Supplier Report: 6/7/2019

Rumors are dominating the news this week…

Amazon reportedly wants to snap up the potential Sprint/T-Mobile merger castoff Boost to create their own phone service. Some are saying Amazon’s interest is “economically insane“.

Meanwhile the WSJ noted that the Department of Justice is looking into investigating Google for anti-trust practices. Google, who has been fined several times by the European Union, has not been given much scrutiny in the US to this point.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • LinkedIn Snaps Up Drawbridge, Its Second Known Acquisition In 8 Months

    Drawbridge helps companies better understand their customers using machine learning. It addresses user-focused issues like customer experience, digital security, and risk detection according to its website. The company, led by Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan has also been recognized for its focus on consumer identity, was awarded an early patent for identity resolution.

    LinkedIn plans to use Drawbridge’s strength in the area of observations around customers to better target professional audiences, it says.

    https://news.crunchbase.com/news/linkedin-snaps-up-drawbridge-its-second-known-acquisition-in-8-months/

  • Amazon is reportedly interested in buying Boost Mobile

    If helping to create a competitor is a necessary condition to get the Sprint/T-Mobile deal done, then perhaps Amazon can help. A report from Reuters suggests the retailer is interested in buying Boost Mobile from the combo, particularly because it would come with the ability to use T-Mobile’s network for six years. The unnamed sources also claimed the company could be interested in spectrum the newly-merged pair would have to divest.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/30/amazon-prime-boost-mobile/

Artificial Intelligence

  • IBM Sells Face Recognition Surveillance to a Dictatorship: Report

    The American technology titan IBM alongside Chinese tech giants Huawei and Hikvision are selling biometric surveillance systems to the UAE’s police and spy agencies, according to an extensive report in BuzzFeed.

    The UAE is a dictatorship famous for the oppression of dissent, human rights violations, abuse of laborers and migrants, an ongoing ban on international human rights workers and a fight against freedom of expression. It’s also a wildly rich Persian Gulf authoritarian regime that makes a hell of a customer for companies willing to do business with dictators.

    https://gizmodo.com/ibm-sells-face-recognition-surveillance-to-a-dictatorsh-1835101881

Cloud

  • Amazon Web Services Is Worth Half a Trillion Dollars, Analyst Estimates

    The survey found that 19% of IT workloads are now running in the public cloud. About 55% of the survey group is using cloud-based email systems, 53% rely on the public cloud for web hosting, 52% for sales and marketing applications, and 52% for e-commerce.

    Blackledge also nudged up his estimates for AWS—and for Amazon—this morning. He sees AWS revenues of $36.1 billion this year, growing about 31% a year to $140 billion in 2024. He raised his target price for Amazon stock to $2,500 from $2,400, and more remarkably, estimates the value of AWS alone as $506 billion. That is more than the current valuations of IBM, Oracle , and SAP—combined—and about even with the public market valuations for Facebook or Berkshire Hathaway.

    https://www.barrons.com/articles/amazon-stock-web-services-worth-half-a-trillion-dollars-51559060451

Security/Privacy

  • Microsoft Begs Windows Users To Update Now Citing ‘WannaCry 2’ Security Threat

    The warning, which reads almost as if Microsoft wrote it on bended knee, was posted on the Microsoft Security Response Center blog. Referring to the critical Remote Code Execution vulnerability, CVE-2019-0708, that has become better known as BlueKeep, Simon Pope, director of incident response at Microsoft, states that “Microsoft is confident that an exploit exists for this vulnerability.” What’s more, Pope says that such an exploit could “propagate from vulnerable computer to vulnerable computer in a similar way as the WannaCry malware spread across the globe in 2017.” An internet-scale port scanner has already determined that there are at least 923,671 internet-facing machines which are vulnerable to BlueKeep on port 3389 which is used by the Microsoft Remote Desktop feature.

    It is worth reading between the lines here, especially concerning that apparent confidence that a BlueKeep exploit exists. While it is not clear if Microsoft has intelligence that suggests active malware has been weaponized in this way, what we do know is that there is proof of concept (PoC) code available already. One BlueKeep demo on GitHub will crash a system that is vulnerable but does not execute the wormable threat that Microsoft is obviously so worried about.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2019/06/01/microsoft-begs-windows-users-to-update-now-citing-wannacry-2-security-threat/#1a5e8f4f60ca

  • Apple, Google and WhatsApp condemn UK proposal to eavesdrop on encrypted messages

    In practice, the proposal suggests a technique which would require encrypted messaging services — such as WhatsApp — to direct a message to a third recipient, at the same time as sending it to its intended user.

    Levy and Robinson argued the proposal would be “no more intrusive than the virtual crocodile clips” which are currently used in wiretaps of non-encrypted communications. This refers to the use of chat and call apps that can silently copy call data during digital exchanges.

    Opposing this plan, signatories of the open letter argued that “to achieve this result, their proposal requires two changes to systems that would seriously undermine user security and trust.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/30/apple-google-and-whatsapp-condemn-gchq-ghost-proposal.html

Software/SaaS

  • AWS announces general availability of its document reading service Textract

    Amazon says Textract is more of an “OCR++ service” because it can recognize tables with a document and understand that the data is placed in rows and columns.

    “The power of Amazon Textract is that it accurately extracts text and structured data from virtually any document with no machine learning experience required,” Swami Sivasubramanian, AWS’s vice president of machine learning, said in a statement. “Subsequently, developers can analyze and query the extracted text and data using our database and analytics services like Amazon Elasticsearch Service, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Athena and integrate with other machine learning services like Amazon Comprehend, Amazon Comprehend Medical, Amazon Translate, and Amazon SageMaker to help customers derive deeper meaning from the extracted text and data.”

    Textract supports multiple image formats, including regular JPEG and PNG photo files, scans and PDF documents.

    https://siliconangle.com/2019/05/29/aws-announces-general-availability-document-reading-service-textract/

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Dell Technologies fiscal Q1 mixed as storage, server and networking sales fall

    The company reported first quarter earnings of $329 billion, or 38 cents a share, on revenue of $21.9 billion, up 3 percent from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings for the quarter were $1.45 a share.

    Wall Street was looking for Dell fiscal first quarter non-GAAP earnings of $1.21 a share on revenue of $22.24 billion. Earnings estimates had a wide range given that Dell is recently public.

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/dell-technologies-fiscal-q1-mixed-as-storage-server-and-networking-sales-fall/

  • VMware Q1 tops expectations, revenue up 13% to $2.27 billion

    VMware delivered strong first quarter financial results Thursday that beat market expectations. The virtualization giant reported a net income of $505 million, or $1.21 per share. The income includes an unexpected gain of $132 million from VMware’s investment in Pivotal Software, the company said.

    Non-GAAP earnings were $1.32 per share on revenue of $2.27 billion, up 13% year over year. Wall Street was looking for earnings of $1.28 a share and revenue of $2.24 billion.

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/vmware-q1-tops-expectations-revenue-up-13-to-2-27-billion/

Other

  • Experts are furious over the FCC’s rosy picture of broadband access

    To generate the report, the FCC relies on data from service providers. Using a form, the companies report on the census-derived “blocks” where they serve customers. Questions about the 2019 report started before it was even released: after an FCC press release put out in February trumpeted major gains in access, the nonprofit advocacy group Free Press noticed a major flaw in the figures. A small carrier, called BarrierFree, erroneously reported it served census blocks with nearly 62 million people, which would make it the fourth largest internet service provider in the country.

    The FCC rectified the error before the release of the final report, reducing the number of people it believed to have access by about 2 million, but the fact that the flaw was uncovered by Free Press raised questions about how closely the agency was monitoring the data it received. Starks’ statement questioned the figures. “It’s incredible to me that an error this large — approximately 62 million in overstated broadband connections — didn’t materially change the report,” he said.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/30/18644726/fcc-broadband-report-high-speed-rural-statistics-reactions

  • Lenovo channels the spirit of IBM: Lays off 500 staff, savages Data Centre Group

    Lenovo is eliminating 500 staff worldwide, including some in its US headquarters at Research Triangle Park in Morrisville, North Carolina.

    The tech giant’s data centre group is reportedly among the hardest hit, with 200 people set to lose their jobs.
    **
    The measures certainly don’t align with the manufacturer’s financial performance: Lenovo reported record revenues for its fiscal 2019, growing to $51bn for the first time, up 12.5 per cent year on year. It turned a profit of $597m, as opposed to a loss of $189m it suffered in FY 2018.

    The Data Center Group was the Chinese biz’s fastest-growing business, with revenue going up 37.1 per cent year-on-year to $6.025bn – but the unit still made a pre-tax loss of $231m.

    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/30/lenovo_lays_off_500/

  • Justice Department Prepares Antitrust Investigation of Google

    A Justice Department investigation would put Google—and potentially other tech giants—in an unwanted spotlight at a time when major internet companies already have seen their political fortunes turning, both in the U.S. and overseas.

    The shift has come with multibillion-dollar antitrust fines for Google from the European Union. Facebook Inc. has come under intense fire over Russian use of its platform to meddle in the 2016 election. Policy makers also are increasingly skeptical of internet companies’ privacy practices, as well as their potential to create other public harm.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-department-is-preparing-antitrust-investigation-of-google-11559348795

    Update: Amazon could face heightened antitrust scrutiny under a new agreement between U.S. regulators

    Amazon could face heightened antitrust scrutiny under a new agreement between U.S. regulators that puts it under closer watch by the Federal Trade Commission, three people familiar with the matter said.

    The move is the result of the FTC and the Department of Justice, the U.S. government’s leading antitrust enforcement agencies, quietly divvying up competition oversight of two of the country’s top tech companies, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the government’s work is confidential. The Justice Department is set to have more jurisdiction over Google, The Washington Post reported on Friday, paving the way for a potential investigation of the search-and-advertising giant.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/06/02/amazon-could-face-heightened-antitrust-scrutiny-under-new-agreement-between-us-regulators

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Supplier Report: 5/17/2019

There is growing public pressure on Facebook to make some kind of change. Former employees and government officials want to break up the company calling it a monopoly, but are Facebook’s services essential?

Seeing this drama unfold, Google is quickly pivoting to privacy-based position. In recent weeks the company is allowing users to limit tracking and delete information Google has stored about usage.  Very smart move… but is it enough?

Meanwhile Oracle just can’t give up on Project Jedi.

Acquisitions

  • Apple buys companies at the same rate you buy groceries

    This weekend, CEO Tim Cook told CNBC that Apple purchases a new company every two to three weeks on average, and has bought between 20 and 25 companies in the last six months alone.

    That’s roughly as often as I bought groceries during some… oh, let’s just call them “fresh vegetable adjacent” periods of my life.

    You know how human beings never fail to be surprised when they get to the cash register and see how much of their paycheck is about to turn into food? I wonder if Apple ever feels that way. I’d guess not, considering how the company’s reportedly sitting on $225.4 billion dollars of cash on hand alone — enough to settle a historic array of lawsuits with Qualcomm 50 times over, if push came to shove.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/6/18531570/apple-company-purchases-startups-tim-cook-buy-rate

  • Marvell to Acquire Aquantia, Eying Automotive Networking Market

    Marvell on Monday announced that it had reached an agreement to buy the networking specialist firm Aquantia for $452 million. The acquisition will allow Marvell to significantly augment their current networking capabilities, with the company intending to use Aquantia’s technology in future PC, enterprise, and especially in-vehicle applications.

    Under the terms of the deal, Marvell will pay Aquantia shareholders $13.25 per share in cash, bringing the total value of the deal to $452 million. The transaction has already been approved by board of directors of both companies, and subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close by the end of calendar year 2019.

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/14300/marvell-to-acquire-aquantia-eying-automotive-networking-market

Artificial Intelligence

  • The Morning After: All the important stuff from Google I/O

    An AI-powered assistant that responds to voice commands faster than you can type or swipe, even offline? That’s what Google promised at I/O, with demos showing off how its next-generation assistant could operate across and through several apps, using voice control almost exclusively to get the information users need when they need it. Plus, it learns what you like and can even make restaurant or menu suggestions based on those preferences. Expect to see these features roll out on Pixel phones first later this year.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/08/the-morning-after-google-io-highlights/

Cloud

  • Oracle Alleges AWS Recruited DoD Officials To Influence JEDI Cloud Award

    After Oracle first raised the issue, the DoD Inspector General, assisted by the FBI’s Public Corruption Squad, reopened a prior investigation and again concluded those potential improprieties didn’t impact the integrity of the process. A previous Government Accountability Office investigation also found no flaw warranting a change in how the military was selecting a cloud vendor.

    But Oracle argued Tuesday the military’s contracting officer was wrong to take Ubhi’s claims at face value during the investigation, noting he actively sought to return to AWS, where he previously worked, during his short stint at DoD, where for a time he worked as a JEDI project manager.

    https://www.crn.com/news/cloud/oracle-alleges-aws-recruited-dod-officials-to-influence-jedi-cloud-award

  • SAP embraces cloud customization – with interesting partners

    SAP is launching SAP Embrace, a new initiative to enable users of the SAP S/4 HANA ERP system to move it to the cloud, with platform, software, services and infrastructure customized to their specific industry needs. Interestingly, SAP is collaborating with cloud competitors Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud. SAP Embrace customers will be able to select one of those three cloud services providers as a hyperscaler, and also leverage SAP’s network of global strategic service partners.

    https://www.chainstoreage.com/technology/sap-embraces-cloud-customization-with-interesting-partners/

Security/Privacy

  • Google Says It Has Found Religion on Privacy

    Google plans to permit users to navigate its maps, watch videos on YouTube and search for information in “incognito mode,” limiting the amount of information shared with the company. It will also allow users to delete web and app activity history automatically after three months or 18 months.

    Google added incognito mode to its Chrome browser a decade ago.

    The company also said it would make it easier for users to find and delete information they have shared with the company, including location data in maps. For its Android operating system, Google said a new update would simplify how to limit the sharing of location data with app providers.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/technology/google-privacy-tools.html

Software/SaaS

  • Symantec CEO Abruptly Resigns Amid Financial Turmoil

    Symantec CEO Greg Clark abruptly resigned yesterday immediately before the embattled security company reported its fourth-quarter 2019 earnings, which included weak enterprise sales and disappointing forecasts for the first quarter and full 2020 fiscal year.

    The company appointed Richard Hill, current Symantec director and former chairman and CEO of Novellus Systems, as interim president and CEO, effective immediately, and said it will begin a search to find a permanent CEO.

    https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/symantec-ceo-abruptly-resigns-amid-financial-turmoil/2019/05/

  • IBM sells $28.6b of bonds to help fund Red Hat buy

    The Red Hat purchase will push the combined company’s borrowings above $US60 billion with debt that’s more than three times a key measure of earnings, said Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Robert Schiffman and Mike Campellone. Though IBM won’t buy back shares in the next two years, it still risks a potential downgrade to the BBB range, the tier of corporate debt that’s just above junk, they wrote.

    IBM took out a $US20 billion bridge loan to fund the Red Hat deal and will use some of its cash pile, the company said in October when the transaction was announced. S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings cut IBM one level to A at the time, the sixth-highest investment-grade rating, while it remains on review for downgrade at Moody’s Investors Service.

    https://www.afr.com/markets/debt-markets/ibm-sells-28-6b-of-bonds-to-help-fund-red-hat-buy-20190509-p51li8

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Microsoft open-sources its quantum computing development tools

    This move, the company says, is meant to make “quantum computing and algorithm development easier and more transparent for developers.” In addition, it will make it easier for academic institutions to use these tools, and developers, of course, will be able to contribute their own code and ideas.

    Unsurprisingly, the code will live on Microsoft’s GitHub page. Previously, the team had already open-sourced a number of tools and examples, as well as a library of quantum chemistry samples, but this is the first time the team is open-sourcing core parts of the platform.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/06/microsoft-open-sources-its-quantum-computing-development-tools/

  • Apple’s would-be sapphire glass supplier charged with fraud

    Apple loaned $578 million to a company called GT Advanced Technologies, which was supposed to build highly scratch-resistant screen covers from synthetic sapphire crystals. Instead, it produced flawed “boules” of sapphire that couldn’t be cut into displays and went bankrupt months after it started. Now, the SEC has announced that it’s charging the company and its ex-CEO with fraud for allegedly withholding key information from stockholders.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/06/apple-sapphire-glass-supplier-charged-with-fraud/

Other

  • Facebook co-founder, Chris Hughes, calls for Facebook to be broken up

    The tl;dr of Hughes’ argument against Facebook/Zuckerberg being allowed to continue its/his reign of the internet knits together different strands of the techlash zeitgeist, linking Zuckerberg’s absolute influence over Facebook, and therefore over the unprecedented billions of people he can reach and behaviourally reprogram via content-sorting algorithms, to the crushing of innovation and startup competition; the crushing of consumer attention, choice and privacy, all hostage to relentless growth targets and an eyeball-demanding ad business model; the crushing control of speech that Zuckerberg — as Facebook’s absolute monarch — personally commands, with Hughes worrying it’s a power too potent for any one human to wield.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/09/facebook-co-founder-chris-hughes-calls-for-facebook-to-be-broken-up/

    Facebook is not a monopoly, and breaking it up would defy logic and set a bad precedent

    Hughes and others have cited historical precedents such as the government’s breakup of Standard Oil and AT&T as a justification for stricter antitrust regulation against tech giants. But these companies not only had clear monopolies with pricing power that hurt consumers, they also offered products that were vital to the economy.

    Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are only three of many ways people can communicate digitally, and while many people spend hours every week using them, they are replaceable and inessential — and, in fact, getting away from Facebook and Instagram might make people happier. Even Hughes acknowledges, when he finds himself scrolling through Instagram at idle hours, “The choice is mine, but it doesn’t feel like a choice.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/09/facebook-should-not-be-broken-up-commentary.html

  • Elon Musk is going to trial for calling a cave diver a pedophile on Twitter

    Defamation law doesn’t apply to opinions or derogatory hyperbole, and Judge Wilson concluded that Musk’s case would be stronger if he’d simply tweeted an insult. But Musk “did not call [Unsworth] a ‘pedo guy’ and leave it there,” writes Wilson. “Rather, he made follow-up statements indicating that he believed his statements to be true.” That included the emails to BuzzFeed, where Musk “purported to convey actual facts and even suggested that the BuzzFeed reporter call people in Thailand to confirm his narrative.”

    The decision doesn’t mean Musk is guilty, but it means Unsworth’s case is strong enough to deserve a trial. A pre-trial conference will take place on October 7th. This won’t be the first time Musk has gone to court for some bad tweets. He recently settled a separate lawsuit with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which accused him of making misleading financial statements on Twitter.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/10/18564625/elon-musk-vernon-unsworth-pedo-guy-tweets-defamation-lawsuit-trial-date-set

Photo by Jason Dent on Unsplash

Suppler Report: 5/10/2019

Apple and Microsoft are starting the push for the cloud… services. Apple is expected to derive 30% of their profits from services this year and much more in the future.  For Microsoft, it isn’t enough to host, they want to be a platform for productivity, IOT, and blockchain.

And as those companies succeed, others like Verzion and Oracle are struggling with their cloud services and acquisitions. Verizon is now looking to sell off Yahoo assets like Tumblr after users have fled from the platform. Oracle is expecting weaker companies to consolidate.

Acquisitions

Artificial Intelligence

  • IBM’s decision to halt sales of Watson AI: strategic move or admission of failure?

    At present, IBM says it will no longer develop or market the drug discovery application but will continue to support existing users of the software. It may be that the technology is simply not yet mature enough for deployment in certain capacities such as drug discovery, diagnosis and treatment recommendations despite indications of some success by other AI companies.

    However, given that AI employs machine learning, with further input of data from a variety of sources, the abilities and accuracy of the AI will most likely increase. With the pressure to commercialize a driving factor for many companies, there may not be enough time set aside for the numerous iterations and human participation necessary for developing and fine-tuning the technology.

    https://www.verdict.co.uk/ibm-watson-ai-healthcare/

Cloud

  • Accenture sued over website redesign so bad it Hertz: Car hire biz demands $32m+ for ‘defective’ cyber-revamp

    As Hertz endured the delays, it found itself immersed in a nightmare: a product and design that apparently didn’t do half of what was specified and still wasn’t finished. “By that point, Hertz no longer had any confidence that Accenture was capable of completing the project, and Hertz terminated Accenture,” the car rental company complained in a lawsuit [PDF] lodged against Accenture in New York this month.

    Hertz is suing for the $32m it paid Accenture in fees to get to that aborted stage, and it wants more millions to cover the cost of fixing the mess. “Accenture never delivered a functional website or mobile app,” Hertz claimed.

    Accenture told El Reg on Tuesday this week it believes Hertz’s lawsuit is “without merit.”

    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/23/hertz_accenture_lawsuit/

  • Verizon Looks to Unload Tumblr Blogging Site

    It is unclear how much Verizon might get for Tumblr, a free service with more than 400 million blogs. Yahoo paid about $1.1 billion for the New York-based site in 2013, when it was among a number of fast-growing startups such as online scrapbook Pinterest and news aggregation and commenting site Reddit.

    But Tumblr struggled to generate meaningful revenue for Yahoo and was eclipsed by other social media, such as Medium, Facebook and Instagram, which Facebook bought in 2012. Yahoo wrote down Tumblr’s value by $230 million in 2016.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/verizon-looks-to-unload-tumblr-blogging-site-11556823135

  • Microsoft’s Satya Nadella uses a subtle fear tactic to win cloud business away from Amazon

    Nadella was reminding Read that unlike giant cloud provider Amazon, Microsoft isn’t competing with WPP. It isn’t a retailer competing with WPP’s customer’s either. And although it does have Bing and does sell ads, it also has an ad sales partnership with WPP.

    Nadella’s sales pitch is simple, and one used not just with ad agency giant WPP but with retailers, an industry Amazon has really clobbered: Do you trust a technology partner to store their data, handle their transactions, know the most intimate details of their business, if that tech partner is also a competitor?

    https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-subtle-fear-tactic-win-cloud-business-amazon-2019-5

  • Oracle CEO Mark Hurd says that consolidation is coming as ‘underfunded’ cloud software companies get bought up: ‘Many of the companies will go away’

    “Hurd’s analysis is correct,” Tim Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies, told Business Insider.

    “Smaller SaaS companies are underfunded and will have trouble competing with the big players in this market. If they have unique technology they could become M&A targets. It is expensive to market and serve the SaaS markets and being under-capitalized will hurt their chances to compete for the same businesses big SaaS companies go after today.”

    Ray Wang, president of Constellation Research, agreed, saying: “We are still in a market of consolidation.”

    https://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-ceo-mark-hurd-cloud-software-consolidation-2019-5

Security/Privacy

  • Zero-day attackers deliver a double dose of ransomware—no clicking required

    Attackers have been actively exploiting a critical zero-day vulnerability in the widely used Oracle WebLogic server to install ransomware, with no clicking or other interaction necessary on the part of end users, researchers from Cisco Talos said on Tuesday.

    The vulnerability and working exploit code first became public two weeks ago on the Chinese National Vulnerability Database, according to researchers from the security educational group SANS ISC, who warned that the vulnerability was under active attack. The vulnerability is easy to exploit and gives attackers the ability to execute code of their choice on cloud servers. Because of their power, bandwidth, and use in high-security cloud environments, these servers are considered high-value targets. The disclosure prompted Oracle to release an emergency patch on Friday.

    https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/04/zeroday-attackers-deliver-a-double-dose-of-ransomware-no-clicking-required/

  • Large GDPR Fines Are Imminent, EU Privacy Regulators Say

    Helen Dixon, Ireland’s data-protection commissioner, said at an event here that her office has received about 6,000 complaints since GDPR went into effect. Most have been minor, such as individuals having problems deleting their accounts with certain firms. But her office is now investigating 18 cases involving large data breaches, systemic privacy issues and other serious violations at technology firms, she said.

    Ms. Dixon said she plans to bring her first draft decisions for enforcement actions to the European Data Protection Board this summer. Other data protection authorities can raise objections.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/large-gdpr-fines-are-imminent-eu-privacy-regulators-say-11556829079

Software/SaaS

  • Microsoft launches a fully managed blockchain service

    We’re not talking cryptocurrencies here, though. This is an enterprise service that is meant to help businesses build applications on top of blockchain technology. It is integrated with Azure Active Directory and offers tools for adding new members, setting permissions and monitoring network health and activity.

    The first support ledger is J.P. Morgan’s Quorum. “Because it’s built on the popular Ethereum protocol, which has the world’s largest blockchain developer community, Quorum is a natural choice,” Azure CTO Mark Russinovich writes in today’s announcement. “It integrates with a rich set of open-source tools while also supporting confidential transactions—something our enterprise customers require.” To launch this integration, Microsoft partnered closely with J.P. Morgan.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/02/microsoft-launches-a-fully-managed-blockchain-service/

  • Services really are becoming a bigger part of Apple’s business

    This shift is already playing out in the company’s financials. While product sales dipped a bit year-over-year — down from $51.3 billion in the quarter that ran from January to March 2018 to $46.6 billion in the same quarter of 2019 — revenue from the services business climbed from $9.9 billion to $11.5 billion.

    In this fiscal Q2 quarter of 2018, Apple’s total revenue came in at roughly $61.1 billion; in the same quarter of 2019, it dipped to $58 billion. This works out to services accounting for 16.1% of Apple’s revenue in fiscal Q2 2018, but nearly 20% in fiscal Q2 2019. Apple CFO Luca Maestri says services now account for “one-third” of the company’s gross profits.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/30/services-really-are-becoming-a-bigger-part-of-apples-business/

Other

  • Foxconn Chairman Meets With Trump as Wisconsin Plant Plans Fall Behind

    The Foxconn project is one of the biggest U.S. public-incentive deals ever offered to a foreign company, a more than $4 billion package of state and local tax breaks and infrastructure investment.

    President Trump has been involved with the Wisconsin project since its inception, and said he was the one who advised Mr. Gou to build in rural southeastern Wisconsin. At last year’s groundbreaking, President Trump touted the plant as a pillar of his plan to bring advanced-manufacturing jobs to the industrial Midwest and described Chairman Gou as “one of the most successful businessmen in the world, very few people even close.”

    But President Trump didn’t mention Foxconn in a Saturday night rally in Green Bay, a rare omission for a project he has described as “the eighth wonder of the world.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/foxconn-chairman-heads-to-wisconsin-plant-site-after-meeting-with-president-trump-11556810035

  • Alphabet Falls $1 Billion Short of Revenue Forecasts, Blaming Strong Dollar

    The law of large numbers is simple: As a company gets bigger, it becomes difficult to find new ways to make money and maintain rapid growth. The issue has dogged other big tech companies like Apple in recent years.

    Alphabet explained the revenue shortfall with a very big-company answer. It said the strong United States dollar dented revenue by $1.2 billion. Google executives rattled off a long list of currencies weakening against the dollar, including the euro, the British pound, Brazilian real and Indian rupee. The company said it expected foreign currency to be an issue again in the current quarter.

    Shares of Alphabet fell more than 7 percent in early trading on (last) Tuesday.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/technology/alphabet-quarterly-results-2019.html

  • Eric Schmidt to Leave Alphabet Board

    Mr. Schmidt, 64 years old, was appointed CEO in 2001, when Google was still privately traded and just three years old. Already a Silicon Valley veteran, he was brought in to provide managerial heft to the less experienced founders of the company, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The interview process included a trip by the three men to the free-spirited Burning Man festival in Nevada.

    Board member Diane Greene, who was replaced as chief executive of the cloud division in January, also will leave the board, the company announced. Cloud has been a sore spot for Google, despite a big hiring push and the attention of some of the company’s top executives.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/eric-schmidt-to-leave-alphabet-board-11556659629

Photo by Mitchell Orr on Unsplash

Supplier Report: 5/3/2019

There is good news for Amazon this week with reports that the company is securing BILLIONS of dollars of cloud contracts. Names like Apple, Slack, and Lyft have all recently reported long-term/big-money contracts with the company.

As Amazon’s cloud business continues to dominate and they put more energy into their advertising business – there should be concern with how the company is going to leverage their position for pricing and for privacy.

Additionally, with accusations that Apple is not playing fair with apps that compete with their own services, we have to ask ourselves if companies creating these enormous ecosystems are reliable business partners over the long term.

Acquisitions

  • A $603 Million Deal Sheds Light on Cybersecurity Space

    In a deal that puts a spotlight on the shadowy world of cyberwarfare, Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. agreed to acquire KeyW Holding Corp. for about $603 million, increasing its number of employees with top-secret government access by 50 percent.

    While neither company is a household name, both have deep ties to Washington’s web of cyberintelligence specialists. Jacobs, a Dallas-based engineering firm with more than 80,000 employees, already gets about 23 percent of its $15 billion in annual revenue from the U.S. government. In the past three years, Jacobs has acquired two other cybersecurity firms in the greater Washington area — Reston, Virginia-based Blue Canopy and Columbia, Maryland-based Van Dyke Technology Group Inc.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-22/a-603-million-deal-sheds-light-on-secretive-cybersecurity-space

Artificial Intelligence

  • IBM’s head of HR says ‘100% of jobs are going to change’ with AI. Here’s how the tech giant is adapting.

    To make it through these market changes, IBM had to assess what skills its workforce had, and what skills it now needed. That’s not an easy feat when you’re a giant, multinational business. Gherson said that the company turned to the technology that was partially responsible for this disruption: AI.

    Instead of having managers work with each of their employees to map out their current skills and then work with other managers to see what skills were still needed, IBM automated the process. Internal software could analyze employees’ work experience and writings to infer what they excelled at. It prompted a cultural shift within the company.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/how-ibm-is-using-artificial-intelligence-to-retrain-workers-2019-4

  • The growing backlash against facial recognition tech

    This month has made clear that public pressure is working when it comes to facial recognition. Behemoth companies know they can no longer ignore the criticisms — or, as they recently did, simply say they’d welcome regulation of this technology. Critics are making clear that’s not good enough — they want to see such companies “get out of the surveillance business altogether,” as the American Civil Liberties Union told Vox.

    Meanwhile, several bills are being considered to limit the use of facial recognition. San Francisco could soon become the first US city to institute an all-out ban on local government use of the tech, if its Stop Secret Surveillance Ordinance passes. Neighboring cities like Oakland and Berkeley have already passed similar but slightly weaker ordinances. (Legislation along these lines was also introduced in the California state Senate, but was quashed after police opposed it.)

    https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/27/18518598/ai-facial-recognition-ban-apple-amazon-microsoft

Cloud

  • Amazon’s Profit More Than Doubles on 17% Rise in Sales

    Expenses, however, are expected to jump in the second quarter in part because Amazon said it would invest $800 million to make one-day free shipping the standard for Prime members, instead of two days.

    The e-commerce company’s bottom line got a big boost in the first quarter from its cloud-computing unit and burgeoning advertising business, helping to offset sluggish growth from the core online retail business. The profit more than doubled to well above what analysts were expecting.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazons-profit-more-than-doubles-on-17-rise-in-sales-11556224159

  • Slack to spend at least $250 million on Amazon Web Services over five years — less than Pinterest or Lyft

    Slack said on Friday that it has a hefty commitment to spend money with Amazon Web Services through 2023, though it’s not as big of a customer as other companies to recently go public, such as Lyft and Pinterest.

    In 2018, Slack signed an agreement with AWS to spend at least $50 million a year over five years, for a total of at least $250 million, according to the company’s filing with the SEC for a public stock listing. As of Jan. 31, the contract has a remaining minimum payment of $212.5 million. Slack said it uses AWS, the leading public cloud vendor, “as our processing and delivery infrastructure.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/26/slack-to-spend-at-least-250-million-on-aws-over-five-years.html

  • Apple Is Heavily Reliant on Amazon Web Services

    Apple has previously mentioned that it uses Amazon’s AWS (Amazon Web Services) for its iCloud storage. It could also be using Amazon’s cloud service for some of its other services.

    According to CNBC, this expenditure is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. According to the report, Apple has signed an agreement committing to spending a minimum of $1.5 billion on AWS over the next five years.

    Many other companies are also heavily reliant on Amazon’s cloud service. According to CNBC, Lyft has an agreement worth over $300 million with AWS to power its service until the end of 2021.

    https://articles.marketrealist.com/2019/04/apple-is-heavily-reliant-on-amazon-web-services/

Security

  • Managing Risk in Light of the Wipro Data Breach

    Wipro, the Bengaluru, India-based ITO and BPO services provider, confirmed on Tuesday, April 16th, that it fell victim to a data breach—specifically, an advanced and persistent “zero-day” malware attack. The attack may have begun in March as a phishing incident (an unauthorized attempt to access a target’s information systems, usually via fraudulent emails or other communication) involving one Wipro employee, and it has apparently led to a broader infiltration of Wipro’s email systems.

    Initial reports have indicated that the attack may have impacted more than a dozen of Wipro’s customers, but the ongoing investigation has yet to uncover whether, and to what extent, those customers’ data are at risk.

    https://www.pillsburylaw.com/en/news-and-insights/managing-risk-in-light-of-the-wipro-data-breach.html

Software/SaaS

  • Apple accused of clamping down on apps competing with Screen Time

    The introduction of Screen Time in iOS 12 was ostensibly a boon for parents and anyone else wanting to keep a lid on device use, but there are concerns that it’s cracking down on apps that compete with that feature. The New York Times and Sensor Tower have learned that Apple has either pulled or requested feature limitations for “at least” 11 of the 17 most popular parental control and screen time apps, and leaders at those developers claim it’s trying to discourage apps that rival Screen Time’s functionality. The creators of two apps, Kidslox and Qustodio, filed an EU competition complaint on April 25th.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/27/apple-clamp-down-on-screen-time-apps/

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Samsung reportedly pushes back Galaxy Fold release

    Samsung is pushing things back a bit, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal that cites “people familiar with the matter.”

    There’s no firm time frame for the launch, though the phone is still expected “in the coming weeks,” at some point in May. We’ve reached out to Samsung for comment and will update accordingly. When a number a reviewers reported malfunctioning displays among an extremely small sample size, that no doubt gave the company pause.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/22/samsung-reportedly-pushes-back-galaxy-fold-launch/

  • Turnover Hits Apple’s Famed Industrial Design Team

    Rico Zorkendorfer and Daniele De Iuliis, who together have more than 35 years of experience at Apple, decided to leave the company recently, people familiar with the departures said. Another member of the team with a decade of experience, Julian Hönig, plans to leave in the coming months, people familiar with his plans said.

    The departures of members of the core design team that revived Apple in the 2000s and did the work behind the iPhone, iPad and watch come amid a pause in new products, as the company emphasizes new subscription services this year instead of new gadgets amid slowing iPhone sales. It also follows chief designer Jony Ive’s resumption a little over a year ago of day-to-day oversight for the industrial design group.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/turnover-hits-apples-famed-industrial-design-team-11556225563

  • Comcast Is Surviving Big Media’s Horror Flick

    While the company is losing cable subscribers as consumers cut the cord, it also is winning over more internet customers in need of high-speed connections to fuel their entertainment binge.

    In other words, the grim reaper comes bearing unexpected gifts.

    This dynamic was visible in Comcast’s first-quarter results. On Thursday it reported earnings of 77 cents a share, up from 66 cents a share in the same period last year, beating estimates of 68 cents a share. Revenue rose 18% to $26.86 billion, thanks partly to the company’s recent acquisition of Sky, the European pay-TV giant. It also was boosted by a 10% rise in Comcast’s high-speed internet revenue. The company said it added 375,000 customers in the period.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/comcast-is-surviving-big-medias-horror-flick-11556215034

Other

  • Google Walkout Organizers Say They’re Facing Retaliation

    Claire Stapleton, another walkout organizer and a 12-year veteran of the company, said in the email that two months after the protest she was told she would be demoted from her role as marketing manager at YouTube and lose half her reports. After escalating the issue to human resources, she said she faced further retaliation. “My manager started ignoring me, my work was given to other people, and I was told to go on medical leave, even though I’m not sick,” Stapleton wrote. After she hired a lawyer; the company conducted an investigation and seemed to reverse her demotion. “While my work has been restored, the environment remains hostile and I consider quitting nearly every day,” she wrote.

    https://www.wired.com/story/google-walkout-organizers-say-theyre-facing-retaliation/

  • Microsoft has become the third US company to achieve a trillion-dollar valuation

    Microsoft revealed double-digit growth in its third-quarter financial results on Wednesday (April 24). Revenues grew by 14 percent to $30.6 billion, with profits climbing 19 percent to $8.8 billion. What really excited the stock market, however, was the 73 percent increase in revenues from Azure cloud services. This helped drive a five percent rise in Microsoft’s share price to $131.37, finally elevating it into the 13-digit club.

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-has-become-the-third-us-company-to-achieve-a-trillion-dollar-valuation-albeit-briefly/

  • Elon Musk, SEC agree to guidelines on Twitter use

    Musk can tweet as he wishes except when it’s about certain events or financial milestones. In those cases, Musk must seek pre-approval from a securities lawyer, according to the agreement filed with Manhattan federal court.

    U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan, the presiding judge on this matter, must still approve the deal. Nathan had given the SEC and Musk two weeks to work out their differences and come to a resolution.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/26/elon-musk-sec-agree-to-guidelines-on-twitter-use/

Photo by Sašo Tušar on Unsplash

Supplier Report: 4/26/2019

Google continues to make moves in the cloud with new hires and policy changes that should make their services more attractive under the leadership of Thomas Kurian but news continues to leak about failing AI ethics boards and past behavior with open source competitors that makes me wonder if Google is actually evil (sometimes). But there is good news… Google’s streaming beef with Amazon seems to be squashed…for now.

Meanwhile, T-Mobile is facing an uphill battle with the DOJ on their Sprint merger plans and Wisconsin might actually push back against Foxconn.


Acquisitions

  • T-Mobile-Sprint Deal Runs Into Resistance From DOJ Antitrust Staff

    The nation’s third- and fourth-biggest carriers by subscribers are facing challenges on several fronts, but their most immediate hurdle comes from the Justice Department’s antitrust division, which is considering whether the deal would present an unacceptable threat to competition.

    In a meeting earlier this month, Justice Department staff members laid out their concerns with the all-stock deal and questioned the companies’ arguments that the combination would produce important efficiencies for the merged firm, the people said.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/t-mobile-sprint-deal-runs-into-resistance-from-doj-antitrust-staff-11555446461

  • Salesforce is buying MapAnything, a startup that raised over $84 million

    The companies did not reveal the selling price, and Salesforce didn’t have anything to add beyond a brief press release announcing the deal.

    “The addition of MapAnything to Salesforce will help the world’s leading brands accurately plan: how many people they need, where to put them, how to make them as productive as possible, how to track what’s being done in real time and what they can learn to improve going forward,” Salesforce wrote in the statement announcing the deal.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/17/salesforce-is-buying-mapanything-a-startup-that-raised-over-84-million/

  • Why it just might make sense that Salesforce.com is buying Salesforce.org

    Salesforce has always made a lot of hay about being a responsible capitalist. It’s something it highlights at events and really extends with the 1-1-1 model it created, which gives one percent of profit, time and resources (product) to education and nonprofits. Its employees are given time off and are encouraged to work in the community. Salesforce.org has been the driver behind this, but something drove the company to bring Salesforce.org into the fold.

    While it’s easy to be cynical about the possible motivations, it could be a simple business reason, says Ray Wang, founder and principal analyst at Constellation Research. As he pointed out, it didn’t make a lot of sense from a business perspective to be running two separate entities with separate executive teams, bookkeeping systems and sales teams. What’s more, he said there was some confusion over lack of alignment and messaging between the Salesforce.com education sales team and what was happening at Salesforce.org. Finally, he says because Salesforce.org couldn’t issue Salesforce.com stock options, it might not have been attracting the best talent.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/16/why-it-just-might-make-sense-that-salesforce-com-is-buying-salesforce-org/

  • Microsoft acquires Express Logic for its real-time internet of things operating system

    Microsoft today announced that it’s acquired Express Logic, a 23-year-old San Diego, California-based developer of real-time operating systems (RTOS) for internet of things (IoT) and edge devices powered by microcontroller units (MCUs), for an undisclosed amount.

    “With this acquisition, we will unlock access to billions of new connected endpoints, grow the number of devices that can seamlessly connect to Azure and enable new intelligent capabilities,” wrote Microsoft’s director of IoT Sam George in a blog post. “Express Logic’s ThreadX RTOS joins Microsoft’s growing support for IoT devices and is complementary with Azure Sphere, our premier security offering in the microcontroller space.”

    https://venturebeat.com/2019/04/18/microsoft-acquires-express-logic-for-its-real-time-internet-of-things-operating-system/

  • CloudBees acquires Electric Cloud to build out its software delivery management platform

    CloudBees, the enterprise continuous integration and delivery service (and the biggest contributor to the Jenkins open-source automation server), today announced that it has acquired Electric Cloud, a continuous delivery and automation platform that first launched all the way back in 2002.

    The two companies did not disclose the price of the acquisition, but CloudBees has raised a total of $113.2 million while Electric Cloud raised $64.6 million from the likes of Rembrandt Venture Partners, U.S. Venture Partners, RRE Ventures and Next47.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/18/cloudbees-acquires-electric-cloud-to-build-out-its-software-delivery-management-platform/

Artificial Intelligence

  • The most overlooked path to commercialize AI is for companies to do it themselves

    Scaling these teams is expensive and operationally intensive. Going full stack opens up opportunities for companies to integrate labeling workflows into other jobs. Employees traditionally tasked with performing a consumer or enterprise service can take on the extra task at reduced expense. And if their role is assisted by a machine, they will gradually become more productive over time as their assistive models get more accurate with more labeled data.

    A second and inherently related benefit of going full stack is that these startups are able to generate — and own — powerful virtuous data feedback loops. Owning data flows creates more impressive moats than merely locking down static data sets. Deep Sentinel has a natural moat in the consumer security space, for example, as it not only has accurate classifiers, but accurate classifiers that continue to improve with real-world data generated in an environment it can control.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/15/the-most-overlooked-path-to-commercialize-ai-is-for-companies-to-do-it-themselves/

  • What HIPAA Compliance Means for Amazon

    Amazon is currently working with six business partners — Livongo, Express Scripts, Cigna Health Today, Swedish Health Connect, Atrium Health and ERAS, a program of Boston Children’s Hospital — to help customers make appointments, access medical instruction, track a prescription and other services. It’s a big step for one of the world’s most powerful companies, giving it a stronghold in the $3.5 trillion health care industry.

    Amazon had been working for some time to develop software that would meet federal HIPAA regulations, and it even created a health team within its Alexa division a year ago to work on the project, according to Business Insider. Meeting HIPAA standards is important, but the professors questioned whether it is enough.

    “I’m not sure that Amazon’s checking off the regulatory box on HIPAA compliance begins to answer the privacy concerns that we ought to have,” Rosoff said.

    https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/alexa-hipaa-compliant/

Cloud

  • Google Cloud brings on 27-year SAP veteran as it doubles down on enterprise adoption

    Unsurprisingly, Kurian is also looking to put his stamp on the executive team, too, and today announced that former SAP executive Robert Enslin is joining Google Cloud as its new president of Global Customer Operations.

    Enslin’s hire is another clear signal that Kurian is focused on enterprise customers. Enslin, after all, is a veteran of the enterprise business, with 27 years at SAP, where he served on the company’s executive board until he announced his resignation from the company earlier this month. After leading various parts of SAP, including as president of its cloud product portfolio, president of SAP North America and CEO of SAP Japan, Enslin announced that he had “a few more aspirations to fulfill.” Those aspirations, we now know, include helping Google Cloud expand its lineup of enterprise customers.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/17/google-cloud-brings-on-27-year-sap-veteran-as-it-doubles-down-on-enterprise-adoption/

Security

  • Facebook admits harvesting 1.5 million people’s email contacts without consent

    Facebook has admitted to accessing and storing the email contacts of as many as 1.5 million of its users without their consent. Business Insider reports that between May 2016 and last month, the social media platform asked some of its new users to verify their email address by providing the password to their email account. After doing so, the users’ contacts would be automatically imported, without any option for the user to opt out.

    Responding to the report, a Facebook spokesperson told Business Insider that email contacts were “unintentionally uploaded” as part of the process. They said that these contacts had never been shared with anyone, and that the company is now deleting the contacts that were uploaded. Facebook also claims to have fixed the “underlying issue” that led to the problem.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/18/18485089/facebook-email-password-contacts-upload-1-5-million-security-cybersecurity

Software/SaaS

  • Former Mozilla exec: Google has sabotaged Firefox for years

    “Over and over. Oops. Another accident. We’ll fix it soon. We want the same things. We’re on the same team. There were dozens of oopses. Hundreds maybe?”

    “I’m all for ‘don’t attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence’ but I don’t believe Google is that incompetent. I think they were running out the clock. We lost users during every oops. And we spent effort and frustration every clock tick on that instead of improving our product. We got outfoxed for a while and by the time we started calling it what it was, a lot of damage had been done,” Nightingale said.

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has-sabotaged-firefox-for-years/

  • IBM’s Shares Slide as Growth Challenges Remain

    Goldman Sachs analysts said they were encouraged by IBM’s results, but added that investors remain skeptical of the company’s ability to sustain improvements. Cloud revenue accounted for one-quarter of IBM’s total revenue over the past 12 months, up from 22% a year earlier, an IBM representative said.

    Shares in IBM fell 4.2% to $139.11 on Wednesday. The stock is down 14% over the past year.

    IBM’s year-over-year revenue had fallen in virtually every quarter since Ms. Rometty took over until the last quarter of 2017. The company also posted revenue growth in the first half of last year, but that turnaround proved short-lived: Revenue declined again in the last two quarters of 2018.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/ibms-shares-tumble-as-challenges-remain-in-hunt-for-growth-11555526709

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Apple and Qualcomm settle dispute, paving way for 5G iPhone

    The two U.S. companies have been negotiating details of the settlement for weeks, sources told the Nikkei Asian Review. They have agreed to drop all litigation worldwide and struck a six-year licensing agreement, that will ensure the launch of the first 5G iPhone in 2020. The settlement included an undisclosed payment to Qualcomm by Apple, which several weeks ago asked its suppliers to begin testing the chipmaker’s 5G modems, sources said.

    Intel followed up news of the settlement by announcing its exit from 5G chips and raising questions over the future potential of the next generation technology, which the smartphone industry is hoping will help to revive a market suffering its third consecutive year of decline.

    https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/5G-networks/Apple-and-Qualcomm-settle-dispute-paving-way-for-5G-iPhone

  • Intel to Exit 5G Smartphone Modem Business, Focus 5G Efforts on

    Network Infrastructure and Other Data-Centric Opportunities
    The company will continue to meet current customer commitments for its existing 4G smartphone modem product line, but does not expect to launch 5G modem products in the smartphone space, including those originally planned for launches in 2020.

    “We are very excited about the opportunity in 5G and the ‘cloudification’ of the network, but in the smartphone modem business it has become apparent that there is no clear path to profitability and positive returns,” said Intel CEO Bob Swan. “5G continues to be a strategic priority across Intel, and our team has developed a valuable portfolio of wireless products and intellectual property. We are assessing our options to realize the value we have created, including the opportunities in a wide variety of data-centric platforms and devices in a 5G world.”

    https://newsroom.intel.com/news-releases/intel-modem-statement/#gs.6hoz8p

  • Microsoft’s green plan: Our data centers will run on 60% renewable energy by 2020

    With the 60 percent milestone in sight, the company is now targeting over 70 percent renewable energy for its data centers by 2023.

    Microsoft is aiming to cut its carbon emissions by 75 percent by 2030 and as part of that effort has raised its internal carbon ‘tax’ to $15 per metric ton on all carbon emissions, which is nearly double the current rate for carbon emissions, according to Microsoft president Brad Smith.

    Microsoft has had a carbon tax in place since 2012 that puts the burden on business divisions financially to cut their own carbon emissions.

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-green-plan-our-data-centers-will-run-on-60-renewable-energy-by-2020/

Other

  • Gov. Tony Evers wants to renegotiate Foxconn deal, says company won’t employ 13,000

    “Clearly the deal that was struck is no longer in play and so we will be working with individuals at Foxconn and of course with (the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.) to figure out how a new set of parameters should be negotiated,” Evers told reporters in his Capitol office.

    He said it was premature to say what specific changes he would be seeking. Under existing deals, the state and local governments could provide the company up to $4 billion to establish a massive facility in Racine County and create up to 13,000 Wisconsin jobs.

    https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2019/04/17/tony-evers-says-foxconn-wont-employ-13-000-wants-new-deal/3498897002/

  • Google and Amazon end their ridiculous streaming video spat

    This should mark the end of a long, contentious relationship between Amazon and Google. For a while, Amazon declined to sell Google’s Chromecast devices, products that compete directly with Amazon’s own Fire TV products. Amazon also didn’t include support for Google Cast in the Prime Video app, which made it essentially impossible to get Prime Video on bigger screens if you used Google products. Google responded by pulling support for the YouTube apps on Fire TV as well as the Echo Show

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/18/google-amazon-youtube-firetv-prime-video-chromecast/

  • The EU has officially passed its controversial copyright law

    A total of 19 European Council members, including France and Germany, voted in favor of the new Copyright Directive. Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Finland and Sweden voted against adopting the directive, whereas Belgium, Estonia and Slovenia abstained — but their opposition ultimately didn’t matter. EU countries now have 24 months to apply the directive to their national legislations.

    Under the new rules, the likes of YouTube, Facebook and Instagram will be required to obtain licenses for copyrighted works from rights holders in order to host their content. They’ll also be forced to police copyrighted material through the use of tools such as filters. Critics, including Google, fear a surge in takedown requests could turn the web into a ghost town. Internet campaigners, meanwhile, have warned that the resulting censorship could quell unique forms of online expression, from GIFs to memes.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/15/eu-officially-passed-copyright-law/

Photo by Chris Sabor on Unsplash