Supplier Report: 4/20/2018
IBM had a rough week with stock prices dropping almost 6% due to stagnating sales. Some analysts are saying that “big blue” is now too small to compete against the cloud giants and does not have enough cash reserves ($12B) to make any major acquisitions to help them catch up. Bad news aside, the company did unveil the world’s smallest computer which costs 10 cents to make and has the computer power of a 1990’s era PC (think IoT applications).
Qualcomm is planning on cutting 4% of their workforce to yield $1B in cost reductions. Apple would like to find and cut the person leaking insider information, which was discovered by the press… due to a news leak. The company is also having problems finding customers for their HomePod personal assistant in a market saturated with devices listening to every conversation you have in your home.
Acquisitions
- Adobe acquires voice interface platform Sayspring
Adobe today announced that it has acquired Sayspring, a startup that helps developers prototype and build the voice interfaces for their Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant apps. The company says the Sayspring team will join Adobe tomorrow and that it’ll then start integrating the company’s technology into its own products.
All of Saysprings services are now available for free — but there is a catch. If you want to sign up for the service now, you’ll need an invite. Sayspring says it’ll select invitations and roll out new invites on a rolling basis.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/16/adobe-acquires-voice-interface-platform-sayspring/
Artificial Intelligence
- Elon Musk says ‘humans are underrated,’ calls Tesla’s ‘excessive automation’ a ‘mistake’
“Excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake,” Musk wrote, responding to a Wall Street Journal reporter’s tweet. “Humans are underrated.” He also talked about this with CBS News’ Gayle King, adding “we had this crazy, complex network of conveyor belts….And it was not working, so we got rid of that whole thing.”
Tesla has faced mounting public pressure amid a production slowdown for its Model 3, its lower-priced car. The company recently revealed that it missed its target to produce 2,500 cars a week, disappointing investors.
- AI isn’t ready for prime time because of bad data, say marketers
During a closed-door town hall session on April 12, one brand executive asked fellow marketers if the data being fed to AI programs today is bad data that may lead to ill-informed results. “I don’t think it’s a question. We’re making decisions off of bad data,” responded one.
Fortunately for marketers, they aren’t yet using AI to make major business decisions. The examples that attendees most frequently cited during the summit were tailoring product recommendations and personalizing marketing communications. And even to the extent that marketers use AI to make major decisions, they are using it as a gut check. “I think AI is all about decision support. It’s there to tell you what not to do,” said one attendee.
But brands hope to eventually use AI to automate more of their businesses. One brand exec said she hopes AI can automate approval processes and ensure her company adheres to regulatory requirements.
https://digiday.com/marketing/ai-isnt-ready-primetime-bad-data-say-marketers/
- Half of all jobs can today be automated — and within 50 years, all of them can be
“A large part of the increased income from productivity accrues to already rich people…you may get a proliferation of low-income service jobs rather than a further increase in productivity,” said Turner.
An example of this effect is the British online food delivery company Deliveroo where, as a result of improved technology, minimum-wage jobs of delivering food on a bicycle have proliferated, he said.
This phenomenon is also evident in the United States, as the jobs expected to grow the most from 2014 to 2024 are personal care aides, food serving workers, and operation managers, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“These low-paying service jobs are growing because they for now cannot be automated and because wages are low enough to make automation uneconomic,” Turner explained.
Cloud
- Oracle Is Leading Anti-Amazon Lobby on Pentagon Cloud Bid
The Oracle-led effort relies on a loose coalition of technology companies also seeking a slice of the Pentagon work, including Microsoft Corp. and International Business Machines Corp., said the people, who described the matter on condition of anonymity. Dell Technologies Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. are also participating, said one of the people.
Their goal is to make sure that the award process is opened up to more than one company and unseat Amazon as the front-runner for the multibillion-dollar deal. As part of the campaign, the people said, Oracle is holding regular calls with tech allies, courting trade and mainstream media and lobbying lawmakers, defense officials and the White House.
Also: (this ties back to SourceCast 113)
While Oracle’s $187 billion market value is less than a third of Amazon’s, it punches way above its weight in Washington, where it has a team of seasoned policy officials and personal relationships that go all the way to the top.
Trump personally ordered the Justice Department to hire Oracle’s Ezra Cohen-Watnick to advise Attorney General Jeff Sessions on national security matters, according to people familiar with the matter. Cohen-Watnick went to Oracle in August after leaving the National Security Council, where he had been caught up in a controversy over the release of intelligence material to a member of Congress, according to people familiar with the matter.
- A Tech Giant No More: IBM Is Too Small to Compete in the Cloud Era
Its latest quarter shows revenue of $19.1 billion, and net income of $1.7 billion, $1.81 per share. That’s just two thirds of what Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) brought in last quarter. Microsoft’s market cap of $742 billion is more than five times IBM’s $137 billion market cap.
The best reason to buy IBM for years has been its dividend, now yielding 4.03%. But that dividend, $1.50 per share per quarter, is soaking up an ever-greater portion of earnings and will take almost $1.4 billion to service. It means the company only has $12 billion in cash. By contrast Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), the least well-capitalized of the “Cloud Czars,” has $40 billion in cash and short-term securities to sustain its investments.
IBM simply lacks the financial firepower to win the DoD contract, because it prioritized shareholders over investment early in this decade. Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) did make the commitment to investment, and as a result, history passed IBM by.
Security
- In a Leaked Memo, Apple Warns Employees to Stop Leaking Information
Leaked information about a new product can negatively impact sales of current models, give rivals more time to begin on a competitive response, and lead to fewer sales when the new product launches, according to the memo. “We want the chance to tell our customers why the product is great, and not have that done poorly by someone else,” Greg Joswiak, an Apple product marketing executive, said in the memo.
The crackdown is part of broader and long-running attempts by Silicon Valley technology companies to track and limit what information their employees share publicly. Firms like Google and Facebook Inc. are pretty open with staff about their plans, but keep close tabs on their outside communications and sometime fire people when they find leaks.
- Smart Speakers And Their Potential Privacy Concerns
“‘When you read parts of the applications, it’s really clear that this is spyware and a surveillance system meant to serve you up to advertisers,” Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court told The New York Times. These companies are “basically going to be finding out what our home life is like in qualitative ways.”
He supports his notions through the patent details.
“The processor [of the computing system] is configured to use the first data to determine which user is occupying a smart-device environment” and “the properties comprising age, gender, fashion-taste, mood, preferred activities, medical condition, or some combination thereof,” the official filing reads.
http://dailycaller.com/2018/04/14/smart-speakers-privacy-concerns-alexa/
Software/SaaS
- Why Amazon Now Wants to Disrupt the P2P Payments Industry
Just weeks after news leaked that Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) might be interested in launching a checking account-like product, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the company might also be looking into debuting a new peer-to-peer (P2P) payment platform. While details are far from set on how such a service might operate, one idea being floated is to enable Alexa, Amazon’s voice-based smart-home companion, to make payments to friends and family members.
If the information leaked to The Wall Street Journal is accurate, it wouldn’t be Amazon’s first foray into P2P payments. Years ago, Amazon operated WebPay, a service that allowed Amazon Payments members to send and request money by entering the amount and a contact’s email address on a web page. Amazon eventually shut the service down after it failed to gain traction. As the company explained on its site at the time, “We are not addressing a customer pain point particularly better than anyone else.”
https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/04/13/why-amazon-now-wants-to-disrupt-the-p2p-payments-i.aspx
- Microsoft built its own custom Linux kernel for its new IoT service
Why use Linux? “With Azure Sphere, Microsoft is addressing an entirely new class of IoT devices, the MCU,” Rob Lefferts, Microsoft’s partner director for Windows enterprise and security told me at the event.” Windows IoT runs on microprocessor units (MPUs) which have at least 100x the power of the MCU. The Microsoft-secured Linux kernel used in the Azure Sphere IoT OS is shared under an OSS license so that silicon partners can rapidly enable new silicon innovations.” And those partners are also very comfortable with taking an open-source release and integrating that with their products.
Datacenter/Hardware
- IBM Unveils World’s Smallest Computer And Its Amazing
For the terribly tiny size, it sure packs a punch of processing power. It has a processing power of an X86 chip from 1990. You may think that it is not that powerful but remember, we need a microscope to clearly see the chip.
The computer will cost less than ten cents to manufacture, and will also pack “several hundred thousand transistors,” according to the company. These will allow it to “monitor, analyze, communicate, and even act on data.”
https://www.technotification.com/2018/04/ibm-worlds-smallest-computer.html
- Is Apple’s HomePod failing?
For me, it’s Apple’s refusal to compromise on the practical things that kills any reason for me to buy the HomePod, despite being a fully paid-up Apple fanboy. I’d love, for instance, to use the HomePod with Spotify like I do with the Google Home Mini. Or, even better, use an optical-in connection to connect it to my TV and use it as my home’s primary speaker. The same product with one tiny concession to the real world would be a much more popular product, for sure. And don’t get me started on the lack of Bluetooth. You can argue that even with AptX it’s lower quality audio, but its omission is a raised middle finger to everyone.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/13/apple-homepod-failing-editorial/
Other
- Supreme Court Weighs Widening States’ Reach on Online Sales Taxes
The current tax rules—from the era of mail-order catalogs—helped fuel the rise of internet commerce and spurred frustration among brick-and-mortar retailers, shopping-mall owners and state governments.
Tax and legal experts expect the court to overturn the precedent, freeing states to collect levies on future cross-state transactions. It isn’t clear what new standard might take its place or what rules states might impose.
- Backpage.com CEO pleads guilty to human trafficking
Documents unsealed today by the Justice Department (PDF) reveal Backpage.com CEO Carl Ferrer pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges in Arizona on April 5th, a day before the site was seized and shut down. Additionally, attorneys general in California and Texas announced today that the site itself has entered a guilty plea to charges of human trafficking in Texas, while Ferrer pleaded guilty to conspiracy and three counts of money laundering in California. Several corporate entities tied to the site, including Backpage.com LLC, also entered guilty pleas to charges of money laundering.
As a part of the deal that will see him serve a maximum of five years in prison, the prosecutors say Ferrer has surrendered the URLs of the site and its data to law enforcement, and that he will cooperate in the prosecution against others involved with the company — namely co-founders and controlling shareholders Michael Lacey and James Larkin, who were indicted April 9th.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/12/backpage-ceo-pleads-guilty-to-human-trafficking-money-launderin/
- IBM Falls After Quarterly Margins Narrow and Sales Stagnate
International Business Machines Corp. reported first-quarter sales of $19.1 billion, beating the average analyst estimate of $18.8 billion. That’s a 5 percent gain since last year, but only when the weak U.S. dollar was factored in. Without it, revenue growth was unchanged. Growth in the key “strategic imperatives” business lines — which includes the company’s cloud, analytics and mobile-focused businesses — was up 10 percent from a year earlier to $9 billion when adjusted for currency changes.
The stock dropped as much as 5.8 percent, to $151.54, in extended trading after ending the day up 1.9 percent.
Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty is working to pull IBM back from over five years of revenue declines. She reversed the trend late last year though that boost wasn’t fueled as much by the new businesses as by cyclical demand for mainframe servers. Investors are watching closely to see whether she can ramp up gains in IBM’s newer software and services to sustain the improvement when the bump from hardware sales fades.
- Qualcomm Job Cuts Total 4.4% of Workforce So Far
Qualcomm is cutting 4.4% of its workforce starting in June, according to documents filed with the state of California. The layoffs include 1,231 employees in San Diego, where the chip maker has its headquarters, and 269 in San Jose and Santa Clara, according to the documents.
The company employed 33,800, including part-time workers, as of September 2017, according to a regulatory filing.
The $1 billion cost-reduction program is part of a profit-boosting plan unveiled in January, intended to persuade investors the company would be more valuable on its own than combined with Broadcom Corp. , which at the time was pursuing a hostile takeover bid. President Donald Trump scuttled Broadcom’s overture with a March executive order blocking a deal on national security grounds.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/qualcomm-cuts-jobs-to-boost-profit-1524115042?ns=prod/accounts-wsj
Photo by Brianna Santellan on Unsplash
Supplier Report: 4/6/2018
President Trump’s fight with Amazon continues to be the dominant technology story this week. Pundits on both sides are weighing in on the government’s options to go after Amazon. As Trump’s team devise a potential battle plan, the Department of Defense could give Jeff Bezos billions of dollars of new business (much to Oracle’s frustration).
Apple is making headlines this week for poaching Google’s head of AI to bolster their lagging division. The company also announced they will produce their own CPUs starting in 2020 causing Intel stock to drop 9%.
Facebook’s data security problems continue as Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to testify in front of Congress on April 11th.
Acquisitions
- The Curious Case of the Belkin Buy
“I can’t put my finger on why, but this acquisition seems weird to me,” writes John Gruber, describing Foxconn’s decision to buy Belkin for $866 million. It is not that weird, especially when you take into account the competitive landscape.
TL: DR version: Foxconn needs to boost margins. Belkin has a great brand but faces an increasingly competitive landscape. It is weirdly about Taiwan vs. China.
https://om.co/2018/03/28/the-curious-case-of-the-belkin-buy/
Artificial Intelligence
- Retailers Race Against Amazon to Automate Stores
Companies are testing robots that help keep shelves stocked, as well as apps that let shoppers ring up items with a smartphone. High-tech systems like the one used by Amazon Go completely automate the checkout process. China, which has its own ambitious e-commerce companies, is emerging as an especially fertile place for these retail experiments.
If they succeed, these new technologies could add further uncertainty to the retail work force, which is already in flux because of the growth of online shopping. An analysis last year by the World Economic Forum said 30 to 50 percent of the world’s retail jobs could be at risk once technologies like automated checkout were fully embraced.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/01/technology/retailer-stores-automation-amazon.html
- Emmanuel Macron Talks to WIRED About France’s AI Strategy
The key driver should not only be technological progress, but human progress. This is a huge issue. I do believe that Europe is a place where we are able to assert collective preferences and articulate them with universal values. I mean, Europe is the place where the DNA of democracy was shaped, and therefore I think Europe has to get to grips with what could become a big challenge for democracies.
And
We had some innovations that I saw several times in medicine to predict, via better analysis, the diseases you may have in the future and prevent them or better treat you. A few years ago, I went to CES. I was very impressed by some of these companies. I had with me some French companies, but I discovered US, Israeli and other companies operating in the same field. Innovation that artificial intelligence brings into healthcare systems can totally change things: with new ways to treat people, to prevent various diseases, and a way—not to replace the doctors—but to reduce the potential risk.
https://www.wired.com/story/emmanuel-macron-talks-to-wired-about-frances-ai-strategy/
- AI Beats Human Lawyers At Their Own Game (Thanks JD!)
LawGeex pitted 20 experienced attorneys against a three-year-old algorithm trained to evaluate contracts. Spoiler alert: the computer won.
Lawyers and the AI, for instance, were penalized for missing an exemption relevant to the contract, or mistakenly identifying an exemption where it was irrelevant.
In the end, LawGeex’s neural network achieved an average 94 percent accuracy rate, compared to the lawyers’ average of 85 percent. And while it took humans anywhere from 51 minutes to more than 2.5 hours to complete all five NDAs, the AI engine finished in 26 seconds.
https://www.geek.com/tech/ai-beats-human-lawyers-at-their-own-game-1732154/
- Our Robot Overlords Might Be Delayed
Then there’s the question of reliability. Despite computer scientists’ best efforts, algorithms are prone to make spectacular errors — such as mistaking a law-abiding person for a criminal. Worse, it’s often impossible to understand what went wrong: With billions of parameters involved, even an algorithm’s creators often do not know how and why it works. The reliability of an aircraft engine can be predicted, because it’s made of many parts for which we can mostly guarantee performance. Not so with algorithms. This limits their use in situations — such as making financial trades or medical diagnoses — where errors can be disastrous and it’s important to understand the process by which decisions are made.
In other words, there’s nothing very deep about deep learning.
- Apple Hires Artificial-Intelligence Executive From Rival Google
Apple, which is famously secretive, has lagged its peers in publishing research in the field, and that has made it difficult for the company to recruit professors and Ph.D. students from university computer-science programs, say academics and students.
The company’s flagship AI product, Siri, also has fallen behind competitors such as Amazon.com ’s Alexa and Google Voice in the number of tasks it can perform and accuracy. The HomePod, a smart speaker released in February, put a spotlight on some of those shortcomings, according to reviewers.
Mr. Giannandrea, known to colleagues as “JG,” was well-regarded at Google where he was considered a skilled manager adept at leading the engineering team, a person familiar with his work said. He joined the company in 2010 and led efforts to incorporate AI into Google products such as Photos and its Inbox app. He was tapped in 2016 to run its search engine.
Cloud
- Oracle’s CEO Might Have Given Trump Another Reason to Slam Amazon
Oracle chief executive Safra Catz criticized the bidding process for a huge Pentagon cloud computing contract in a private dinner with President Donald Trump on Tuesday, complaining that it seemed designed for Amazon to win, according to people familiar with the matter.
Trump heard her out and said he wants the contract competition to be fair, but made no indication he’d interfere in the bidding, the people said. Oracle (ORCL, +1.38%), where Catz shares the CEO title with Mark Hurd, is competing with Amazon (AMZN, +3.09%) for the contract, a point she didn’t emphasize to Trump, the people said.
http://fortune.com/2018/04/05/safra-catz-donald-trump-oracle-amazon/
I predicted Safra was going to get more involved on SourceCast 113 - As Trump Bashes Amazon, the Government Increasingly Relies on It
The company doesn’t release specifics, but GBH Insights, a research firm, predicts that Amazon’s government business will grow to $2.8 billion in 2018 and $4.6 billion in 2019, up from less than $300 million in 2015. Other company analysts say those projections are optimistic, but not implausible.
An even bigger prize looms: Amazon is seeking a 10-year contract with the Department of Defense that could be worth $10 billion.
Security
- Facebook Says Cambridge Analytica Harvested Data of Up to 87 Million Users
Andy Stone, a spokesman for Facebook in Washington, said the 87 million figure was an estimate of the total number of users whose data could have been acquired by Cambridge Analytica. He said that the estimate was calculated by adding up all the friends of the people who had logged into the Facebook app from which Cambridge Analytica collected profile data.
“We wanted to put out the maximum number of people who could have been affected,” Mr. Zuckerberg told reporters.
It remains unclear exactly how many users had their personal information accessed by Cambridge Analytica. The firm said Wednesday that it had licensed data for no more than 30 million users of the social network.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/mark-zuckerberg-testify-congress.html
- Saks, Lord & Taylor Hit With Data Breach
So far, 125,000 cards that had been used at Saks or Lord & Taylor have been released for sale by the hackers, according to Gemini Advisory. Some were cards that were used by card owners as recently as last month in one of the affected stores, according to Dmitry Chorine, Gemini Advisory’s chief technology officer.
The group behind the hack is known as JokerStash Syndicate or Fin 7. It appears to have penetrated the retailers’ point of sale systems, Mr. Chorine said.
After previous breaches the JokerStash group has released credit-card data in smaller batches, to avoid flooding the market for illegally obtained payment credentials, Mr. Chorine said.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/saks-lord-taylor-hit-with-data-breach-1522598460?mg=prod/accounts-wsj
Software/SaaS
- Tech Thinks It Has a Fix for the Problems It Created: Blockchain
Most of the biggest internet companies make their money from collecting personal information and using it to sell targeted advertisements. This kind of massive data collection makes them vulnerable to hackers and outsiders who want to leverage the data — as was evident when Cambridge Analytica improperly gained access to 50 million Facebook profiles. And start-ups are using the blockchain in an attempt to pry control of all that data out of their hands.
Blockstack has built a way to record the basic details about your identity on a blockchain database and then use that identity to set up accounts with other online projects that are built on top of it.
The animating force behind the project is that users — rather than Blockstack or any other company — would end up in control of all the data they generate with any online service.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/01/technology/blockchain-uses.html
- Mozilla’s radical open-source move helped rewrite rules of tech
When Mozilla was born, open-source software was a counterculture oddity that flew in the face of a software industry used to selling proprietary products. But today, it powers just about every tech company out there — Google, Facebook and yes, even that old open-source nemesis, Microsoft. Mozilla wasn’t the first open-source project, but it fanned the flames of a way of thinking that brought us ubiquitous social networks, mobile operating systems and thousands of apps.
“It was a Hail Mary pass,” said Chris DiBona, director of open source at Google. “But somebody caught the ball and ran with it.”
Now it’s the norm. Google releases five or six open-source projects every single day — more than 12,000 in total so far. It’s common enough that Google automated the process so no humans are needed to review the decision. It’s hard to overstate how profound a change that is for people who program for a living.
https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-open-source-firefox-move-helped-rewrite-tech-rules-anniversary/
- Oracle v. Google Proves Again Why Fair Use Is So Troublesome
This decision understandably has far-reaching ramifications for those in the software development field. Copying even a relatively small amount of code is now unlikely to be considered “too small” to be considered an infringement. Furthermore, the re-contextualization of code from one device format to another (such as desktop to mobile) is now less likely to be considered transformative use of that code and, as a result, ultimately less likely to be found to be a fair use.
Even outside the tech space, this decision serves as yet another example of the unpredictability of fair-use determinations and further evidence of why the doctrine of fair use is “the most troublesome in the whole law of copyright.” As courts at both the trial and appellate levels increasingly decide the issue of fair use as a matter of law – and significant questions of whether and when the issue can even be tried to a jury – it is becoming increasingly difficult to take comfort that one’s use of another’s copyrighted work will be considered “fair.”
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/oracle-v-google-proves-again-why-fair-52496/
Datacenter/Hardware
- Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs From 2020, Replacing Intel
Apple Inc. is planning to use its own chips in Mac computers beginning as early as 2020, replacing processors from Intel Corp., according to people familiar with the plans.
The initiative, code named Kalamata, is still in the early developmental stages, but comes as part of a larger strategy to make all of Apple’s devices — including Macs, iPhones, and iPads — work more similarly and seamlessly together, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. The project, which executives have approved, will likely result in a multi-step transition.
Other
- Will Amazon be your next bank and health insurance?
Yet whenever claims of monopolistic practices are levered against it, Amazon quickly points out that e-commerce represents less than 10% of brick-and-mortar sales. Furthermore, it claims that Walmart sales alone – over $500 billion in 2017 – are almost three times bigger than Amazon’s. Add to this the fact that prices are kept low at Amazon and you can dismiss any charge of Amazon abusing its dominant position.
These arguments miss the main point raised by Khan in her “Amazon Paradox” note: Amazon should not be persecuted for antitrust based on consumer welfare criteria or overall retail market share dominance. Rather, more modern antitrust laws should focus on the methods online platforms the size of Amazon can use to inhibit competition. These methods include predatory pricing based on real-time analysis of marketplace competitors and vertical integration of logistics. Thanks to Amazon’s highly complementary business models, it has created a physical and online infrastructure empire that is quickly becoming the only competitive way to satisfy the growing need of instant gratification by online shoppers. Lured by the lock-in mechanisms built into the “Prime” subscription services (which offers free next-day delivery and video streaming to subscribers), consumers cannot help but be ecstatic with this online shopping paradise. One quickly understands why Amazon Prime now captures 46% of online shoppers in the US and why the barriers to entry are becoming increasingly insurmountable to upstarts in this field.
https://www.econotimes.com/Will-Amazon-be-your-next-bank-and-health-insurance-1232163
- Why a Trump-Led Antitrust Case Against Amazon Is a Long Shot
If Mr. Trump did decide to pursue any new regulations, he would either have to push a law through a Republican Congress that is unlikely to be receptive to more regulation or involve the Justice Department and other regulators to bring a case before the courts, Mr. Melamed said.
“It’s a huge amount of work, with a very dubious pay off,” he adds.
A White House spokeswoman on Thursday said “the president has expressed his concerns with Amazon. We have no actions at this time.”
- Justice Department asks Supreme Court to moot Microsoft email case, citing new law
On March 23, Congress passed, and President Trump signed, the Cloud Act. The law states that a “provider of electronic communication service” shall comply with a court order for data “regardless of whether such communication, record or other information is located within or outside of the United States.”
Microsoft supported the legislation, which also provides a way to facilitate — through bilateral agreements — foreign law enforcement agencies’ access to data held inside the United States.
The Justice Department on Friday obtained a new search warrant requiring Microsoft to turn over the emails. “Microsoft no longer has any basis for suggesting that such a warrant is impermissibly extraterritorial,” Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco wrote in a motion to the Supreme Court. “There is thus no longer any live dispute between the parties, and the case is now moot.”
- Tesla is now worth less than Ford
Tesla’s stock price is falling and in doing so, has retreated on milestones it set last year. As of publication, the company’s value is less than Ford’s for the first time in a year. At current levels, Tesla’s market cap is $42.063 billion while Ford is trading at $43.588. It was a year ago tomorrow that Tesla overtook Ford’s market cap.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/02/tesla-is-now-worth-less-than-ford/
- Samsung surpasses IBM with most patents filed in US
Samsung Electronics has overtaken IBM as the holder of the most US patents as of the beginning of 2018, according to new data. The South Korean tech firm owned 75,596 US patents, outdoing the second best IBM by nearly 1.6 times.
“Even though IBM continually out-files other companies, its assets are also ageing; in addition, it is known for abandoning a number of its patents relatively early in their lifetimes.” “As (IBM’s) assets grow older, it will have to innovate more (or acquire more patent assets) to keep pace,” the report added.
Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash
Supplier Report: 3/30/2018
As Amazon continues to grow, the company is drawing the attention of President Trump. Trump’s issues with Amazon and Jeff Bezos are well documented, and there are reports that Trump is focused on finding ways to halt Amazon’s growth while the rest of the government is focused on regulating Facebook and Google.
Microsoft is undertaking a massive reorganization centered on cloud and AI. This push has resulted in long-time Windows lead Terry Myerson opting to leave the company.
IBM is currently undergoing another round of job eliminations. The full scope hasn’t been reported yet, but the focus seems to be around sales and services, leaving remaining employees to wonder how the company can support existing customers.
Oracle took a stock hit a few weeks ago, but they had a massive win against Google. The Java fair-use case that has been going on for years has finally shifted back in Oracle’s favor. The company could get a $9B settlement from Google.
Acquisitions
- Unit of Taiwan’s Foxconn to Buy Los Angeles-Based Belkin
A unit of Foxconn Technology Group has agreed to buy smartphone and electronics accessories maker Belkin International Inc. for $866 million.
The move disclosed Tuesday comes as Taiwan-based Foxconn, known as the contract assembler of Apple Inc.’s iPhones, seeks to bolster its consumer-branded operations.
Privately held Belkin also owns Linksys, a wireless router brand, and the Wemo brand of products that control home lights, monitor cameras and similar devices.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/unit-of-taiwans-foxconn-to-buy-los-angeles-based-belkin-1522151550
I wonder if Trump is going to let this sale happen? - DOJ and AT&T Clash Over Impact on Consumers of a Time Warner Deal
The Justice Department argued a post-merger AT&T would use Turner’s valuable channels to wring higher prices out of rival cable providers who need that programming for their packages. The government also argued AT&T would try to deter emerging online rivals who are offering pay-TV packages at cheaper prices.
Mr. Conrath highlighted Dish Network Corp.’s Sling TV, a new online-only TV package that competes against AT&T’s DirecTV Now streaming service, as proof of Time Warner’s importance. He said Turner chief John Martin warned a Sling TV executive the service would be “crap” if it didn’t carry Turner’s networks. (Mr. Conrath said Mr. Martin used a more profane word best kept out of the courtroom.) Sling TV today offers two basic $20-a-month TV packages, both of which carry Turner channels.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/doj-says-pay-tv-will-cost-more-if-at-t-buys-time-warner-1521746321
Artificial Intelligence
- Apple and IBM Watson team for enterprise mobile machine learning
In leveraging the new technology, customers can build machine learning models using IBM Watson (the company’s cloud-based AI platform for business) and train it with their own industry-specific data. This includes the ability to create different machine learning models, compare the results, and run automated experiments – identifying patterns and gaining insights, to reach decisions more quickly.
Machine learning is implemented with IBM Watson’s visual modelling tools, such as PixieDust and Brunel, but there’s support for Jupyter notebooks with Python, R and Scala – plus the open-source RStudio. This is then converted to Apple’s Core ML to integrate it with Apple-compatible applications.
One such application of machine learning enables iPhone cameras to access Watson’s image recognition capabilities. Users can identify and classify content, before analyzing it to extract detailed information. This capability could shake up workflows in the industrial, logistics, and healthcare sectors.
https://internetofbusiness.com/apple-ibm-mobile-machine-learning/
- IBM Could Be a Dark Horse in the Virtual Assistant Market
Don’t expect IBM to launch a smart speaker, and don’t expect to be saying, “Hey, Watson.” The company is targeting enterprise customers with Watson Assistant instead of going after consumers directly. Watson Assistant can be used by companies and organizations to build industry-specific applications. It’s a white-label product, meaning that applications built on Watson Assistant will be branded and customized however the developing company chooses.
IBM provided an example of how this could work in a post announcing the product:
You’re on a business trip to Las Vegas. Upon landing at McCarran International Airport, Watson Assistant automatically checks into your hotel and your preferred rental car is not only ready, it has the hotel destination preprogrammed along with suggestions on where to get a latte while en-route. Nearing the hotel, the Watson Assistant in your car signals your arrival to the hotel and not only updates the room with your preferences for music, temperature and lighting, it synchs your smartphone, calendar and email with the in-room wall dashboard and checking you into the convention you’re attending.
- Microsoft is launching a huge reorganization to focus on AI and the cloud
The company is creating two new engineering divisions that it says will accelerate innovation and better serve its customers. One team will focus on the cloud and AI, the other on what it calls “experiences and devices.”
The AI cloud: It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Microsoft has decided to lump together its cloud services with its AI research—combining the two is a big business, with Google, Amazon, and Chinese firms all providing stiff competition. This new division will also include its teams working on augmented- and mixed-reality technologies.
Things people use: Microsoft’s new “experiences and devices” team will attempt to unify the way the firm is developing products for consumer and business users. It’ll include Microsoft’s mobile offerings, Windows, and its Microsoft 365 productivity suite.
https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/610725/microsoft-is-doing-the-splits-to-focus-on-ai-and-the-cloud/
Microsoft’s longtime Windows boss is leaving the company amid a huge executive reorganizationAs part of the reorganization, Rajesh Jha, the executive VP of Microsoft Office products, will expand his responsibilities to encompass Myerson’s role. Jha will become the leader of a group called Experiences and Devices, bringing Windows and Office together under a single banner.
“The purpose of this team is to instill a unifying product ethos across our end-user experiences and devices,” Nadella said. “Computing experiences are evolving to include multiple senses and are no longer bound to one device at a time but increasingly spanning many as we move from home to work and on the go.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-terry-myerson-leaving-reorganization-2018-3
Cloud
- Trump Attacks Amazon, Saying It Does Not Pay Enough Taxes
Mr. Trump accused Amazon, one of the country’s most recognizable and successful brands, of putting thousands of local retailers out of business and said the company was using the United States Postal Service as its “Delivery Boy.”
The president has lashed out publicly against the giant company and its chief executive, Jeff Bezos, on Twitter more than a dozen times since 2015. And privately, people close to him said, Mr. Trump repeatedly brings up his disdain for the company, often set off by his anger at negative stories in The Washington Post, which is owned by Mr. Bezos.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/us/politics/trump-amazon-taxes.html
One area where Trump could really hurt AmazonThe Washington Business Journal reported that the omnibus spending bill signed by Trump earlier this month contained a provision which requires the DoD to explain why awarding a contract that could run in excess of $10 billion to a single vendor is the best way to execute this plan.
In 2013, Amazon Web Services won a $600 million contract from the CIA.
And with signs pointing to Amazon having the upper hand in winning a potentially massive contract from the DoD, Clifton sees this as an area where Trump could hit back against Amazon.
“Of all the stories we read [on Wednesday], however, we saw very little attention paid to the one area where Trump could actually hurt Amazon – cloud computing contracts,” Clifton writes. “Tech companies have been fuming at the possibility of Amazon being the sole company awarded a multi-year cloud services contract at DoD. Congress was forced to intervene in the recent omnibus.”
https://sports.yahoo.com/one-area-trump-really-hurt-amazon-164512213.html
- Oracle Opens The Doors To Massive Austin Campus Entirely Focused On Driving Cloud Solutions
Oracle said the campus could ultimately support up to 10,000 workers, some of whom will live in a neighboring apartment building the company is constructing.
From the campus, Oracle will launch its Next Generation Contact Center, a customer support operation which looks to enhance the customer experience by leveraging Oracle Sales Cloud to drive the sales process.
A new Oracle Cloud Solution Hub will also be set up at the Austin campus.
The hubs—three more will operate at other Oracle sites across the country—showcase Oracle cloud projects in the works or already deployed in the field for customers. Engineers will be available to demonstrate Oracle’s next-gen solutions, from AI to virtual reality to bots.
- Microsoft will be worth $1T within year: Morgan Stanley
Other tech heavyweights still hold a lead over Microsoft. Apple is worth $861 billion, while Amazon’s market cap is $739 billion. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, fell to $709 billion during Monday’s trading session.
“Strong positioning for ramping public cloud adoption, large distribution channels and installed customer base, and improving margins support a path to $50 billion in [earnings before interest and taxes] and a $1 trillion market cap for [Microsoft],” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a note to clients.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/microsoft-will-be-worth-1t-within-year-morgan-stanley
Security
- Apple’s Tim Cook calls for tougher regulation of personal data
In a discussion at the China Development Forum, Tim Cook said that tougher, “well-crafted” regulation of personal data is likely “necessary” in the wake of Facebook’s crisis. The ability to learn “every intimate detail of your life” through your internet history and contacts “shouldn’t exist,” Cook said.
He argued that Apple had been concerned about just this sort of privacy breach for a long time. It saw that were giving up info without understanding what they were doing, and that companies were creating profiles that would leave people “incredibly offended” when they learned the truth. This has happened “more than once,” Cook added.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/24/tim-cook-calls-for-tougher-regulation-of-personal-data/
- President signs overseas data access bill into law
The House of Representatives has approved a piece of legislation (PDF) that makes it easier for law enforcement to get access to info even if it’s stored in other countries. Officially known as Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act, the set of regulations was part of the 2,000-page Omnibus Spending Bill the president has just signed. CLOUD was created to replace the current rules for cross-border access to data, which require requests for info to be ratified by the Senate and vetted by the DOJ. The new rules give the DOJ the power to obtain data US-based tech companies stored overseas, such as the Outlook emails Microsoft stores in Ireland. It also allows the agency to forge agreements with foreign governments seeking data from US tech corporations even without approval from Congress or the courts.
- Facebook has been collecting call history and SMS data from Android devices
While the recent prompts make it clear, Ars Technica points out the troubling aspect that Facebook has been doing this for years, during a time when Android permissions were a lot less strict. Google changed Android permissions to make them more clear and granular, but developers could bypass this and continue accessing call and SMS data until Google deprecated the old Android API in October.
Facebook has responded to the findings, but the company appears to suggest it’s normal for apps to access your phone call history when you upload contacts to social apps. “The most important part of apps and services that help you make connections is to make it easy to find the people you want to connect with,” says a Facebook spokesperson, in response to a query from Ars Technica. “So, the first time you sign in on your phone to a messaging or social app, it’s a widely used practice to begin by uploading your phone contacts.”
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/25/17160944/facebook-call-history-sms-data-collection-android
Software/SaaS
- Oracle Wins Court Ruling Against Google in Multibillion-Dollar Copyright Case
The court ruled Tuesday that Google’s use of Oracle’s Java programming technology wasn’t “fair,” a reversal of fortune in a case that dates back to 2010, when Oracle alleged Google’s Android smartphone operating system infringed copyrights related to Oracle’s Java platform. Oracle has sought as much as $9 billion in damages previously. Oracle general counsel Dorian Daley said in an interview that “the value has gone up,” though the company hasn’t come up with an updated number.
The appeals court ruling, if it stands, could have a broad impact on the software industry by limiting the “fair-use” defense in copyright cases. That could make it more costly and technically complex for developers to use Java and other copyrighted software to create new products, legal and industry experts said.
- Google Is Working on Blockchain Technology, Too
The search company is developing its own distributed ledger blockchain software to verify transactions within its cloud services. According to Bloomberg’s sources, Google will use the technology internally as well as provide a white-label version that other companies can run on their own servers. These sources said that Google has looked at the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger blockchain software. But it’s unknown whether the company will ultimately choose that open source software or something else.
It’s also unknown precisely how Google might be planning to use blockchain. But Cointelegraph reported that the company filed a patent application for a tamper-proof auditing system based on the technology.
https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/google-working-blockchain-technology/2018/03/
Datacenter/Hardware
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise to move HQ to San Jose
Hewlett Packard Enterprise is moving from Palo Alto to San Jose. The company will relocate 1,000 employees to a 220,000-square-foot space in late 2018. HPE was spun-off from Hewlett-Packard in 2015 and is focused on servers and storage.
This news comes months after HPE announced a different plan in which the company was moving to Santa Clara, where Aruba Networks, a company it previously acquired, is headquartered.
HPE is going to occupy six floors in San Jose’s America Center, which is located near a forthcoming Berryessa BART station.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/28/hewlett-packard-enterprise-to-move-hq-to-san-jose/
Other
- Mark Zuckerberg won’t lose his job any time soon
As chairman of the board, Zuckerberg controls 87 percent of Facebook voting shares. Even if the remaining eight board members wanted to kick him out, they don’t have the power to do so, unless Zuckerberg decides to play along and vote himself out.
This consolidation of power didn’t happen by accident. In December 2015, Zuckerberg pledged to give away 99 percent of his Facebook shares — valued at $45 billion at the time — to fund the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a charitable organization he founded with his wife. In order to do this without reducing Zuckerberg’s majority on the board, Facebook took a page of out the Google founders’ handbook. It introduced a new type of non-voting stock, Class C, that split every share for every stockholder into three distinct shares. A share worth $100 was transformed into three $33 shares, two of which were Class C, meaning they didn’t carry any voting rights.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/29/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-job-security/
- SoftBank Group and Saudi Arabia plan to spend $200 billion building the world’s biggest solar power plant
According to data compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the Saudi Arabian project is about 100 times larger than the next biggest proposed development, the 2 gigawatt Solar Choice Bulli Creek PV in Australia, which is expected to be completed by 2023.
During an event with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in New York City on Tuesday, Son said the project will create 100,000 jobs, triple Saudi Arabia’s electricity generation capacity and save $40 billion in power costs. Saudi Arabia is the largest crude exporter in the world, but the kingdom is currently trying to diversify its economy beyond oil. Last month, the government awarded ACWA Power a $302 million deal to build Saudi Arabia’s first utility-scale renewable energy plant.
- Stop us if you’ve heard this one: Job cuts at IBM
So far there is no word on the number of people who have been let go, and no Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notices from IBM have been filed in New York or California. However, multiple posts from both groups suggest a significant portion of the sales staff has been axed.
“Sales is getting hit hard especially over 50. My achievement was good, but now they are eliminating the territory,” says another person whose job was cut.
“They are guessing it could be 20-30 per cent of sales force.”
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/29/ibm_layoffs/
IBMers in TSS: How WILL we support customers after these latest job cuts?The document revealed staff are worried about the headcount that will be left to provide support to customers. In it, one ECC rep said he had “raised a concern that the proposed redundancies, in addition to attrition in the hardware domain, posed a significant business risk”. This was “noted” by IBM, it added.
IBMers have told us of individual teams being obliterated with, in some cases, more than half of the personnel set to leave. One told us: “I am being dumped on the scrap heap” by the latest cost cutting in the support unit.
“The out-of-hours support is being compromised to save money. IBM customers are paying for a service that will be depleted,” our source added.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/27/ibm_tss/
I keep saying this, but I do not understand why the company keeps going after services and consulting bids when they are cutting into those exact groups.
Photo by Elijah O’Donell on Unsplash
Supplier Report: 3/16/2018
Broadcom’s bid for Qualcomm has been shut down by the government citing fears over national security.
Amazon is hiring more developers for Alexa than Google is hiring for everything. As Team Bezos builds out more cloud services, there are rumors this week that Amazon is focusing on corporate training services.
IBM thinks Lotus Notes can make a comeback… is it wishful thinking or is there a real strategy?
Acquisitions
- Apple to Acquire Digital-Magazine-Subscription Service Texture
Apple Inc. said it will acquire Next Issue Media LLC and its digital-magazine-subscription service Texture, a product developed by top magazine companies that bundles together some 200 subscriptions into one monthly service.
The acquisition comes as Apple looks to beef up its services business, which includes music streaming and mobile payments.
Apple has set a goal of increasing total revenue from services to more than $40 billion by 2020. The company generated nearly $30 billion in services revenue in its fiscal year ended in September.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-to-acquire-magazine-subscription-service-texture-1520875158
- Why Intel Is So Wary of a Broadcom-Qualcomm Merger
Since late last year, Intel has been exploring a bid for Broadcom to forestall that company’s $117 billion offer for Qualcomm in what would be the biggest-ever tech deal, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal in an article published Friday. Intel’s interest in derailing that deal reflects its worry that a combined Broadcom-Qualcomm, which would create the third-largest chip company by revenue after Intel and Samsung Electronics Co., would endanger its competitive position, the people said.
A merged Broadcom and Qualcomm would combine market-leading smartphone chips with a strong presence in data centers, two areas Intel has targeted for growth. And Qualcomm’s own proposed purchase of Dutch automotive chip specialist NXP Semiconductors NV would turbocharge such a merger in the automotive market, where Intel has placed one of its biggest bets.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-intel-is-so-wary-of-a-broadcom-qualcomm-merger-1520800808
Broadcom’s Bid for Qualcomm May Be Headed for Rejection, U.S. Panel WarnsA government panel reviewing Broadcom’s $117 billion bid for Qualcomm has warned that it may refer the potential deal to President Trump for rejection, further dimming the prospects for what would be the biggest-ever technology takeover in history.
In a letter to the two companies on Sunday, the panel, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, said that it believed the offer by Broadcom posed national security concerns. Broadcom is currently headquartered in Singapore, but is in the process of relocating its legal base to the United States to allay those issues.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/business/dealbook/cfius-broadcom-qualcomm-merger.html
Rejection of Qualcomm-Broadcom Deal Followed Monthslong StrategyQualcomm’s Jan. 29 filing to CFIUS helped trigger a chain of events that culminated in President Donald Trump’s decision Monday to block the deal. Broadcom on Wednesday said it had withdrawn its offer for Qualcomm, though it is proceeding with plans to change its domicile to the U.S. from Singapore.
Qualcomm’s appeal tapped into gathering concern among some congressional Republicans and the Trump administration about U.S. national security and competitiveness with China, especially in advanced technologies—sentiment that already was fueling an effort to expand the power of CFIUS. The company also got help from sympathetic senators and representatives who pressed the administration.
Artificial Intelligence
- Amazon Is Hiring More Developers For Alexa Than Google Is Hiring For Everything
Amazon is hiring 1,147 people for its Alexa business unit alone, says Citi Research in a new report. That’s more than Google is hiring for product and technical roles across the entire Alphabet conglomerate, including YouTube, Waymo, Google Fiber, and — of course — the main money maker in the Alphabet empire: the original Google.
“Key takeaways from the job openings at Alphabet include that the company’s pace of hiring relative to its current headcount (3%) is among the lowest in our coverage,” said Citi analysts Mark May and Caleb Siegel.
That could bode well for Google’s margins, Citi says.
It also could mean that innovation is slowing.
Cloud
- Amazon’s cloud is looking at building a corporate training service
The move suggests Amazon Web Services sees ready-to-use services, rather than raw computing and storage resources for roll-your-own application development, as vehicles for maintaining the rapid growth of its cloud and keeping its lead ahead of the likes of Google and Microsoft. With learning-management software, individuals can go through collections of content such as videos to gain skills, and managers can track progress.
Amazon already has online training programs for partners to train their employees on how to use AWS offerings. This would be a broader general-purpose service that companies could use to manage all kinds of corporate training and learning programs.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/15/amazon-aws-exploring-learning-management-space.html
Security
- Microsoft expands software and microcode fixes for Meltdown and Spectre
Included as part of today’s Patch Tuesday rollout, Microsoft has expanded protections for the Meltdown vulnerability to x86 editions of Windows 7 and 8.1. That’s in addition to emergency fixes Microsoft first rolled out just after the exploits were disclosed. The company notes that it will continue to work on providing updates for additional supported versions of Windows.
In addition to expanding its software fixes, Microsoft says that it has also removed the antivirus compatibility check for security updates on Windows 10.
https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-expands-software-and-microcode-fixes-meltdown-and-spectre
Software/SaaS
- IBM thinks Notes and Domino can rise again
Since announcing that HCL would take over development of IBM’s collaborationware, the two companies have conducted a long listening tour that saw them stage 22 meatspace meetings and four online forums. The results of that consultation, which reached 2,000 people, plus lab work already conducted by IBM and HCL, were recently presented to the faithful.
The top line message imparted to users was that IBM and HCL think Notes can rise again: the companies have given themselves the “big hairy audacious goal” of having Notes seen as “… the application platform that business users tap to solve their collaboration intensive business problems – anyone, anywhere.”
Execs from the companies said the first step towards that goal will be version 10 of the platform, which will land sometime in 2018. Attendees at a webcast were told version 11 has already been planned.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/13/ibm_hcl_notes_domino_10_roadmap/
- Amazon Chime to be charged per-use
A blog post penned by Amazon Web Services (AWS) chief evangelist Jeff Barr explains that following the initial 30-day free trial where users have access to all Amazon Chime features, users can still chat with each other and attend meetings at no cost. However, in order to use the scheduling and hosting features once the trial is over, users must be connected to an AWS account.
On days where users host meetings, they will be charged $3 per-day, capped at $15 per month, starting from April 1, 2018.
“Based on historical usage patterns, this will result in an overall price reduction for virtually all Amazon Chime customers,” the blog reads.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/amazon-chime-to-be-charged-on-a-per-use-basis/
Slack Needs to Worry About Microsoft TeamsIn a blog post on Monday, Microsoft provided an update on Teams to mark its one-year anniversary. Teams is now in use at 200,000 organizations in 181 markets, with big-name users including A.P. Moller-Maersk, Macy’s, and General Motors. That’s up from 125,000 organizations in September.
One reason Teams has taken off so quickly is that it’s included with various Office 365 plans. Office 365 Business Premium, which costs $12.50 per user per month, includes Teams along with the full Office suite and other services such as OneDrive, Exchange, and Skype for Business. Office 365 Business Essentials, which leaves out the Office suite, is priced at just $5 per user per month. Microsoft’s three Office 365 enterprise plans, which start at $8 per user per month, also include Teams.
Slack offers a free plan, with two other plans priced at $6.67 and $12.50 per month. For any business that already uses Microsoft Office 365, using Teams over Slack is a no-brainer, even with Slack being a more mature product. For businesses using alternative productivity software, like Google’s G Suite, Office 365 with Teams and Slack are both priced in the same ballpark.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/03/13/slack-needs-to-worry-about-microsoft-teams.aspx
Other
- Some hard truths about Twitter’s health crisis
Because Twitter’s content problems really boil down to Twitter failing to enforce the community standards it already has. Which in turn is a failure of leadership, as I have previously argued.
A good current example is that it has an ads policy that bans “misleading and deceptive” ads. Yet it continues to accept advertising money from unregulated entities pushing dubiously obscure crypto exchanges and flogging wildly risky token sales.
Twitter really doesn’t need to wait for a new metric to understand that the right thing to do here is to take crypto/ICO ads off its platform right now.
https://beta.techcrunch.com/2018/03/10/some-hard-truths-about-twitters-health-crisis/?ncid=rss
- Former Equifax executive charged with insider trading ahead of massive data breach
According to the SEC, Jun Ying, the CIO of an Equifax business unit and next in line to be the global CIO, received confidential information about the company’s breach before the news was public. Ying allegedly exercised his stock options and sold his shares, making close to $1 million and avoiding a $117,000 loss when the stock price tanked post-announcement.
The SEC said the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia is also filing criminal charges against Ying.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/14/17119538/equifax-insider-trading-data-breach-charges
- Why media companies are shifting their attention from Facebook to YouTube
While Facebook Watch hasn’t taken off as a revenue source for publishers and the social network has deprioritized publisher content, YouTube offers something of a safe harbor for publishers that want to get into the video business. For example, publishers can direct-sell into their video on YouTube, said Kai Hsing, svp of marketing and operations at Bustle, which recently rekindled its interest in YouTube. YouTube was the most lucrative platform for publishers after Facebook, according to a Digital Content Next report.
Publishers also recognize that people are going to YouTube specifically to watch videos. That’s a reason parenting publication Fatherly recently resurrected its YouTube channel. In January, Fatherly hired Adam Banicki, a former video producer at Vice, as its first vp of video. In February, it began uploading videos to its YouTube channel for the first time since June 2017.
https://digiday.com/media/media-companies-shifting-attention-facebook-youtube/
Photo: Michael Baldovinos