Why Most Eyeglasses Are So Expensive (video)

Why Glasses Are So Expensive

In 2017, Italian eyewear behemoth Luxottica announced a merger with Essilor, a French lenses manufacturer, a $49 billion merger that furthered Luxottica's entrance into all facets of eyewear, from design, to manufacturing, to retail. Though the merger was approved by several major international trade commissions, including the FTC, some antitrust experts question if the move will help consumers, or entrench the industry standard in which glasses cost hundreds of dollars. CNBC.com video above published May 16, 2019.

Domains: luxottica.com |  warbyparker.com  |  zennioptical.com
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Tech Review 1) Apple $AAPL Rotting? 2) China's T3 Initiative 3) Q1 2019

Tech Review (TR 2019-03-30)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news: Features • 1) Apple $AAPL Rotting? 2) China's T3 Initiative, 3) Investing: Q1 2019, Investor Notes: Eurozone Alarms Rising, 4) ICYMI Tech News: Google, Apple, Microsoft, Lyft, Amazon, Netflix, Disney, AT&T, Facebook, HP, Startups, FTC v. Robocallers.

1) Apple $AAPL Rotting?

Entering commoditized, fiercely competitive low-margin services cannot substitute for the high-margin profits that will be lost as global recession and saturation erode iPhone sales.--Charles Hugh Smith

Apple's Big Announcement: More TV, News, Credit Cards, and Oprah!

Apple's new entertainment subscription services and credit card, launched to great fanfare this week, could raise new concerns for the company over market power and competition issues. Apple executives at a star-studded event in Cupertino, Calif., this week unveiled subscription services in gaming, news and television, as well as a new Apple credit card. Sally Hubbard, director of enforcement strategy at the Open Markets Institute, told TheHill.com she is concerned that Apple is "controlling the game and playing the game too" as the owner of both the iOS App Store and creator of the iPhone.

Apple's Faulty MacBook Butterfly Keyboard Explained

The third generation of the butterfly keyboard on Apple's Mac laptops was supposed to fix all the problems. But nope. WSJ.com's Joanna Stern explains why the keyboards on the newest and most expensive MacBooks keep breaking—and the few things you can do about it. Wall Street Journal videos above published Mar 26 & 28, 2019.

2) China's T3 Initiative:

The formation of a new ride share initiative called T3 with 3 major Chinese state-run automakers, $BABA & Tencent is just one more example that the next wave of tech-based disruption in areas like mobility will be so expensive that no one or two companies can go it alone. $XLK pic.twitter.com/EEggSQGYfp

— DataTrek Research (@DataTrekMB) March 28, 2019

Alibaba, Tencent, Suning, and 3 Chinese SOE car makers, including Chongqing Changan Automobile, set up a $1.5 billion Chinese ride-hailing venture, a move that threatens China's dominant ride-sharing company, Didi Chuxing.

3) Investing

Q! 2019: NASDAQ Composite +16.5% | S&P 500 Index +13.1% | DJIA +11.2%

S&P 500 notches best start to a year since 1998, Dow rises more than 200 points on trade optimism--CNBC.com.

Snapshot Thursday, March 28: Stocks rose slightly, the S&P 500 holding steady over the past two weeks, but up 12% year-to-date. Treasury yields slightly higher, while the $US surged, hitting gold, which dropped nearly 1% to a three-week low of $1,290 an ounce.

Headwinds:

Investor Notes: Eurozone Alarms Rising

European Economic Storm Clouds--insidesources.com: on our way to another round of the European sovereign debt crisis?

Germany: views of “Current Economic Conditions” at Euro Debt-Crisis Level--wolfstreet.com

EU: A Proposed Megadeal Exposes the Grim Outlook for Europe’s Banks--bloomberg.com: Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank joining forces would be just the start of a long, painful process.

No-Deal Brexit Now Likely Says European Commission--see also Five Reasons to Love a No Deal Brexit.

European Prognosis negative: the Financial Times reports that Deutsche Bank A.G. is looking to raise between €3 billion ($3.4 billion) and €10 billion in equity to help consummate the planned merger with peer Commerzbank A.G., “a move designed to end the debate over whether Germany’s largest lender has enough capital.” In a commentary, Jeffrey Snider of Alhambra Investment Partners wrote that the ECB’s efforts to incentivize credit growth through penalizing idle reserves has backfired, demonstrating the differences between theory and practice.

They really have no idea what they are doing. The ECB is not a collection of newfound doves, they are chickens without their heads. Either way, it does not amount to anything good, and adds more weight to the considerable and growing list of everything bad.--grantspub.com

The average European bank’s holdings of sovereign debt are about 170 percent of its core Tier 1 capital, more than triple the exposure at U.S. banks, according to Deutsche Bank research analysts. What’s more, about 60 percent of an average European bank’s sovereign bond holdings are of those issued by their home government. Why? Because government bonds carry zero risk weightings on banks’ books. This creates some perverse incentives. 

Eurozone flash manufacturing PMI plunges to 47.6 in March, 71-month lows--fxstreet.com. See also: The eurozone lacks the scaffolding to withstand the symmetrical shock of the next recession, which could imperil the euro itself.--socialeurope.eu.

4) ICYMI Tech News:

Google, Microsoft, and Apple Are Fighting For Classrooms--CNBC.com video--chart above source: futuresource-consulting.com. Chromebooks are winning.

Lyft closes up 9% on its first day of trading after raising $2.3B in its IPO, which valued the company at over $20B--NASDAQ: LYFT.

Amazon, Netflix, Apple, Disney, or AT&T? The Surprising Winner In The Streaming Service Race--seekingalpha.com--$AMZN. See also Apple launches Apple TV+ (video) and YouTube Bows Out of Hollywood Arms Race With Netflix and Amazon--bloomberg.com.

Facebook: 10 Reasons Why I Have Sold All My Shares--seekingalpha.com--"Mark Zuckerberg wrote that Facebook will become "privacy-centered". This is really not believable, and if it would be, shareholders should be worried even more ... Zuckerberg himself has become a problem for Facebook."

New research reveals that Google built biases into its search results that influenced the 2018 midterm elections - possibly costing Republicans three congressional districts. --zerohedge.com.

Apple Infringes Qualcomm Patent; Judge Recommends Ban on Some iPhones--bloomberg.com.
Apple $AAPL: few analysts have looked at the headwinds in Europe and the longer term challenges in China.--seekingalpha.com.

The $130 billion digital advertising market may be dominated by Google and Facebook, but Amazon will start selling video spots on its smartphone shopping app.--zerohedge.com.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Mike Lynch faced off against each other in London’s High Court on Monday in a multi-billion dollar showdown over HP's 2011 purchase of the Autonomy software business he founded. The Autonomy-HP deal was a disaster, due, in part, to a failure of due diligence by HP whose CEO at the time, Leo Apotheker, was subsequently fired.

Startups Look Elsewhere: "With the cost of living surging across California, it's hardly surprising that the state has seen the largest net loss of residents as frustrated Californians seek more affordable climes like Nevada and Texas ... many of those who haven't left wish they could."--zerohedge.com.

Recommended reading from cbinsights.com:

• Tech Trends In 2019 (pdf): the top 14 technological trends and developments to watch this year.
• Artificial Intelligence Trends In 2019 (pdf): as AI continuesto sweep across industries, we identified the top 24 trends to watch.
• Fintech Trends In 2019 (pdf): breaking down the disruption of financial services and what's ahead in 2019.

Personal Tech: FTC Crackdown Stops Operations Responsible for Billions of Illegal Robocalls. Unwanted calls pitched auto warranties, debt-relief services, Google listings, and a fake charity--FTC says it has fined four robocalling companies, responsible for “billions” of US calls, which will also cease operations--ftc.gov.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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FTC Hearings on 21st Century Competition and Consumer Protection

The Federal Trade Commission will begin its Hearings on Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century with a full-day session, co-sponsored with and held at the Georgetown University Law Center, on September 13, 2018, 9:00AM–5:15PM EDT. [Note: The second day of hearings on Friday, September 14 has been postponed due to potential weather-related disruptions from Hurricane Florence.]

The Georgetown event will be the first in a series of hearings that will examine whether broad-based changes in the economy, evolving business practices, new technologies, or international developments might require adjustments to competition and consumer protection enforcement priorities of the Commission. Many sessions will conclude with an opportunity for those attending the event in-person to submit questions to the participants. These public events, in conjunction with the public comment process, will provide the FTC with a broad and diverse range of viewpoints and stimulate evaluation of key enforcement and policy issues.

FTC Chairman Joe Simons will present opening remarks, followed by discussion by a distinguished set of panelists who will discuss the following topics:

• the current landscape of competition and consumer protection law and policy;
• whether the U.S. economy has become more concentrated and less competitive;
• the regulation of consumer data;
• antitrust law and the consumer welfare standard; and
• the analysis of vertical mergers

WEBCAST: The conference will be webcast. The webcast link can be found on the event page on the day of the workshop.

Future hearings - next up: Sep. 21, 2018 State of U.S. Antitrust Law; Mergers and Monopsony or Buyer Power FTC Constitution Center, Washington, DC.

More info:

TWITTER: The workshop will be tweeted live from the FTC’s Twitter page @FTC using #FTCHearings:
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Tech Review | Media Disruption, Mergers & Fear of the Future (video)

Tech Review (TR 2018-06-23)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Media Disruption & Fear of the Future, 2) Time Warner - What AT&T Got For $81B, 3) Investing: The Week, Investing Notes: Short Tesla $TSLA?, 4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) Media Disruption, Mergers & Fear of the Future
AT&T, Time Warner and the Entire Media Merger Frenzy Explained

Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) video above published Jun 14, 2018: From AT&T and Time Warner to the hot pursuit of 21st Century Fox and Sky, media mergers are in full swing. Why now? WSJ's Amol Sharma answers all your questions about the forces driving media deals.

Is the Media Sector Evolving or Devolving?" | inflectioncapital.co: "The media sector is at an existential crossroads. Its content is going direct to the consumer and traditional distributors like cable and satellite will be bypassed. Savings from cutting out distributors will be passed on to the consumer and video content choice should rise, allowing consumers to watch more TV shows and films. Consequently, audiences will continue to splinter and it will become more costly to attract an audience; industry revenue growth and margins will both deteriorate. 21st Century Fox and Disney have taken steps to produce more value for shareholders. However, that value will likely accumulate only at a low-double-digit annual rate. For the remainder of media, value is likely to fall as the companies don’t have a strategy to resolve their legacy dependencies. The tech and telecom titans (AT&T, Apple, Amazon, etc.) that already have adjacent media business will likely only accumulate value from their core businesses, not from their media assets. This is because video packaging and distribution is becoming a profitless business—unless one has massive global scale. Additionally, there is little way for the other tech and telecom titans to buy Discovery, Viacom, AMC Networks, etc. and create meaningful shareholder value. All the needle-moving assets are now taken. In contrast, Netflix has reached such a large scale in subscribers and content-acquisition capability that its market value is likely to accumulate at a rate faster than low double digits." (emphasis added) [Editor's note: for more, read the White Paper (pdf).]

2) Time Warner - What AT&T Got For $81 Billion (closing price per the 8K filing) - AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner closed on Thursday, June 14, 2018. Since then AT&T (NYSE:T):

The chart below shows the revenue of AT&T and Time Warner in 2017 by business segment

Source: Statista.com

See also:

• Revisiting AT&T's Rationale for Buying Time Warner | fool.com

• Why I Am Acquiring More AT&T | SeekingAlpha.com 

• AT&T (NYSE:T) Best Dividend Stock Of All Time Now Trades Cheap--SeekingAlpha.com 

3) Investing

The Week: NASDAQ Composite -0.7% | S&P 500 Index -0.9% | DJIA -2%.
But on Friday (June 22), both the S&P 500 and the Dow ended trading up--S&P +0.2%, Dow (DJIA) +0.5%.

“Underlying breadth points to an eventual new high in price for the S&P 500,” wrote Bespoke Investment Group, in a report cited by Raymond James. The “long-term uptrend channels are still in place.”--Improving market breadth could indicate stock strength ahead | MarketWatch.com 18 June 2018.

"... the stock market - particularly big-tech ... Every dip is met by a wall of buying, ramping the market ever higher ..."--This Is The Greatest Short-Squeeze In History | ZeroHedge.com 20 June 2018. 

Wall Street's Charging Bull

Investing Notes: Short Tesla $TSLA?
Black Swan author Nassim Taleb defended Tesla after an actress posted a video of a Tesla on fire:

There are 150K-200K car fires per annum. You take one event & an emotional statement of an actress & turn it into a statement about the safety of @Tesla. And this is 2018.

I am blocking any commentator who doesn't get it. In this and other similar situations. Finito.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) June 17, 2018

On Monday Elon Musk showed off Tesla's newest production line and predicted that those who have shorted $TSLA “have about three weeks before their short position explodes.” But note the report out Friday, June 22, 2018: Exclusive: Tesla to close a dozen solar facilities in nine states--Reuters.com.

Other notes:

• The Cass Freight Index: A Measure of North American Freight Activity | cassinfo.com: shipments and expenditures up significantly. "The US is pretty much the only normalised economy on the planet"--Bill Blain. See also The Huge Ships for the Booming LNG Trade | WolfStreet.com.

• Why heads are exploding at the Fed | MarketWatch.com: at 3.8% unemployment, all of the econometric models indicate we should be seeing a lot more wage and price inflation than we are experiencing, but those econometric models are based upon historical statistics which don't factor in the consequences of the technological and institutional changes that are redefining U.S. labor, commodity and product markets, including the disappearance of the Phillips curve—the hypothesized inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment.

• Euro Risk: "The reasons the European economy remains so anemic are more to do with the Euro – the need to restructure economies at a time of enforced austerity to make the common currency work."--Bill Blain. See also Italy never should have joined the euro, and the ECB can’t rescue it from its next crisis: "Italy could plunge the eurozone into an unmanageable crisis"--MarketWatch.com.

• What about China? Read this week's expose at Axios.com, including intellectual property theft, the link between China's anti-monopoly policies and its industrial goals, etc.

• Global Debt: Are debt crises in Argentina and Turkey a global warning sign? | TheGuardian.com by Kenneth Rogoff. 
• If it’s already carrying significant debt, it’s “really handcuffed”--The Toys “R” Us Bankruptcy and Private Equity | TheAtlantic.com--“Had these companies remained publicly owned, they would have had a much higher probability of being able to adapt, to invest, and to withstand the ups and downs of the economy."--Thomas Paulson, founder of Inflection Capital Management (inflectioncapital.co).

• How U.S. tax reform rewards companies that shift profit to tax havens | Reuters.com.

• Investing Without People (pdf) by Howard Marks, Oaktree Capital (oaktreecapital.com), and Revamping Or Starting A Portfolio Now--SeekingAlpha.com. 

4) ICYMI Tech News:

• Internet Tax: US Supreme Court allows states collect sales tax from online retailers--Reuters.com.
• Regulation: FTC plans to reexamine how it polices tech companies | TheHill.com.
• Yahoo Mail aims at emerging markets and casual users, launches versions for mobile web and Android Go--TechCrunch.com.
• 5G: Ericsson needs industries to embrace 5G to underpin its recovery--Reuters.com.
• Data: The consumer data collection industry is about to explode (opinion June 19, 2018)--TheHill.com.
• Google to invest $550 million in JD.com, China's 2nd largest e-commerce site--cnbc.com.
• Google: More transparency and control in your Google Account--blog.google. 
• Google rolls out web interface for Android Messages enabling texting from desktop and says GIF search, Smart Reply, and more features coming--blog.google.
• Personal tech--pocket-lint.com re: bbc.co.uk/iplayer--How to watch BBC iPlayer in the US and elsewhere. 
• Work: Companies need older workers and here is why--Reuters.com.
• Environment: By 2030, an estimated 111 million metric tons of used plastic will need to be buried or recycled somewhere else—or not manufactured at all according to a new analysis of UN global trade data by University of Georgia researchers--Bloomberg.com.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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News Review | GDPR & ICANN WHOIS: "We're all Europeans now"

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2018-02-04) with analysis and opinion: Features •  1) GDPR & ICANN WHOIS: "We're all Europeans now",  2) Other ICANN news, 3) Names, Domains & Trademarks: a. Collapse in new gTLDs' Domain Name Registrations Continues into 2018, b. ccTLD .au, c. Verisign $VRSN Q4 2017 4) ICYMI Internet Domain News, 5) Most Read.

1. EU GDPR & ICANN WHOIS: "We're all Europeans now"

GDPR Summary of Important Aspects | Eureka.eu: "The EU General Data Protection Regulation is the world's biggest change to information security ever and is poised to export Europe's data protection and data privacy principles to the rest of the world."

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) becomes enforceable on May 25, 2018, and marks the biggest overhaul of personal data privacy rules in the history of the internet, directly impacting ICANN and its "contracted parties" (gTLD registry operators and registrars), who are considered "controllers" of domain name registrants' personal data.

The 2006 Definition of Whois Purpose: Case study of the “bad old days” in ICANN | InternetGovernance.org: "... the legal situation is changing in ways that make it difficult, if not impossible, to keep evading the issue ..."

WHAT IS Going to Happen With WHOIS? | Motherboard.vice.com: "... an overhaul of this nearly 30-year-old protocol [WHOIS] is long overdue. The notion that individual data should require a requester to also provide their own data is both equitable and intuitive—the only remaining question is how to make it work."

Diagram of interim models presented at ICANN webinar Feb 2, 2018

Editor's note: a webinar was conducted by ICANN management on Friday, February 2, 2018, which I attended along with more than 300 other stakeholders, and learned:

1. ICANN acknowledges it is a "controller" subject to the EU's GDPR law;
2. ICANN acknowledges that the GDPR law is a "compliance issue" for the ICANN organization, not a policy issue, and that ICANN org is working on a single, global model, for complying with the GDPR;
3. According to ICANN CEO Goran Marby, ICANN is "working around the clock" and hopes to have more information about its "model" by mid-February;
4. Here's a work paper explaining differences between the models.

Legal Analyses, Proposed Compliance Models, & Community Feedback | ICANN.org:

29 January 2018 Rafik Dammak NCSG Policy Committee Chair, Non Commercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG), re: ICANN-Proposed Compliance Models Comments (pdf, 330KB) excerpt (emphasis added):

Our evaluation of the models offered by ICANN are based on three fundamental principles. No model that fails to conform to all three is acceptable to the NCSG.

1. The purpose of whois must be strictly tied to ICANN's mission. That is, the data that is collected and the data that are published must directly and demonstrably contribute to ICANN's mission as defined in Article 1 of its new bylaws. We reject any definition of Whois purpose that is based on the way people happen to make use of data that can be accessed indiscriminately in a public directory. The fact that certain people currently use Whois for any purpose does not mean that the purpose of Whois is to provide thick data about the domain and its registrant to anyone who wants it for any reason.

2. Whois service, like the DNS itself, should be globally uniform and not vary by jurisdiction. ICANN was created to provide globalized governance of the DNS so that it would continue to be globally compatible and coordinated. Any solution that involves fragmenting the policies and practices of Whois along jurisdictional lines is not desirable.

3. No tiered access solution that involves establishing new criteria for access can feasibly be created in the next 3 months. We would strongly resist throwing the community into a hopeless rush to come up with entirely new policies, standards and practices involving tiered access to data, and we do not want ICANN staff to invent a policy that is not subject to community review and approval. Based on these three principles, we believe that Model 3 is the only viable option available.

2 February 2018 Maryant Fernandez Perez, European Digital Rights (EDRi) ICANN-Proposed Compliance Models Comments (pdf, 56 KB) ".... it appears that only model 3 is reconcilable with the GDPR, provided that the issues noted above are addressed. Both models 1 and 2 result in the potential publication of personal data on a scale that is neither necessary, nor proportionate ..."

See also 29 January 2018 Letter from Dimitris Avramopoulos, Věra Jourová & Sir Julian King [European Commission] to ICANN CEO Göran Marby re: European Commission Concerns Regarding GDPR and WHOIS.

Read the other comments here. My comment is here (pdf).

Related Links:

• Data protection | European Commission | ec.europa.eu

• Data Protection/Privacy Issues | ICANN.org

• ICANN RDS/WHOIS-Related Policies and Contract Provisions | ICANN.org

2) Other ICANN news

a. Announcing Draft Plan For Continuing With The KSK Roll | ICANN.org: "The plan calls for rolling the root zone KSK on 11 October 2018 (one year later than originally planned)"--ICANN public comment period is open and closes 2 Apr 2018 23:59 UTC.

b. Information Transparency Initiative Update: The Content Audit and ICANN Taxonomy | ICANN.org: "ICANN is performing a first-ever quantitative and qualitative audit of all the content on www.icann.org. The audit began in November 2017 and will continue through to August 2018."

c. Global DNS and gTLDs--recommended reading for ICANN leadership and others--We have plundered the commons | weforum.org. See also: The Corruption of Capitalism: Why Rentiers thrive and work does not pay (London, Biteback, 2017).

3) Names, Domains & Trademarks

a. Collapse in new gTLDs' domain name registrations continues into 2018--Editor's note: The below is NOT a picture of "Lack of Awareness" but "Registrant Rejection" of new gTLDs--

Top: Jan 2017 - Jan 2018;  Bottom: January 2018 (source: ntldstats.com)

After the collapse in new gTLDs' domain name registrations in 2017, some were hoping for a 'turnaround' starting in January 2018--no such luck--nobody wants these "losers" anymore--not even Chinese speculators (who have since moved on to crypto). Here are the details from the ntldstats.com data:
New gTLDs' domain name registrations as of 12/31/2017: 23,819,095
New gTLDs' domain name registrations as of 01/31/2018: 23,046,656
Net LOSS in January 2018 --------------------------------------- (772,439)
January Net Loss (772,439) X 12 (months) = Projected Net LOSS of (9,269,268) new gTLDs' domain name registrations for all of 2018 at January's rate, which would be equal to a net loss of 39% of all new gTLDs' domain name registrations existing on the last day of 2017.

Data at namestat.org shows only 19.8 million new gTLD domain name registrations as of Feb 1, 2018.

Editor's note: As I noted last month, it is now obvious to everyone (except 'deniers') that ICANN grossly mismanaged its ill-conceived and misbegotten expansion of gTLDs (from just 22 to over 1200). Among the multitude of mistakes, probably the most egregious were rejecting the advice of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) (pdf) and U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division (pdf) with regard to competition, pricing power, and consumer (registrant) benefits and protections. The above referenced letter from the US DOJ Antitrust Division was attached to a letter to ICANN from NTIA in Dec 2008 (pdf).

b. ccTLD .au: 'Yourname.au' proposed as discussion opens on Australia's domain future | ZDNet.com

c. Q4 2017 Earnings season: Verisign | NASDAQ: VRSN Feb 8, 4:30pm ET. Versign is a registry services provider and operator, including gTLDs .COM and .NET, as well as internet security services provider, internet Root Zone Maintainer, and manager of  Root Servers A and J.

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

• "In Geneva, the UN working group did not reach agreement on recommendations for the UNGA [United Nations General Assembly] on the role of governments in international internet policy. NL and like-minded countries oppose UN control over the Internet and supported multi-stakeholder approach."--Arnold van Rhijn Jan 31, 2018

• Apple Can’t Resist Playing by China’s Rules | NYTimes.com. [Editor's note: China has 55.8% internet penetration rate, 772 million internet users of which 753 million are mobile internet users.]

• Cameroon govt sued over internet shutdown in Anglophone regions | Africanews.com

• Rising internet shutdowns aimed at 'silencing dissent' | AlJazeera.com

• The DR Congo is using a decades-old law to shut down the internet | qz.com

• U.S. creates task force to expand internet access in Cuba | MiamiHerald.com

• Campus free speech: Internet freedom advocate EFF defends anonymous internet platforms | firstamendmentcoalition.org

• NAFTA Negotiators Should Protect the Internet Economy, Users | TechFreedom.org

• Internet Freedom Festival 2018 Schedule IFF 2018: March 5-9, 2018, Valencia, Spain.

5) Most Read Posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this past week on DomainMondo.com: 

1. News Review | IANA Transition Unwind? ICANN Nightmare or Fantasy?

2. Amazon $AMZN, Apple $AAPL, Google $GOOGL, LIVE Webcasts Feb 1

3. Tech Review | Is Google Done? 'Can No Longer Innovate' Says Ex-Googler 

4. Facebook $FB Q4 2017 Earnings LIVE Webcast, Jan 31, 5pm ET 

5. Starbucks $SBUX CEO Kevin Johnson On Earnings & Future Of The Brand 

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

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CES 2018 Livestream Tuesday: FTC, White House Deputy CTO, FCC

CES 2018 Livestream Schedule | CES 2018 Jan 9-12 (all times PST)

Date and time Las Vegas, NV (PST): 

Tuesday, Jan 9th, at CES | Livestream highlighted sessions:

• SuperSession: Insights from the FTC | CES 2018 11:30 AM-12:30 PM:

FTC Acting Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen sits down with CTA President and CEO Gary Shapiro for a candid conversation about the challenges facing the agency and navigating the constantly evolving technological landscape. Background:

• Statement of FTC Acting Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen on Net Neutrality and the Role of Antitrust | Federal Trade Commission (pdf)

• Statement of Acting FTC Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen on Returning FTC Competition and Consumer Protections to Broadband Subscribers | Federal Trade Commission.

Great blog from FTC’s acting chief technologist Neil Chilson https://t.co/2eKCJ84H6p

— Maureen Ohlhausen (@MOhlhausenFTC) January 4, 2018

•  Innovation Policy | CES 2018 2:15-2:30 PM:  Q&A with White House Deputy CTO Michael Kratsios on the Trump Administration’s approach on innovation and technology policy.

• 2018 Preview: FCC Commissioner Roundtable | CES 2018 3:30-4:30 PM: FCC Commissioners will discuss critical regulatory and policy issues, including: infrastructure, spectrum allocation, 5G, privacy, accessibility, the Internet of Things, regulatory reform, disruptive innovation, and technological convergence, among other hot topics.

source: CES

Tweets by CES

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Tech Review: US Tech Stocks Soar, Hitting New Highs (video)

Tech Review (TR 2017-07-22)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news:
Features • 1) US Tech Stocks Soar, Hitting New Highs, 2) How Trump Is Kicking Silicon Valley's Butt, 3) China Takes Advantage of U.S. Limits on Drone Sales, 4) Amazon $AMZN DC Lobbying, FTC Probe, Messaging App, 5) Oculus Rift Dead in the Water, 6) FANG and Q2 2017 Earnings this week, 7) ICYMI Tech News.

Update July 25, 2017:

1) US Tech Stocks Soar, Hitting New Highs

Video above published Jul 20, 2017, by FT.com: The crash of tech stocks after dotcom mania and the long, subsequent crawl back by the sector has been accompanied by radical change.

2) How Trump Is Kicking Silicon Valley's Butt

Video above published Jul 20, 2017, by Bloomberg.com:  Bloomberg’s Max Chafkin discusses how Silicon Valley’s resistance to the Trump administration has faded. He speaks with Emily Chang on “Bloomberg Technology.”

3)  China Takes Advantage of U.S. Limits on Drone Sales

Video above published Jul 18, 2017, by WSJ.com: As the U.S. tries to curb the selling of military drones overseas, China is filling the void, expanding sales of the advanced weaponry in the Middle East and Africa.

4)  Amazon $AMZN: Amazon spent $3.2 million in second quarter on Washington lobbying effort | Reuters.com and FTC probing allegations of Amazon's deceptive discounting | Reuters.com  and Amazon Makes A Move On Facebook | SeekingAlpha.com: "It is also looking to build a messaging app which will directly challenge the dominance of Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp."

5)  Oculus Rift Is Dead in the Water | MIT TechnologyReview.com--Facebook acquired Oculus for $2 billion in 2014.

6) FANG--Facebook (FB), Amazon (AMZN), Netflix (NFLX), Google (Alphabet: GOOG, GOOGL)--Ranked By Strength Of Competitive Advantage: "If we take price into account, there is only one FANG I'd want"--$GOOG, $GOOGL--SeekingAlpha.com

Q2 2017 earnings this coming week:

• Alphabet GOOG / GOOGL July 24 5pm EDT
• Facebook FB July 26 5pm EDT
• Twitter TWTR July 27 7am EDT
• Verisign VRSN July 27 4:30pm EDT 
• Amazon AMZN July 27 5:30pm EDT

7) ICYMI Tech News:

• U.S. Justice Department shuts down dark web bazaar AlphaBay | Reuters.com
• Mobile game revenue finally surpasses PC and consoles | VentureBeat.com
• Tech group--Computer & Communications Industry Association--sides with Apple in Qualcomm's iPhone ban dispute | Reuters.com
• Google Glass 2.0 Is a Startling Second Act | WIRED.com: "Glass is ... a tool."
• Baidu, JD.com to join others investing $12 billion in state-owned China Unicom | Reuters.com
• Google launches Hire, a recruitment app that integrates with Gmail and other G Suite services | VentureBeat.com
• China aims to become world leader in AI, challenges U.S. dominance | Reuters.com
• Amazon launches Spark, a shoppable feed of stories and photos aimed at Prime members | TechCrunch.com
• Microsoft profit beats expectations on strong cloud demand | Reuters.com
• Why Does Anyone Own IBM? (NYSE:IBM) | SeekingAlpha.com
• China stifles WhatsApp with 'Great Firewall' | TheHill.com
• London Stock Exchange Group tests blockchain for private company shares | Reuters.com
• Chinese brands have invaded Indonesia’s fast-growing smartphone market | TechCrunch.com: 1. Samsung; 2. Oppo; 3. Asus; 4. Advan (Indonesian); 5. Lenovo-Motorola.
• Fintech charmed by Macron but reluctant to leave London for Paris | Reuters.com: "Startups based in London do not yet seem ready to swap that key hub for Paris, even if they have French roots."

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
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Tech Review: Uber ex-CEO Travis Kalanick & Silicon Valley Culture (videos)

Tech Review (TR 2017-06-24)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news:

Features • 1) Uber ex-CEO Travis Kalanick & Silicon Valley Culture, 2) Ant Financial is an AI company, 3) Cisco Live 2017 Las Vegas Keynote, 4)  Amazon Web Services | AWS re:Invent 2017, 5) Google for Jobs, 6) FTC vs DraftKings-Fanduel merger, 7) ICYMI Tech News.

1) Uber ex-CEO Travis Kalanick & Silicon Valley Culture (videos)

The Rise and Fall of Uber's Controversial CEO:

Video above published Jun 21, 2017: Bloomberg Profiles looks at the story of Uber's Travis Kalanick and how he went from UCLA dropout to CEO of the world's most valuable technology startup.

The Story Behind Travis Kalanick's Ouster as Uber CEO:

Video above published Jun 22, 2017: Matt Cohler and Peter Fenton, partners at venture capital firm Benchmark, hand-delivered a letter urging Travis Kalanick’s resignation as Uber's CEO, people familiar with the matter said. Bloomberg's Eric Newcomer reports on "Bloomberg Technology."

Uber Technologies Inc. is a US-based technology company headquartered in San Francisco, California, operating in 570 cities globally. It develops, markets and operates the Uber car transportation and food delivery mobile apps. The company is a privately-held VC-backed "unicorn" having raised about $11.56 billion from 16 rounds of venture capital and private equity investors.

Principal domain: uber.com

Uber’s Lesson: Silicon Valley’s Start-Up Machine Needs Fixing | NYTimes.com: "... this was a clear failure of oversight — of investors, boards of directors, partners and anyone else who could have altered Uber’s course and clearly failed to do so. Overlearning the lesson of Steve Jobs’s first fall at Apple — and of founder-led hyper-successes at Google and Facebook — Silicon Valley’s investors created a culture where founders are given carte blanche, their pronouncements and tactics elevated to the level of divine infallibility."--Farhad Manjoo.

See also:

• Musings on Markets: Uber's bad week: Doomsday Scenario or Business Reset? | aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com

• Uber employee petition asks for CEO's return | TheHill.com

• The Unaffordable Urban Paradise | MIT TechnologyReview.com: "Tech startups helped turn a handful of metro areas into megastars. Now they’re tearing those cities apart."

Other Tech News:

2)  The Chinese Finance Giant That’s Secretly an AI Company: "The smartphone payments business Ant Financial is using computer vision, natural language processing, and mountains of data to reimagine banking, insurance, and more."--MIT TechnologyReview.com

3)  Cisco Live 2017 Las Vegas Broadcast | CiscoLive.com:  Opening Keynote by Chuck Robbins, CEO, Cisco, Monday, June 26, 10:30 am PDT

4)  AWS re:Invent 2017 | Amazon Web Services: registration now open for the world's largest global cloud computing conference, 27 Nov - 1 Dec 2017; campus: ARIA, Encore, MGM, Mirage, The LINQ, The Venetian in Las Vegas, NV (US).

5) Google for Jobs--The World’s Largest Job Board: "search something like “jobs near me” or “restaurant jobs in Chicago,” you’ll be ushered to a new part of Google Search that falls under the umbrella Google for Jobs."--fastcodesign.com

6) The FTC, jointly with the Attorneys General in California and the District of Colombia, is attempting to block the DraftKings-Fanduel merger--TechCrunch.com.

7) ICYMI Tech News Quick Takes:

• Foxconn plans U.S. display making plant for over $10 billion, scouting for location | Reuters.com
• China's JD.com invested nearly $400 million into fashion startup Farfetch.com.--Recode.net.
• Top 10 Mistakes in Enterprise Blockchain Projects | gartner.com: "Part of the problem is that the majority of enterprise blockchain projects don’t actually require blockchain technology. In fact, these projects would probably be more successful if they did not utilize blockchain."
• Media Companies Are Getting Sick of Facebook | Bloomberg.com: "“Facebook is about Facebook,” says Andrew Morse, general manager of CNN’s digital operations."
• Imagination Tech up for sale after bruising Apple fight | Reuters.com
• Amazon Welcomes You To The New World Order: Reflections On The Whole Foods Acquisition - Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) | SeekingAlpha.com.
• Trump Promises a Federal Technology Overhaul to Save $1 Trillion | MIT TechnologyReview.com
• "Moby Store, launched by Wheelys, a Stockholm-headquartered crowdfunded startup. Originally focused on making cafés that can be moved from one spot to the next by bike, the company is now testing out a model of a 24-hour store run entirely by technology."--In China, a Store of the Future—No Checkout, No Staff | MIT TechnologyReview.com.
• Apple's Next iPhone Too Little, Too Late?--SeekingAlpha.com: "Apple revenue growth is stalling, particularly in China. Apple keeps raising iPhone prices to maintain margin ... Expected features of the next iPhone are pretty tame. The iPhone may go the way of Mac computer - a tiny niche in a massive market."
• Exclusive: China Unicom counts Alibaba, Tencent among investors in drive to raise $10 billion - sources | Reuters.com

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
Follow @DomainMondo

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