3 production. Tesla faces at least three investor lawsuits that accuse Musk’s August 7 tweet of being market manipulation.

    https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/24/17780714/elon-musk-tesla-staying-public

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

Posted on

News You Can Use: 4/04/2018

  • Tesla’s Elon Musk Tells Trump China Trade Rules ‘Make Things Very Difficult’

    Mr. Musk noted on Twitter how American-made cars imported into China face higher duties than Chinese vehicles coming to the U.S. and how foreign auto makers in China face restrictions on ownership of factories. To avoid 25% tariffs, foreign auto makers build cars in China through joint ventures with local manufacturers—something that requires a sharing of profit and potentially technology. It is an approach Mr. Musk has been trying to avoid.

    “The current rules make things very difficult,” Mr. Musk wrote on Twitter. “It’s like competing in an Olympic race wearing lead shoes.”

    On Thursday, while announcing his order to charge tariffs on steel and aluminum, Mr. Trump read off Mr. Musk’s tweet regarding the higher Chinese tariffs on American vehicles. “That’s from Elon,” the president said. “But everybody knows it, they’ve known it for years. They never did anything about it. It’s got to change.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/teslas-elon-musk-tells-trump-china-trade-rules-make-things-very-difficult-1520548598

  • Is China Destined to Dominate Tech?

    Because China’s privacy laws aren’t strictly enforced, tech companies can monitor their users intensively, offering them an advantage in everything from optimizing ads to assessing credit risk. As one executive put it, these companies “know where you’ve traveled, what movies you saw, what restaurants you ate at.” This intense surveillance may be a growing liability, however. A significant consumer backlash is building in China, driven partly by ubiquitous fraud and identity theft. And Chinese tech companies are running into stiff resistance when trying to expand into more privacy-conscious markets overseas.

    This raises a final concern. Chinese tech firms are largely confined to China, where they’re protected from competition. This gives them a dominant market position and other advantages. But a platform that censors searches for Winnie the Pooh simply isn’t going to be competitive overseas. Google and Facebook Inc., with much more international experience, have proven adept at understanding a global audience and picking up on diverse socio-cultural norms. Extracting ever more data from local users won’t help Chinese companies compete at that level.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-05/is-china-destined-to-dominate-tech

  • How to Stage a Successful Protest
  • Almost 80% of Chinese concerned about AI threat to privacy, 32% already feel a threat to their work

    AI will have an impact on every industry, said 77.8% respondents. 91.2% think AI has an effect on their work, made up of 50.4% saying they have already felt the impact of AI in their own work and another 40.8% believing that AI technologies will have an impact on their livelihoods.

    When asked whether they thought AI to be a threat to their livelihoods, 31.7% said they already felt its threat, 50.6% said they believed it would be a threat but were yet to feel it and 17.7% responded with “no, people are the most important”.

    https://technode.com/2018/03/02/almost-80-chinese-concerned-ai-threat-privacy-32-already-feel-threat-work/

  • The Amazing History of Panasonic, Which Was Founded 100 Years Ago by a 23-Year-Old

    Matsushita was ahead of his time as far as his management approach. When the company was 2 years old and had 28 employees, he formed what he called the “Hoichi Kai,” which translates to “one-step society.” It brought employees together to play sports and participate in other recreational activities.

    Another unconventional leadership tactic Matsushita spearheaded was transparency. In the early 1920s, worker retention was a major problem in Japan, first due to competition among firms, then because of economic downturn. Matsushita’s philosophy was one of trust, and he decided to share trade secrets even with new employees to build trust at all levels of the organization. By the end of 1922, the company had 50 employees and a new factory.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/310027
    This post was becoming a downer, it needed something uplifting.

Photo: Dominik Gehl