2017-09-30

Tech Review | Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies, Hackers, Thieves, Cybercrime

Tech Review (TR 2017-09-30)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies, Hackers, Thieves, Cybercrime, 2) Investing: $MU, Q3 2017 closes higher, Fed Watch, Trump's WTO reforms, Independence Votes & Black Swans, 3) Fake News = Data & News Media + Confirmation Bias, Liberal Bias, Groupthink, and False Narratives, 4) ICYMI Tech News, 5) Coming October 4.

1) Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies, Hackers, Thieves, Cybercrime
Not a good week for Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies:
However, the news wasn't all bad--Japan's FSA gives official endorsement to 11 cryptocurrency exchanges | Reuters.com.

2) Investing:
 $MU
Sun Co-Founder Gets Secretive Hedge Fund to Make a Huge Chip Bet | Bloomberg.com"Bill Joy sees DRAM chip market shedding its cyclical past - Joy persuades Water Street to stop shorting Micron and go long ..." Micron $MU (NASDAQ:MU) (domain: micron.com).

Stocks closed the 3rd Quarter (Q3 2017) this week higher--S&P 500 ends at record; stock indexes close out strong month and quarter | MarketWatch.com:
 SP500
Technology and Financial Stocks Drive S&P500 & NASDAQ to Record Highs: "President Donald Trump’s meeting with former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh to discuss his potential nomination as Fed chairman was seen as a trigger for financial shares."--Reuters.com

Fed Watch (domain: federalreserve.gov):
Why Hurricanes Won't Force the Fed to Ditch a December Rate Hike | TheStreet.com: This year's third rate hike may be followed by three more in 2018, the Federal Reserve has indicated. Fed Chair Janet Yellen: "Growth will likely bounce back as activity resumes and rebuilding gets under way."  The likelihood of further hikes is good news for banks from JPMorgan Chase & Co. $JPM (NYSE: JPM) to Citigroup Inc. $C (NYSE:C), which often boost margins by passing increases on to borrowers more quickly than to the depositors whose money is used to fund loans.

Trump wants WTO reforms (domain: wto.org):
U.S. [Trump's WTO rep] shocks WTO with a novel take on trade dispute rules | Reuters.com“I think it’s the first time somebody said you need positive consensus. It means that any member can block the whole thing" said one trade diplomat who was in the meeting. “It’s power politics,” said another.

Independence Votes & Black Swans:
Catalonia Vote a Black Swan for EU, ECB, Spain, Markets, Economy? | DomainMondo.com--continuing LIVE coverage thru the weekend on the October 1 independence referendum in Catalonia. See also Last flight departs as Iraq imposes ban for Kurdish independence vote | Reuters.com.

3)  Fake News = Data & News Media + Confirmation Bias, Liberal Bias, Groupthink, and False Narratives:
The Media Has A Probability Problem | FiveThirtyEight.com--by Nate Silver: "The media keeps misinterpreting data ... the media has often overestimated the precision of polling, cherry-picked data and portrayed elections as sure things when that conclusion very much wasn’t supported by polls or other empirical evidence ... documented throughout this series, polls and other data did not support the exceptionally high degree of confidence that news organizations such as The New York Times regularly expressed about Hillary Clinton’s chances. (We’ve been using the [New York] Times as our case study ... because their 2016 coverage had so many problems.) ... Probably the most important problem with 2016 coverage was confirmation bias — coupled with what you might call good old-fashioned liberal media bias ..."

Here's more #FakeNews from mainstream media debunked this week:

4) ICYMI Tech News:
  • EU ready to move on digital tax even if no global deal--Reuters.com
  • China's HNA Group says it will keep investing in the United States: "We still have a strong belief U.S. and China will have a very good relationship, we will keep on investing (in) related business." --Nasdaq.com
  • YouTube no longer available on Amazon Echo Show after Google pulls it off, saying it violated the Terms of Service (ToS) and was a “broken user experience” implementation by Amazon.--TheVerge.com
  • Why It Took Google So Long to End Shady Rehab Center Ads"In May, scores of people on the front lines of America’s opioid crisis packed the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers conference in Austin to listen to a Google contractor named Josh Weum. Google LLC doesn’t have anything to do with treating addicts, and the company didn’t send Weum there to talk about helping people get clean. He was explaining how to use Google to cash in on America’s $35 billion addiction treatment market ..."--Bloomberg.com
  • Ikea has bought TaskRabbit | Recode.net"The Swedish home goods giant is looking for some digital help from the contract labor marketplace."
  • Bill Gates now uses an Android phone | TheVerge.com 


-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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