If I told you kids don't like to be restricted or fed substandard entertainment, would you be surprised? The answer is obviously no, but somehow Google and tech media seem to be taken aback by kids' preference of the main YouTube app over the walled-garden of YouTube Kids. Bloomberg's Mark Bergen and Lucas Shaw report: In late May, the advocacy group Common Sense Media held a summit on “digital well-being.” Attendees gathered inside the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, to debate the long-term effects of apps, services and electronic devices once hailed as revolutionary. … [Read more...]
As Businesses Tie Themselves to Facebook, They Wonder is it an Anchor or Balloon?
Visa, Mastercard, and other businesses are incorporating their operations more and more with Facebook, but with all the media scrutiny and scandal surrounding the social network, is it an anchor that will pull them down, or a balloon that will lift them up? Facebook Inc. gained as much as 2.5%, making it one of the few tech names moving higher in early Friday trading, after reports that it’s making progress toward its cryptocurrency ambitions. A group of payments and other companies, including Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Uber, agreed to invest about $10 million each in a … [Read more...]
Broken News Industry Seeks Federal Protection to Fight Big Tech Abuse
The News Media Alliance (the Alliance) is seeking federal protection in order to avoid antitrust charges while the industry attempts to negotiate terms with big tech. Google and other big tech platforms made many billions of dollars, $4.7 billion in the case of Google alone, on the work of news publishers in 2018 according to the Alliance. Now those publishers want to work out a deal to deliver more of that money to their dying news rooms. Marc Tracy reports for The New York Times: The journalists who create that content deserve a cut of that $4.7 billion, said David Chavern, the president … [Read more...]
Can Tech Investors Hide in the Cloud?
With tariff, trust, and privacy troubles hitting big tech companies, is there anywhere for tech investors to run? Dan Gallagher writes at The Wall Street Journal that there is one piece of the tech sector that has so far avoided the issues plaguing the rest, the cloud. He writes: A tech sector not exposed to tariffs, trade wars or domestic political scrutiny sounds almost too good to be true. At current valuations, it just might be. Investors have embraced cloud-software stocks with gusto this year. A group of 50 “pure-play” software-as-a-service, or SaaS, vendors tracked by KeyBanc … [Read more...]
Disney is Already Beating Netflix and Amazon in Streaming in India
While Americans await the roll-out of Disney+, Indians are already enjoying a Disney-owned streaming platform known as Hotstar. The service is a home-grown streaming platform that was acquired by the House of Mouse in the Fox deal. The best part of buying Hotstar for Disney is the vast portfolio of local language content that came along with it. Amazon and Netflix simply can't compete with that. Newley Purnell reports for The Wall Street Journal: India’s plummeting mobile-data prices and cheap smartphones have triggered an internet-access revolution in the world’s second-most-populous … [Read more...]
Facebook is About to Go Under the FTC Microscope
Calls for scrutiny into Facebook are not new, but after the privacy scandal involving Cambridge Analytica, the knives really came out for the social media company. Now, it appears the FTC will get the chance for a deep dive into Facebook's business practices. Other big tech companies are coming under fire as well. Brent Kendall and John D. McKinnon report for The Wall Street Journal: Federal antitrust enforcers and lawmakers are poised to scrutinize the nation’s largest technology companies for potential anticompetitive practices, bringing a new regulatory focus to the vast markets for … [Read more...]
Big Banks Buy into Blockchain
UBS and a number of other big banks around the world are working together to develop a cross border trade settlement platform that uses blockchain technology. I've been skeptical of bitcoin and other crypto-currencies, but I have always maintained that blockchain technologies would prove the most valuable part of the crypto-currency revolution. Paul Vigna reports at The Wall Street Journal on this latest effort: A group of financial firms led by UBS Group AG UBS -0.70% plans to start using a bitcoin-like token to settle cross-border trades, one of the biggest developments yet in the effort to … [Read more...]
Did Google Harm Competition?
The tech industry may get a new jolt of anti-trust clarification soon, as the Department of Justice is readying a new antitrust probe into Google. The probe could find that Goolge has hampered competition, and the ramifications could be broad. The Wall Street Journal reports: As Google cemented its powerful position in recent years, the tech giant’s executives said they believed they were helping web users get information and letting publishers and advertisers connect more efficiently. Rivals saw a more sinister goal, and the question now is whether U.S. regulators will determine that the … [Read more...]
Robots are Dumb, but Here’s How Facebook is Making them Smarter
Most robots today simply do what they are programmed to do. That gives them very little versatility. Now though, roboticists, including those at Facebook are working to help robots begin learning for themselves. AT FIRST GLANCE, Facebook’s nascent robotic platform looks a bit … chaotic. In a new lab in its palatial Silicon Valley HQ, a red and black Sawyer robot arm (from the recently defunct company Rethink Robotics) is waving all over the place with a mechanical whine. It’s supposed to casually move its hand to a spot in space to its right, but it goes up, up, up and way off course, … [Read more...]
Apple Loses at the Supreme Court
A host of lawsuits may be headed Apple's way as it has lost a Supreme Court case today. The case itself was over whether or not Apple can be sued by customers of the company's App Store. The technology giant lost in a 5-4 decision in which Judge Brett Kavanaugh joined the traditionally liberal judges. CNBC reports: The Supreme Court on Monday ruled 5-4 against Apple in a case involving its signature electronic marketplace, the App Store, allowing iPhone users to move forward with their suit against the company. The iPhone users argued that Apple’s 30% commission on sales through the App … [Read more...]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- …
- 37
- Next Page »