Showing posts with label ICYMI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ICYMI. Show all posts

2017-10-07

Tech Review | Amazon $AMZN & Apple $AAPL: 'The TAX Man Cometh'

Tech Review (TR 2017-10-07)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Amazon $AMZN & Apple $AAPL: 'The TAX Man Cometh', 2)  The Wrong Kind of Entrepreneurs, 3) Investing: Catalonia to Tech (video), Not a Time to Buy Anything, Portfolio Builder, Junk Bond Bubble, Disintermediation, Q3 2017, 4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) Amazon $AMZN & Apple $AAPL & Facebook $FB & Google $GOOG $GOOGL: The Tax Man Cometh--EU orders Amazon to repay $295 million in Luxembourg back taxes--Reuters.com. EU takes Ireland to court for not claiming Apple tax windfall--Reuters.com (up to 13 billion euros ($15.3 billion) of tax due from Apple Inc.). More in the video and text below:

Amazon hit with EU back taxes bill

Financial Times (FT.com) video published Oct 4, 2017: Brussels (EU) handed Amazon on Wednesday a bill for Luxembourg back taxes of up to €250m in the latest fallout from the EU crackdown on tax avoidance by big multinationals.

Germany, France, Italy, and Spain have proposed an ‘equalisation tax’ under which internet giants Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon would be taxed where they generate revenues rather than where they are registered. Right now the companies pay minimal taxes in Europe due to locating subsidiaries in low tax rate countries like Ireland and Luxembourg (profits are currently reported where the subsidiary is located, even if revenues are generated in other countries). Under the virtual permanent establishment concept advanced by Estonia, companies would be taxed ‘where the value is created’ rather than where the companies are registered. Existing tax rules are inadequate for the digital economy, say France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, which also maintain that ‘economic efficiency is at stake, as well as tax fairness and sovereignty’. While supporting existing initiatives at the G20 and OECD, these EU 'big four' countries also want to 'move ahead quickly’ within the EU--see DIG.watch (pdf) Sep 2017.

2) The Wrong Kind of Entrepreneurs--"When economists say “rent,” they mean money that one person extracts from another without producing anything of value ... Robert Litan and Ian Hathaway, writing in Harvard Business Review, have a more dire hypothesis. They surmised that many American entrepreneurs are no longer looking for ways to produce more useful stuff, and are instead looking for new techniques for extracting money from each other and from the government ... crony capitalism may be slowly cannibalizing productive capitalism"--Bloomberg.com. See also Special Pump-and-Dump Scheme Spikes to High Heaven | WolfStreet.com. 

3) Investing
Charts that matter: Catalonia to tech

Financial Times (FT.com) video published Oct 5, 2017: The FT.com's markets team on what to watch for in markets this month: US credit, Catalonia bonds, bond covenants, rotation into energy and what the S&P 500 needs.

a. Quick Notes:
  • Hurricane Nate Aims At New Orleans--Category One Landfall Early Sunday.
  • Coming: another interest rate hike by the Fed likely this year: U.S. Dollar hits 10-week highs, U.S. yields jump on strong wages data | Reuters.com.
  • "This Is Not A Time To Buy Anything" --Sam Zell warns retail real estate market is a "falling knife"--"An area that's in this much disarray, with so many weak players, is not an area where I would want to deploy capital at this time. And I'm generally a contrarian but I think what we're dealing with here is very significant."--ZeroHedge.com Sep 26, 2017. WolfStreet.com: Landlord’s View of the Brick and Mortar Meltdown: “We are faced with weekly tenant bankruptcies, defaults, and requests for rent or space reductions ... even the biggest liars you ever met will admit to challenges facing their portfolios."-- (emphasis added).
  • Portfolio builder: How To Profit From The Online Data Boom | SeekingAlpha.com.
  • World’s Biggest Ever Junk Bond Bubble in Pictures: What Hath Draghi Wrought?--MishTalk.com. 
  • Disintermediation: FedEx $FDX and UPS $UPS DOWN on report of Amazon's $AMZN own delivery service--Reuters.com.
  • One man's pain is another's gain--Hurricane Stimulus in Auto Sector: "Hurricane Harvey and highest discounts in US history did the trick--GM, Ford, and Toyota were the biggest winners. Fiat-Chrysler and Hyundai got crushed."--WolfStreet.com.
  • JPMorgan Updates By-laws In Case Of "Nuclear Disaster" Or World War III--ZeroHedge.com
b. Q3 2017 Earnings Season
4) ICYMI Tech News:
  • Why Does Sweden Have So Many Startups? | TheAtlantic.com: Sweden's strong safety net, low corporate taxes, and deregulation of industries to promote competition, have aided its thriving startup community.
  •  Amazon-Whole-Foods Already Rattles the Grocery Sector | WolfStreet.com: "...  foot traffic of new customers remained at elevated levels through September 16. On that day – a Saturday – the index of foot traffic spiked to one of its highest levels since the price cuts ..."
  • Intel and Intelsat partner on plan to free up 5G airwaves | Axios.com.
  • India approves Chinese smartphone manufacturer Oppo retail stores, Apple next?--Reuters.com and Manufacturing Smartphones In India Hits Hurdles--lack of skilled labor and part suppliers along with a complex tax regime--Reuters.com.
  • Entitled & Tone-deaf: Mark Zuckerberg wanted Facebook employees to work for his separate personal entity "Chan Zuckerberg Initiative" until senior staff complained to board member Marc Andreessen who passed it along to Zuck--BusinessInsider.com. See also Facebook Lies | iain.learmonth.me: Think you can "escape" from Facebook? Think again.
  • Foreign government software code reviews 'problematic' says White House--Reuters.com.
  • Uber’s path to win back London: data, fines and fees | Reuters.com
  • SEC Exposes Two Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs)--"The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a businessman and two companies with defrauding investors in a pair of so-called initial coin offerings (ICOs) purportedly backed by investments in real estate and diamonds ..."--SEC.gov
  • Swiss regulator probes ICOs: "Ten days after shutting down a fake cryptocurrency scam, the Swiss financial regulator said it is investigating the procedures for setting up new companies in the rapidly expanding sector."--SWI | swissinfo.ch. See also Bitcoin “Probably Worth Zero”--MishTalk.com.
  • Blockchain: Commerzbank, other banks join UBS and IBM trade finance blockchain--Reuters.com.
  • Google Retooling User Security: "Google is preparing to upgrade its security tools for online accounts to better insulate users from cyberattacks and politically motivated hacks"--Bloomberg.com
  • Apple iOS 11’s Misleading “Off-ish” Setting for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi is Bad for User Security--Electronic Frontier Foundation | eff.org.
  • OK Google, Get Out of My Face | MIT--TechnologyReview.com.
  • Yahoo says all three billion accounts hacked in 2013 data theft--Reuters.com
  • ChinaInternetWatch.com: Tencent launches digital bank card--"WeBank Card"--on WeChat. 
  • Take the politics out of broadband progress reports: "... many consider the Federal Communications Commission’s existing data to be inaccurate and unreliable. With the FCC now having launched its 13th annual inquiry into the status of broadband deployment in America ..."--rstreet.org
  • FCC's market-based solution for toll-free numbers: "RespOrgs solicit toll-free numbers from a master database of available numbers, like registrars do for internet domain names. But RespOrgs have incentives to engage in strategic behavior such as warehousing or hoarding the limited supply of numbers, particularly with regard to valuable numbers such as vanity numbers (like 1-800-LAWYERS) and easy-to-remember numbers ..."--aei.org
  • Beyond mainstream media's fake news, false narratives, and daily D.C. dramas, Trump begins to alter American life--Reuters.com 

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo


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2017-10-01

News Review | Esther Dyson Interview, ICANN Founding Board Chair

News Review | ©2016 DomainMondo.com
Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2017-10-01) with analysis and opinion: Features •  1) Esther Dyson Interview, ICANN Founding Board Chair,  2) Other ICANN news: a. Verisign Data Stopped ICANN From Breaking the Internet, b. New gTLDs FAIL at EMAIL, c. ICANN Community FAILING Registrants, & More, 3) Names, Domains & Trademarks: New gTLD Buyer's Remorse,  4) ICYMI Internet Domain News: Hurricane Irma vs. Internet, 5) Most Read Posts.

1. Esther Dyson Interview, ICANN Founding Board Chair (video):

Interview of Esther Dyson, ICANN Board Chair (1998-2000), by Brad White of ICANN. The video above was published Sep 29, 2017, by ICANN. Excerpts:
02:37 Q. It sounds like, Esther, you're challenging the very concept of an internet community? "Yes I am, I mean the community definitely exists but it's not actively engaged the way corporations or registries and registrars and lawyers [are]."
05:30  "... how many TLDs there were and that's where ultimately I changed my mind from yeah, you know, there should be a free market as many as you want, but the reality is that reduces, it just, it creates a mess, then you might as well not have the DNS and that's something of course we're facing right now ..." 
06:00  "the problem is not the shortage of domain names" 
06:17  "the reality is the more stuff [TLDs] there is the less useful the domain name system is"
08:36  "One of the biggest fights that was emblematic of a lot of other stuff and here I had fierce disagreements with Joe Sims, our Board meetings were closed. 08:49 Q. And you basically thought that the board meetings should not be closed? "Yeah I thought they should be open" ... 09:03  "the internet culture is based on transparency" ...  09:40 "you should have the the fundamental policy of we hold our discussions and we set policy within the board meeting and we do that in the open so that people can see the disagreements and can see how the decisions were arrived at so that was really unfortunate ..." 
14:30 "the the whole thing with the At-Large [ALAC] not really functioning very well was really disappointing because I really do feel that the users were kind of being ignored ... there was just a lot of people pretending to represent the at large"
17:26  "... it's [domain name industry] become a very lucrative business that at the same time is extremely competitive and there's lots of you know shady domain name practices ... I mean I would have liked to see ICANN regulating fraud and sleazy business more effectively. It's mostly, thank God, kept out of the censorship business."
Full transcript embed below:

See also:
2) Other ICANN news
ICANN's Root Zone KSK Rollover graphic
a. Data from Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) Stops ICANN From Breaking the Internet--KSK Rollover Postponed | ICANN.org 27 Sep 2017: "... The changing or "rolling" of the KSK Key was originally scheduled to occur on 11 October, but it is being delayed because some recently obtained data [Verisign data via RFC 8145] shows that a significant number of resolvers used by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Network Operators are not yet ready for the Key Rollover ... ICANN will provide additional information as it becomes available and the new Key Roll date will be announced as appropriate ..."--ICANN.org: "an estimated one-in-four global Internet users, or 750 million people, could be affected by the KSK rollover." (emphasis added). 

b. ICANN UASG report (pdf): new gTLDs FAIL at Email
ICANN proves once again that new gTLDs FAIL at email in 2017 just like in 2003. No wonder some have accused ICANN of consumer fraud and gross negligence in delegating over 1200 new gTLDs into the internet root--without any warnings to consumers--knowing registrants and end users would find the new gTLDs' domain names were "failing to work as expected on the Internet." 
New generic top-level domains (new gTLDs) FAIL to work as expected on the internet
graphic source: ICANN UASG report (pdf) p.5
"Those that cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it."
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

c. The ICANN community is failing its customers [Domain Name Registrants] | OpenSRS.com 26 September 2017: ".... This example doesn’t just illustrate how the ICANN organization is failing in its duty to reasonably enforce policy; it makes clear the fact that the entire ICANN community, as the body responsible for creating policy, is failing domain name registrants – the very group of people that ICANN, and all of us in this industry, are intended to serve. ICANN’s policy development process is obviously broken. It’s equally obvious that the ICANN community’s approach to fixing it must be grounded in a solid understanding of their customers’ needs and a commitment to better registrant-experience. We need to refocus our efforts on creating policy that protects registrants, without creating unintended loopholes and dead-ends. Until then, all we can do is wish best of luck to our customers in India and elsewhere in the world."

d. ICANN Webinar: Data Protection/Privacy Activities | ICANN.org: Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) webinar to discuss data protection/privacy activities related to the European Union's (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):
Date & Time: 4 October 2017, 1400 – 1500 UTC (time convert) 10am EDT.
Join via Adobe Connect.
Send dial-in requests to gdpr-questions@ icann.org; Dial-in Information here.
Participant Codes: English – Participant Code: 9001; Français – Participant Code: 9002; Español – Participant Code: 9003; 中文 – Participant Code: 9004; Pусский – Participant Code: 9005; العربية – Participant Code: 9006; Português – Participant Code: 9007.

e. New gTLD .AMAZON battle rejoined--Adopted Board Resolutions | Regular Meeting of the ICANN Board | ICANN.org: "...Resolved (2017.09.23.17), further consideration is needed regarding the Panel's non-binding recommendation that the Board "promptly re-evaluate Amazon's applications" and "make an objective and independent judgment regarding whether there are, in fact, well-founded, merits-based public policy reasons for denying Amazon's applications. Resolved (2017.09.23.18), the Board asks the Board Accountability Mechanisms Committee (BAMC) to review and consider the Panel's recommendation that the Board "promptly re-evaluate Amazon's applications" and "make an objective and independent judgment regarding whether there are, in fact, well-founded, merits-based public policy reasons for denying Amazon's applications," and to provide options for the Board to consider in addressing the Panel's recommendation." (emphasis added)

f. Creating Content Governance and Rebuilding the Infrastructure of ICANN’s Public Sites | ICANN.org: "It probably comes as no surprise to many of you who use www.icann.org that our content can be difficult to find. It's an issue we have grappled with for a long time that needs a permanent fix. On 23 September 2017, at the ICANN Board meeting in Montevideo, Uruguay, the Board approved the Information Transparency Initiative to address this and other problems ... One of the primary objectives of this initiative is to improve the findability of ICANN's public content in all six U.N. languages"--see also Adopted Board Resolutions | Regular Meeting of the ICANN Board | ICANN.org: "... Resolutions 2017.09.23.10 –2017.09.23.11 Valuable ICANN information has accumulated in thousands of pieces of unstructured public content spread across 38 different public ICANN and SO/AC sites. This content continues to grow at rates of 25-30% per year. The ICANN organization currently surfaces this content through multiple, unconnected platforms with differing foundational technologies that are non-scalable, may be vulnerable, and are no longer fit for purpose."

g. This Is No Joke: Request for Proposal: gTLD Marketplace Health Index Assessment | ICANN.org: "Indications of interest are to be received by emailing gTLDMktHealthIndexAssessment-rfp @ icann.org. Proposals should be electronically submitted by 23:59 UTC on 30 October 2017 using ICANN's sourcing tool, access to which may be requested via the same email address above." More information at the link above.

h. Internet Service Provider and Connectivity Providers Constituency (ISPCP) Comments on the ICANN Statistical Analysis of DNS Abuse in gTLDs (SADAG) Report (pdf): "... While the SADAG report is a robust and ambitious analysis of abuse within the DNS, and the constituents of the ISPCP appreciate the time and effort put into the study, it is evident that the study requires either a second phase, additional source material, or a revised analysis, specifically: • It is mentioned only in passing that abuse and price are correlated, for example. Prices from 50 cents to 1 dollar (U.S.) are tied to abusive registrations. However, this ignores mentioning that the .top [new] gTLD is offered at 10 cents per domain for multiple registrars. Given the evidence that price and abuse are tied together, this would require further exploration. • As speculation and defensive registrations dominate the growth of registrations in the DNS and there are new gTLDs and registrars where there are greater than 50% abusive registrations, including one registrar where 90% of the domains are reported as abusive, then an analysis of this registrar’s attraction is required ... is this a deliberate business strategy? ..."(emphasis added)--read the other comments here.

i. Cherine Chalaby will be the next Chair of the ICANN Board and Chris Disspain the next Vice-Chair--Chairman’s Blog: The Montevideo Workshop Wrap-Up | ICANN.org 26 Sep 2017.

j. Registry Resources | ICANN.org--Naming Services portal--"The Naming Services portal replaces the Global Domain [sic] Division (GDD) and New gTLD Applicant portals. This portal will streamline the way registry operators conduct business with the ICANN organization." [Editor's note: anything that "replaces the Global Domain [sic] Division (GDD)" has to be an improvement.]

k. ICANN Public Comment Periods Closing in October | ICANN.org:
l. CEP and IRP Status Update | 22 Sep 2017 | ICANN.org--irp-cep-status-22sep17-en.pdf (pdf)

3) Names, Domains & Trademarks
  • Was the $41.5 million price tag for .Shop domains worth it? | OnlineDomain.com--New gTLD Buyer's Remorse.
  • US Court Orders Dozens of "Pirate" Site Domain Seizures | TorrentFreak.com: "The order was signed exactly one day after the complaint was filed, in what appears to be a streamlined process."
  • US DOJ Antitrust Division: U.S. Senate confirmed Trump's pick to lead the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, Makan Delrahim, who previously worked in Trump’s White House counsel’s office, by a wide margin, 73-21 vote on Wednesday, September 27, 2017.--TheHill.com
  • China’s New Domain Name Rules: The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (“MIIT“) issued the final version of the Rules on the Administration of Internet Domain Names on 24 Aug 2017. The new Rules become effective 1 Nov 2017. The final rules delete the controversial Article 37 which required any domain name whose website is hosted in China must be registered with a Chinese domain name registrar.--Lexology.com
  • New .ie domain liberalisation proposal | IrishTechNews.ie: The proposal would "drop the need to prove a valid claim to the name. If the policy change is approved, any individual or business with a provable connection to Ireland will be able to register a .ie domain name on a first-come, first-served basis."
4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 
•  How the Internet Kept Running During Hurricane Irma: "At one node of the industrial backbone that keeps the internet running, employees sheltered from the worst of Hurricane Irma in a stairwell of a seven-story building in downtown Miami. When the power had gone out, diesel generators instantly kicked in ... the heavy digital machinery at the heart of the internet and the cloud held firm."--NYTimes.com.

•  China Blocks WhatsApp, Broadening Online Censorship | NYTimes.com (this follows China's mid-July crackdown on WhatsApp video chats, multimedia messages).

•  Wireless phone market in U.S. competitive with just 3 or 4 providers--The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved a report on Tuesday that says there is effective competition in the mobile wireless industry, though the number of major service providers may drop from four to three (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile-Sprint)--TheHill.com.

•  EU wants tech firms to police the Internet | euobserver.com: "the move - a non-binding recommendation issued on Thursday (28 September) - has attracted criticism from pro-free speech defenders, who question the role of companies in policing online content given the diverging laws throughout member states ... [but] the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights clarifies free speech to include the right to offend, to shock, to disturb the state or any part of the population."

•  Turkey Opens a New Page for Monitoring E-Commerce Activities by Introducing the Electronic Commerce Information System | Lexology.com

•  Tech giants Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Salesforce pledged $50 million each to U.S. President Trump's STEM education initiative--TheHill.com

5) Top 3 Most Read posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this past week on DomainMondo.com: 
1. News Review: ICANN Interactive Webinar, Editor's Comment on DNS Abuse
2. Europol Report: 2017 Top Threat In Cybercrime Epidemic Is Ransomware
3. Tez, Google's New Digital Payment App for India (video)
-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo


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2017-09-23

Tech Review | Apple $AAPL Special Event Postpartum Depression?

Tech Review (TR 2017-09-23)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Apple $AAPL Special Event Postpartum Depression? 2) Google & HTC: Everyone Wants To Make A High-end Phone, 3) Cord-Cutting Trends--Cable Is For Old People, 4) Investing: Mass Psychology, Diversification, Gurus, US$, Buffett,  5) ICYMI Tech News.

1) Apple $AAPL Special Event Postpartum Depression?
Apple Special Event. September 12, 2017.
NASDAQ:AAPL:
$AAPL

2) Everyone Wants To Make A High-End Phone: Google & HTC
Pixel Phone
Google (NASDAQ: GOOG, GOOGL) and HTC Corporation (TWSE: 2489) "announced a definitive agreement under which certain HTC employees – many of whom are already working with Google to develop Pixel smartphones – will join Google. HTC will receive US$1.1 billion in cash from Google as part of the transaction. Separately, Google will receive a non-exclusive license for HTC intellectual property (IP) ... this agreement also represents a significant investment by Google in Taiwan as a key innovation and technology hub ... expected to close by early 2018."--HTC.com, 21 Sep 2017.--About 2,000 HTC staffers to join Google; HTC to continue making its own smartphones, including a new flagship model.

See also: Android zero-touch enrollment: seamless and secure enterprise deployment | blog.google: carrier partners who plan to offer zero-touch: USA: Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile; Europe: BT, Deutsche Telekom; Asia-Pacific: Softbank, Telstra.

3) Cord-Cutting Trends--Cable Is For Old People: 
CordCutter
Cord Cutters to Top 22 Million in U.S. by End of 2017 (Study) | Variety.com: "By 2021, the number of cord-cutters will nearly equal the number of people who have never had pay TV — a total of 81 million U.S. adults." See also Cable News Is Almost Exclusively Watched by Old People.
"The last couple of years, a few friends pulled the plug on cable/satellite ... my daughter Katie ditched the corded life, as have many (most?) of her Millennial friends. They have been doing the "streaming thing," first with subscription models such as Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) Prime, and then with expanded services offering network bundles: Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, Hulu with Live TV, YouTube TV, etc. Those who want to add a little "premium" to their lives can get stand-alone services from HBO or Showtime. (A basic guide to streaming options can be found on the Consumer Reports free site.)."--SeekingAlpha.com.  
Editor's note: best option for many may be either, or both, an Amazon Prime subscription (using an Amazon Fire TV Stick which will give you access to Amazon Prime content as well as Netflix (subscription), HBO and much more via Amazon Channels, AND/OR a Google Chromecast to access the free and à la carte and subscription content available from the internet and via Google Play (including apps). Total one-time hardware cost less than $75.00 (Fire Stick $39.99 + Chromecast $35). Put a little money into a quality screen, good internet connection (including router and modem), and pay for only the content you really want.

4) Investing
"Investing, in other words, is an exercise in mass psychology. I’ve spent decades studying it, and believe that one way to predict future market moves is to sort through the narratives that sweep through the population and influence decisions on whether to buy or sell. Such an analysis is a matter of art as much as science, however. Getting it right is crucial in the United States right now, because stock market valuations are already high enough to be worrisome."--Robert J.Shiller, Sept 15, 2017, NYTimes.com.

Separating the Dos From the Don'ts of Investing | Bloomberg.com: Diversification is the idea of reducing specific risk in your portfolio.

Investment Gurus: Beware of investing advice from market gurus | usatoday.com: "... the ninth anniversary of Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy and the subsequent collapse of our country’s financial system. One of the most important lessons we can learn is that no one — not even the experts — saw it coming."

 US$--The Demise of the U.S. Dollar? Don't Hold Your Breath--"The USD is still the dominant reserve currency, despite decades of diversification. Global reserves (allocated and unallocated) are over $12 trillion. Note that China's RMB doesn't even show up in allocated reserves--it's a non-player because it's pegged to the USD. Why hold RMB when the peg can be changed at will? It's lower risk to just hold USD ... the problem of replacing the USD in all its roles is that no other issuer has a large enough economy and is willing to shoulder the risks and burdens of issuing a free-floating currency in sufficient size to meet global demands."--Charles Hugh Smith

Warren Buffett, The Sage of Omaha: “Whenever I hear people talk pessimistically about this country (U.S.), I think they’re out of their mind ... It has been 241 years since Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence ... Being short America has been a loser’s game. I predict to you it will continue to be a loser’s game.” Buffett said he expects the Dow Jones Industrial Average to be “over 1 million” in 100 years, up from Tuesday’s close of 22,370.80, given where the index was roughly a century ago.--Buffett speaking this week in New York.


 5) ICYMI Tech News:

 -- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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2017-09-16

Tech Review | Hurricane Irma: Using Tech For Disasters & Recovery

Tech Review (TR 2017-09-16)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news:
Features • 1) Hurricane Irma: Using Tech For Disasters & Recovery, 2) New Apple iPhones Too Expensive?, 3) Bitcoin a "fraud", 4) Investing: Tax Reform and Things the Market Does Not Care About, 5) ICYMI Tech News.

1) Hurricane Irma: using tech for disasters & recovery:
Google Crisis Maps: http://google.org/crisismap/2017-irma and http://google.org/crisismap/
Florida Power & Light (FPL) Update: https://www.fplmaps.com/
See also: Harvey and Irma scams: "Real websites for first responders, insurance companies, construction, medical and other vital organizations in the Florida and Texas areas — are being targeted by these malicious spoofed domain registrations."--circleid.com

2)  New Apple iPhones Too Expensive? Lucky 8? $1,000 price tag dampens iPhone enthusiasm in China | Reuters.com--iPhone’s share of China’s smartphone shipments fell to 9 percent in January-June, down from 14 percent in 2015 (source: CounterpointResearch.com data). See also Apple $AAPL Special Event: iPhone X, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus & More | DomainMondo.com.

3)  Bitcoin a "fraud"--JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon calls bitcoin a 'fraud' | TheHill.com: “It’s a fraud” ... “worse than tulip bulbs" ... “You can’t have a business where people can invent a currency out of thin air and think that people who are buying it are really smart" ... [it] "won’t end well." See also  China to Shut Bitcoin Exchanges | WSJ.com Sep 11, 2017: "Authorities to ban commercial trading of all virtual currencies."

4) Investing: 
Tax Reform: "Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin saying he will eliminate the carried interest tax loophole."--YouTube.com and US Senate Finance Committee hearing 10:00 am EDT, Tuesday, Sep 19, 2017,  on Business Tax Reform, a big issue for tech, internet and telecom companies.

Things the Market Does Not Care About:
  • "... Your feelings. Emotions usually get in the way of investment success but the markets have no sympathy if you get too excited, nervous, scared or greedy about your holdings. Taking things too personal is a great way to make poor decisions when money is at stake ...
  • How successful you are. Success in other areas of life doesn’t always translate into success in the markets. Personalizing your successes can set you up for failure if you become too overconfident in your own abilities ... 
  • Your political views. Markets are apolitical. They don’t care who you voted for, which cable news network you watch or what your ideological leanings are. 
  • How much money you made on your last trade. Investors have a memory but the markets do not. One winning trade has no bearing on your future trades ..."--awealthofcommonsense.com

5) ICYMI Tech News:

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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2017-09-09

Tech Review | Amazon HQ2: Second Headquarters North America (video)

Tech Review (TR 2017-09-09)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news:
Features • 1) Amazon HQ2: Second Headquarters North America (video), 2) Why Hurricane Harvey Won't Slow Down Houston, 3) Leading Cloud Providers Run Away with the Market: Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Alibaba, 4) Investing: Roku IPO, Best IPO, Uber, AT&T $T, 5) ICYMI Tech News: Huawei, Apple, Samsung, Google, HTC, Xiaomi, Facebook, Angry Birds IPO, Equifax data breach.

1) Amazon HQ2: Second Headquarters North America

Amazon Announces Public Hunt for New Headquarters
Video above published Sep 7, 2017, by Bloomberg.com: Amazon.com Inc.,  (NASDAQ: AMZN), is breaking from its history of secret expansions with a public hunt for a second headquarters, spurring quick interest from cities eager to land a workforce of as many as 50,000 people. Bloomberg's Gerrit De Vynck and Shira Ovide, a Bloomberg Gadfly columnist, have more on "Bloomberg Technology." Ovide's opinions are her own (not Bloomberg's).

Amazon.com Inc. Press Release: "Sep. 7, 2017—Amazon today announced plans to open Amazon HQ2, a second company headquarters in North America. Amazon expects to invest over $5 billion in construction and grow this second headquarters to include as many as 50,000 high-paying jobs. In addition to Amazon’s direct hiring and investment, construction and ongoing operation of Amazon HQ2 is expected to create tens of thousands of additional jobs and tens of billions of dollars in additional investment in the surrounding community. Amazon is opening the Amazon HQ2 Request for Proposal (“RFP”) now, and local and state government leaders interested in learning more about how they can bring Amazon to their community can visit www.amazon.com/amazonHQ2. Amazon estimates its investments in Seattle from 2010 through 2016 resulted in an additional $38 billion to the city’s economy – every dollar invested by Amazon in Seattle generated an additional 1.4 dollars for the city’s economy overall. Details of Amazon’s Seattle headquarters ..." (go to link above for more info)(link and emphasis added).

See also: Two Very Different Stories About Amazon: "The best thing since credit cards or the next Sears?"--Bloomberg.com

2)  Why Hurricane Harvey Won't Slow Down Houston: "... The economic forces favoring a quick recovery are just too strong ... Houston is a tech cluster ... the center of the U.S. energy industry, which has gone increasingly high-tech in the past few decades. The city probably is home to more engineers than any other in the country. The same pool of skilled employees that sustains Houston’s energy industry makes it appealing to other knowledge-based sectors as well ..."--Bloomberg.com

See also: Hurricane Irma is not expected to disrupt banking in Florida, even if a lot of bank branches shut down during the storm. Leaders of institutions such as CenterState Bank Corp. and Seacoast Banking Corp. of Florida told American Banker that technology, including the ability to deposit and withdraw money electronically, will keep business on track.--South Florida Business Journal | bizjournals.com

3)  Leading Cloud Providers Run Away with the Market--Synergy Research Group | srgresearch.com: Amazon ended June with 34% of the cloud services market compared to 11% for Microsoft and 5% for Google, according to Synergy Research:
Leading Cloud Providers
Synergy estimates that quarterly cloud infrastructure service revenues (including IaaS, PaaS and hosted private cloud services) have now reached almost $11 billion and continue to grow at over 40% per year. While AWS (Amazon Web Services), Microsoft and Google are the lead providers in IaaS/PaaS, IBM continues to lead in hosted private cloud. Alibaba has now become the fourth ranked provider in IaaS with very strong growth in China and aggressive expansion abroad.
“While Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform are doubling in size, IBM continues to dominate in hosted private cloud and AWS is still over three times the size of its nearest competitor. Some of the numbers are actually pretty spectacular. The year-on-year market growth rate is nudging down as we expected in such a large market, but it remains at comfortably over 40% and AWS alone generated revenue growth of $1.2 billion over the last four quarters.”--John Dinsdale, Synergy Research Group Chief Analyst and Research Director 
4) Investing

5) ICYMI Tech News:
  • Smartphones: MWC Americas, September 12-14, 2017, in San Francisco at the Moscone Center. China's Huawei (domain: huawei.com) passes Apple in global smartphone sales, now second behind Samsung--cnbc.com. Apple's Sept 12th Event: Apple’s New iPhones May Be Called iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone Edition--cnbc.com (video). Google buying HTC? | cnbc.com. See also Samsung Galaxy Note 8: great build, dual camera and display, but not huge upgrade from S8+ and too expensive at $929--engadget.com, and finally, Google and Xiaomi partner to launch the Android One Mi A1 smartphone for just $234 in more than 40 markets--a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, 3080mAh battery, a 5.5-inch curved glass display, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB internal storage--VentureBeat.com
  • America's Superstar Companies Are a Drag on Growth--Bloomberg.com--"Lack of competition lets them gouge consumers, underpay workers and invest too little ... Since the 1980s, antitrust enforcement has gotten weaker." TalkingPointsMemo.com: A Serf on Google’s Farm: How publishers' extreme reliance on various Google services gives Google effective monopoly power, stifles criticism, and sometimes results in unexpected losses.  See also Silicon Valley Ethics Issues: Companies court "brand-name teachers."--NYTimes.com, and U.S. tax reform needed to spur competition and growth says Jamie Dimon--usatoday.com.
  • HollywoodReporter.com: Amazon and Apple are competing with Warner Bros. and others for rights to the James Bond franchise.
  • Has disruption from e-commerce run its course? | 13D.com: Alibaba’s Jack Ma has put it bluntly: “We must embrace physical space.” See also Brick & Mortar Meltdown: Toys R Us Hires Bankruptcy Law Firm | Wolf Street and Mexico signs e-commerce deal with China's Alibaba Group--Reuters.com
  • Facebook: how its quest for growth and monetization shapes and distorts company's stated mission of connecting people--You Are The Product | London Review of Books | lrb.co.uk. See also Facebook's Watch goes up against YouTube for ad dollars--Reuters.com, and Facebook Tees Up WhatsApp to Make Money | WSJ.com. Meanwhile Facebook digital ads figures differ from census data: analyst--Reuters.com.
  • Angry Birds' Oy IPO in Finland: Rovio Entertainment Oy, Finnish mobile game and film company, plans IPO in Helsinki, with an issue of shares for €30 million and sale of existing shares by majority owner Kaj Hed, uncle of Rovio co-founder Niklas Hed, and others, with the goal of valuing the company at about US$2.38B--WSJ.com.
  • Chinese ICOs banned: China bans fundraising via initial coin offerings | cnbc.com and China's virtual coin fundraising ban just the start of tighter regulations on virtual currencies a/k/a cryptocurrencies--Reuters.com
  • EU plans rule change to increase taxes on "digital multinationals such as Google and Amazon ..."--Reuters.com; ECB working on licensing rules for fintechs--Reuters.com. See also Zelle, the payment network backed by major US banks, launching a standalone app--TheVerge.com
  • Hackers Coming for Your Cell-Phone Number--Hackers have been increasingly able to convince carriers to transfer customer phone numbers to devices in their control, allowing a reset of passwords for sites secured using two-factor authentication, a feature now used widely by sites like Twitter and Facebook.--NYTimes.com and MIT TechnologyReview.com. See also Instagram Hackers Claim To Have Data of Over 6 Million Users--wccftech.com, and Equifax website hack exposes data for ~143 million US consumers | ArsTechnica.com: "Breach affecting 44 percent of US population is one of the biggest yet."--personal data of millions of people is now in the hands of hostile governments, criminal gangs, or both, and will remain so indefinitely. 

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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