Weekly#500

  • Monese neobank announces a $35 million investment by HSBC
  • HSBC invests in Singapore’s customer intelligence and risk assessment startup
  • “…A study this year by professors at Columbia University and New York University estimated that lower tenant demand because of remote work may cut 28%, or $456 billion, off the value of offices across the US. About 10% of that would be in New York City alone…”
  • Amazon WorkSpaces Introduces Ubuntu Desktops
  • Mark Zuckerberg says Meta will freeze hiring
  • Chief Economists Outlook (World Economic Forum)
  • Uniswap Labs eyes over $100 million in new funding
  • 1st gen AirPods Pro users seeing ‘Adaptive Transparency’ option after iOS 16.1 beta update
  • Magic Leap’s smaller, lighter second-gen AR glasses are now available
  • “… Bloomberg Intelligence estimates it would take about eight years to move just 10% of Apple’s production capacity out of China, where roughly 98% of the company’s iPhones have been made ….. with China accounting for 70% of global smartphone manufacturing and leading Chinese vendors accounting for nearly half of global shipments…”
  • Introducing Spring Boot Migrator
  • JPMorgan Chase Is Phasing Out Safe Deposit Boxes
  • Pharma giant Pfizer has shelled out nearly US$120 million to acquire a small Australian company claiming to have developed a smartphone app that can accurately diagnose COVID-19 by analyzing the sound of a cough.
  • Netflix is building its own game studio
  • Cloudflare launches an eSIM to secure mobile devices
  • 7 Lessons on Dynamic Pricing (HBR)… 2017 WSJ article about dynamic pricing
  • Mapping the Unknown — The 10 Steps to Map Any Industry
  • Amazon’s Fall Device Event: Wi-Fi-Boosting Echo Speakers, a Kindle for Note-Taking and More (WSJ)
  • “…Global cloud spending is projected to reach $830.5 billion by the end of the year, up 17.5% from 2021, but slowing from last year’s growth rate of 18.3%, according to International Data Corp. It expects growth to drop to 16.3% next year…” (WSJ)
  • Microsoft says two new Exchange zero-day bugs
  • Gartner Hype Cycle for Digital Banking Transformation

Weekly#499

  • 25% of Netflix subscribers planning to leave service
  • Amazon’s new unit aims to ease engineers’ frustrations with these 6 guiding principles
  • Amazon’s 2022 Echo and Ring Launch Event (Sep 28)
  • Google Maps Launches Eco-Friendly Fuel-Efficient Routing On App
  • Apple will sponsor Super Bowl halftime show starting in February
  • Investors are spending 24% less time looking at pitch decks in 2022, compared to 2021…investors give up in just 2 minutes and 13 seconds
  • “…According to analysts at Goldman Sachs, a decade ago Wall Street saw the move as mainly just a way to sell extra design software to Adobe’s existing 12mn-13mn customers: instead, user numbers for Adobe’s Creative Cloud — which includes Photoshop — have risen to more than 30mn….” (FT)
  • NY-based Stash is one of few neobanks to build its own core banking system
  • Alibaba Cloud enjoyed a 9.5% market share in 2021, trailing Microsoft (21%) and Amazon (39%), according to market research firm Gartner
  • France sets delivery fee for online book sales to help stores compete with Amazon
  • Chipmaker Qualcomm says automotive future business expands to $30 bln
  • Cloud kitchen startup CloudEats raises more capital to ramp up Southeast Asian expansion
  • YouTube’s Dislike Button Rarely Shifts Recommendations, Researchers Say.”…YouTube’s “dislike” button reduced similar, unwanted recommendations only 12 percent, according to their report, titled “Does This Button Work?…”
  • For Gen Z, TikTok Is the New Search Engine…Need to find a restaurant or figure out how to do something? Young people are turning to TikTok to search for answers.
  • Apple to move 25% iPhone production to India by 2025, 20% iPad and Apple Watch to Vietnam, analysts say
  • Salesforce aims for 25% operating margin in 2026 with more efficient spending
  • First look at dynamicSpot: Bringing Apple’s Dynamic Island to your Android phone
  • Virtual Threads: New Foundations for High-Scale Java Applications

Weekly#498

  • Software fees to make up 10% of John Deere’s revenues by 2030
  • Code 2022 Videos
  • New attack can unlock and start a Tesla Model Y in seconds, say researchers
  • Starbucks details its blockchain-based loyalty platform and NFT community, Starbucks Odyssey
  • For more than 20 years, Massive software has spawned armies of artificially intelligent crowds, from Lord of the Rings to Avengers: Endgame.
  • Apple’s iOS 16 is now available to download
  • Google closes $5.4B Mandiant acquisition
  • “…Internal Meta research: Instagram users spend 17.6M hours/day on Reels vs. 197.8M hours/day on TikTok; ~1/3 of Reels are recycled posts from other platforms…” (WSJ)
  • Towards the end of 2022, the human population on Earth is expected to reach eight billion
  • The electrolyser is expected to have an output of 1100 Nm3/h hydrogen at normal current density. This equals 100 kg of pure hydrogen per hour, which will set a new standard for the industry
  • SoftBank Considers Launching a Third Vision Fund…The successor Vision Fund 2 is now worth 19% less than the $49 billion it invested… (WSJ)
  • Zoom Readies Email and Calendar Products to Defend Itself Against Microsoft, Google (The Information)
  • Starbucks and DoorDash launch delivery partnership, will expand offering nationwide in 2023
  • Instagram is internally testing a new monetization feature for creators called ‘Gifts
  • SWIFT Financial-Messaging System Pilots Blockchain Project
  • “…one of the estimated one billion customers around the globe using neobanks, according to analysis by German strategy consultants Simon-Kucher…” (FT)
  • World Intellectual Property Report 2022 [PDF]
  • “…Starlink is now on all seven continents! In such a remote location like Antarctica, this capability is enabled by Starlink’s space laser network…”
  • QR codes
  • The Secret Life of Selfies: How a Beauty Tech Startup Is Using AI to Match Faces With Products

Weekly#497

  • Apple Event: Everything Unveiled from iPhone 14 to Apple Watch 8
  • iOS 16 launches September 12
  • Steve Jobs archive
  • Predictive Maintenance: Developed by New York-based startup Augury Inc., the technology has helped Frito-Lay add some 4,000 hours a year of manufacturing capacity—the equivalent of several million pounds of snacks coming off the production line (WSJ)
  • Stanford classes on crypto
  • Microsoft invests in Travis Kalanick’s CloudKitchens start-up (FT)
  • AWS Compute Cost Calculator
  • ‘We don’t have enough’ lithium globally to meet EV targets
  • Google upgrades its Apple AirDrop competitor ‘Nearby Share’ and five other Android updates
  • Spotify exec says the company will begin testing audiobooks ‘very soon
  • Mercedes-Benz and Rivian partner to jointly build electric vans in Europe
  • US state of Virginia has more datacenter capacity than Europe or China

Weekly#496

  • Apple Watch Pro 2022 (Rumors)
  • AI detects 20,000 hidden taxable swimming pools in France
  • WhatsApp grocery shopping is already huge in Brazil
  • Rocket Lab planning to launch private Venus mission in May 2023
  • Switchbot Lock Review
  • Audi will build F1 engines, entering the sport in 2026.”…VW Group will actually fund two F1 programs, one with Audi and a second with Porsche, which is in the process of acquiring a 50 percent stake in Red Bull Technologies…
  • An iPhone 14 satellite link could depend on Apple cutting a deal with wireless carriers
  • Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US (FT)
  • The smartphone is the new sun
  • China’s Pinduoduo Quietly Launches U.S. E-Commerce Site Temu (WSJ)
  • Apple eases subscription path to Xcode Cloud to keep devs in the ecosystem
  • Google launches third-party Play Store billing pilot
  • Merge requests and insecure GitHub workflows may lead to supply-chain attacks
  • Lenovo’s Glasses T1 let you bring a private big screen display with you
  • Netflix Ad Tier Launch Moved Up to November
  • Worldwide Shipments of PCs and Tablets Forecast to Decline in 2022
  • Microsoft Combat Goggles Win First US Army Approval for Delivery
  • Underwater datacenter will open for business this year
  • Android 13 review
  • The Road to Electric Car Supremacy in Five Charts
  • U.S. officials order Nvidia to halt sales of top AI chips to China