• Didi, the ride-hail company, is buying Brazilian app 99.
• Roku is rolling out its version of Alexa for home speakers and TV soundbars
• Three million people are staying in Airbnbs over New Years. Eight years ago, only 1,400 were.
• GoPro cuts 200-300 jobs, largely impacting its drone division
• Spotify hits 70 million subscribers
• Salesforce wants to reach $60 billion revenue goal by 2034
• Tesla launches a web-based version of its in-car trip planning tool
• Amazon has big plans for Alexa ads in 2018; it’s discussing options with P&G, Clorox and others
• China’s president had 2 books about artificial intelligence on his shelf in his New Year speech
• What You Need to Do Because of Flaws in Computer Chips
• HBO officially confirms ‘Game of Thrones’ won’t return for its final season until next year
• Alar Kolk – Prototyping & Experiments
• Brazil may write new laws with data stored on the ethereum blockchain
• Uber powered four billion rides in 2017
• Visual network map of MegaTrends to 2050
• App revenue climbed 35 percent to $60 billion in 2017

Happy New Year

My presentation is scheduled January 23 at David Game College Training Room / you can check the Eventbrite

 

• SoftBank and its co-investors have successfully acquired at least 13 percent of Uber
• Researchers at Stanford have trained an AI to predict a person’s political leanings based on his or her neighbourhood and choice of vehicle
• Netflix’s ‘Bright’ reached 11M viewers in its first three days, according to Nielsen…“…the first episode of Stranger Things 2 reached 15.8 million people in its first three days, while the second season premiere of The Crown reached nearly 3 million viewers in the same time frame…”
• 2018 Preview: Satellite industry 2.0…OneWeb is shooting for 2021 to achieve 2.5 gigabits per second direct to a rural home…
• Trends in drone technology [PDF]
• Apple apologizes for iPhone slowdown drama, will offer $29 battery replacements for a year
• China begins regulating QR code payments
• YouTube has been deactivated on the Fire TV
• Ripple briefly overtakes Ethereum as the No. 2 crypto
• Hyundai and Kia are developing AI assistants for cars
• Britain’s digital banks: profitable or just popular?
• Google is making moves towards mobile-first search
• The Leader’s Guide to Corporate Culture
• Google Search: Year in 2017
• Why digital transformation is now on the CEO’s shoulders
• Management is about handling complexity. Leadership is about creating simplicity. — Peter Docker
• WeChat App to Become Official ID
• Tinder has 2.5m paid users

My presentation is scheduled January 23 at David Game College Training Room / you can check the Eventbrite

 

 

• Google will turn on native ad-blocking in Chrome on February 15
• Facebook will use facial recognition to tell you when people upload your picture
• ‘Sunday Night Football’ was the highest-rated TV show this year, but its audience is smaller than last year …On average, 18.6 million people watched it this year and 19.3 million people watched it last year.
• How Netflix is trying to rewrite movie marketing with Bright
• YouTube reportedly signs new music licensing deals with UMG and Sony Music
• YouTube TV delays Apple TV and Roku apps until early 2018
• You can now send your Amazon Echo Look selfies for crowdsourced fashion advice
• WhatsApp ordered to stop sharing user data with Facebook
• Eric Schmidt stepping down as Alphabet’s executive chairman to become a ‘technical advisor’
• Instagram now lets you share live videos through direct messages
• Facebook has taken its first real steps into the music business
• Are biometrics a safe way to speed up airport security?
• China ride-hail giant Didi Chuxing has raised $4 billion
• Sequoia is raising a new fund that could top $6 billion, as pressure from SoftBank’s mega-fund increases on Silicon Valley VCs
• Uber has hired former Orbitz CEO Barney Harford as its first-ever COO
• Fjord 2018 Trends
• Personal service robot population, 2000-2050
• Industry 4.0 – Internet of Manufacturing

• T-Mobile plans pay-TV service in 2018 fueled by Layer3 TV acquisition
• SpaceX launches a reused Dragon atop a reused Falcon 9 for the first time
• Alexa skills top 25,000 in the U.S. as new launches slow
• UX: Hide/Show Passwords
• UX How to with Luke Wroblewski
• Apple has finally turned on its podcast analytics feature
• Here come the Facebook pre-roll video ads
• Apple picks up a new space drama from the creator of ‘Battlestar Galactica’
• Google Searches for Path Back to China With Artificial-Intelligence Lab
• Why Apple’s Shazam acquisition could be a big deal for the HomePod
• SoftBank to Invest Around $500 Million More in OneWeb Satellite-Internet Venture
• WSJ: “…$390 Million funding will enable  the supplier of a laser technology (vertical-cavity-surface-emitting lasers, or VCSELs) used in its iPhone X’s facial-recognition capabilities, to speed up production and boost its R&D efforts, Apple said…”
• Facebook is paying WWE to stream some professional wrestling
• Anyone can now build augmented reality face masks inside Facebook. Facebook is opening up its AR platform to everyone
• Disney is acquiring Fox’s film and TV divisions for $52.4 billion…Disney details overarching direct-to-consumer plan possible through Fox deal…”…Iger added that this will allow Hulu to “become an even more viable competitor” to existing services, likely referencing Netflix and Amazon Prime Video without naming them directly. He also said that Disney will, of course, be “flowing more content in Hulu’s direction” now that it owns a controlling 39 percent majority stake…“…Hulu has 32 million subscribers (April 2017)
• Disney CEO Wagers That Traditional TV Can Pave Way to Future
• Disney Is About to Become the ‘Walmart of Hollywood
• Andreessen Horowitz has a new, $450 million bio fund
• Andrew Ng’s Landing.ai wants to bring artificial intelligence to the manufacturing industry, starting with Foxconn
• Nvidia and construction giant Komatsu partner on AI for job site safety
• China’s CCTV surveillance network took just 7 minutes to locate a person…“…There are some 170 million CCTV cameras across the country, and that’s tipped to grow more than three-fold with 400 million more set to be installed by 2020…”
• Elon Musk’s Boring Company is reportedly starting to dig 12.4-mile tunnel in Maryland next month
• A robot can print this $64,000 house in as few as 8 hours — take a look inside
• David Attenborough Warns: Sixth Mass Extinction Is Imminent
• China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars
• ‘World’s First’ Solar-Powered train to begin operation in Australia
• Japan’s Yamato plans automated facility to beat labour shortage
• JWT 2018 :The Future 100

• The U.S. suit against AT&T’s purchase of Time Warner likely won’t end until after May
• 2017 was the year digital ad spending finally beat TV…“…Digital ad spending reached $209 billion worldwide — 41 percent of the market — in 2017, while TV brought in $178 billion — 35 percent of the market — in 2017. That’s according to Magna, the research arm of media buying firm IPG Mediabrands…”
• Sony has sold over 70 million PS4 consoles, 2 million VR headsets
• Compass gets $450M from SoftBank; real estate portal now valued at $2.2B
• Google’s mobile search results now include videos of celebs answering your questions
• Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 focuses on AI, VR and battery life
• G.E. Cuts Jobs as It Navigates a Shifting Energy Market
• The Hidden Player Spurring a Wave of Cheap Consumer Devices: Amazon
• When AI is made by AI, results are impressive
• a16z next 10 years
• YouTube to Launch New Music Subscription Service in March
• Google and Facebook dominate digital advertising — and they now account for 25% of all ad sales, online or off
• Amazon has opened a new research facility in the British university city of Cambridge with a wall made almost entirely out of Amazon Echo devices…The new “development centre” will be home to about 400 engineers who will work on Amazon’s Alexa assistant and drone innovation…
• Dropbox’s CEO credits his success to a habit he’s passed on to his executive team
• Amazon may be getting ready to go on a digital media buying spree
• DeepMind AI needs mere 4 hours of self-training to become a chess overlord…AlphaGo Zero needed three days to train up in Go; AlphaZero needed just eight hours.
• Japan eyes startup visa program to lure foreign businesses
• Walmex expands Wi-Fi in Mexican stores, pushing online shopping

• Amazon Plans to Send Alexa to the Office
• Netflix’s ‘Skip Intro’ Button Makes TV Ever More Like an App
• Microsoft is bringing clever tabs to every Windows 10 app
• Hulu’s new UI and live TV service are now on Samsung’s 2017 smart TVs
• Amazon will let Alexa developers use voice recognition to personalize apps
• Google’s AI knows when a stranger is looking at your phone
• AWS launches GuardDuty, its new intelligent threat detection service
• Airbnb launches payment splitting for group trips
• Google is officially 100% sun and wind powered – 3.0 gigawatts worth
• Verizon says it will have 5G service in five cities by the end of next year
• aws re:invent product announcements
• Google is making a computer vision kit for Raspberry P
• Google May Reunite With Nest as It Takes on Amazon
• Ginkgo Bioworks, ‘the organism company,’ is now worth over $1 billion
• SpaceX’s first Falcon Heavy launch will now take place in 2018
• AT&T’s LTE-M Button is basically a programmable 4G Amazon Dash Button for businesses
• Volvo’s car subscription service sounds like good way to get the new XC40
• Amazon’s AWS Cloud9 IDE lets you write, test, and debug code in your browser
• Google Assistant can now locate a handyman near you

AWS re:Invent

• QZ What I learned from Jeff Bezos after reading every Amazon shareholder letter
• Apple’s new ad is a clever comeback to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s iPad putdown
• The Department of Justice is using AT&T’s own argument for buying Time Warner to try to stop the deal
• Infographic from Recode: Complex web of self-driving and ride-sharing relationships
• Tesla’s new supercar will cost at least $200,000
• Tesla’s electric Semi truck starts at $150,000, reservations now live
• Two years after going public, Square is now worth more than Twitter
• A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs to farm
• As Chip Makers Consolidate, Marvell Will Buy Cavium in $6 Billion Deal
• VPN provider TunnelBear expands into password management with RememBear app
• Amazon unveils AI consulting program for cloud customers
  “…Called the Amazon ML Solutions Lab, the program will provide customers with access to machine learning experts from Amazon who can help them tackle business problems using purpose-built intelligent models…”
• HBR: How the Most Successful Teams Bridge the Strategy-Execution Gap
• Google Lens will soon get top-tier placement in the Google Assistant app
• BMW Joins Race to Secure Cobalt for Electric-Vehicle Batteries
• Why experiments are critical to your digital transformation
• Facebook introduces a Messenger plugin for business websites
• Twitter is testing Bookmarks, a feature to privately flag Tweets for later
• Tencent Just Overtook Facebook in Market Value: Chart
• China’s Tencent takes 12 percent stake in Snap as shares plunge
• Amazon seeks staff in European insurance push
• Toutiao, a Chinese news app that’s making headlines.“…Its 120m daily readers spend an average of 74 minutes a day on the app…”
• The Hidden Forces Behind Toutiao: China’s Content King

• • Eric Ries was in London at Cass Business School for talking about his new book. You can watch his inspiring talk from this periscope link. His new book is “The Startup Way” about entrepreneurial management transforms culture and drives growth. Below is the visualisation by Alli McKee. 

• Meet Boston Dynamics’ electric powered SpotMini
• Amazon is making a ‘Lord of the Rings’ prequel series
• Alibaba’s Singles’ Day sale amassed $25.3 billion, doubling 2016 Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales combined…a 40 percent jump from last year’s figures…
• Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot is a parkour master

• Tesla’s big new all-electric truck – the Tesla Semi…The Tesla Semi will go 0 to 60 mph in just 5 seconds, which is incredibly fast compared to a diesel truck…”… the truck that will do everything in its power to avoid a jackknifing incident, automatically, without requiring any driver intervention. And, it’ll do it regardless of what trailer or load is attached to the back. “Jackknifing is impossible,” said Elon Musk on stage at the Tesla Semi unveiling…”
• Hours before launch, EA strips micro-transactions from ‘Star Wars: Battlefront II’
• Google’s chatbot analytics platform Chatbase launches to public
• Comcast wants to buy Fox’s international, but it’ll have to wait for AT&T-Time Warner approval first
• Philo streams pay TV — without sports or broadcast channels — for $16 a month
• Facebook will live stream 47 college basketball games for free this season
• Williams-Sonoma is buying a 3-D imaging and augmented reality startup for $112 million
• Musical.ly, the lip-syncing video app, is going to sell for at least $800 million
• The UK Government is investing an extra £21 million in Tech City UK
• A breakdown of iPhone manufacturing costs over time
• Amazon rolls out Alexa, Echo in Canada
• Amazon is transforming Whole Foods into a tech store
• Alexa integration with Kimpton Hotel (Source: Twitter)
• This easy hack lets you create a virtual ‘Home’ button on the iPhone X
• Google Maps adds color to help you hone in on points of interest
• Amazon’s Cashierless Store Is Almost Ready for Prime Time
• MariaDB coming to Azure, as Microsoft joins the MariaDB Foundation
• Apple plans to add a 3D sensor to the back of the iPhone, too
• Amazon Music app for Android quietly gets Chromecast support

 

• China’s Tencent bought 12 percent of Snap — and everything else we learned from Snap’s earnings report
• Uber is asking drivers if they want to provide other on-demand services
• Razer to raise upwards of $504 million in Hong Kong IPO
• 70 years of VC innovation
• New Stars Wars and Marvel TV shows planned for Disney’s streaming service
• Project Loon delivers internet to 100,000 people in Puerto Rico
• UPS is converting ‘up to 1,500 delivery trucks’ to battery-electric in New York
• A hospital without patients
• Logitech to shut down “service and support” for Harmony Link devices in 2018
• ‘Stranger Things’ is a real hit: 16 million Americans watched  Season Two premiere, according to Nielsen
• Spotify has brought in a new head of PR as it gets ready for a 2018 IPO
• Selling a House to Millennials?
• Disney Fleshes Out Its Streaming Plans
• Skyscanner acquired London social media startup Twizoo
• The 3.8 billion hours of content streamed on Roku’s platform in the third quarter equates to 2.5 hours of daily watch time per user.
• US smartphone shipments dip in Q3
• Disney tried to hide the Millennium Falcon with shipping containers — but it’s on Google Maps
• Amazon brings the Echo to Japan