Top Stories

  • A document obtained by reporters found that a secret effort to influence the 2017 Senate election in Alabama, dubbed Project Birmingham, relied on tactics inspired by Russian disinformation campaigns, including the creation of fake Facebook Inc. accounts to spread misleading messages to hundreds of thousands of voters. The document reportedly describes the effort, backed by social media research firm New Knowledge and several Democratic operatives, as “a digital messaging operation to influence the outcome of the AL senate race” that targeted 650,000 likely voters with messages on social media platforms. (The Washington Post)
  • Samsung Electronics Co. announced a partnership with Apple Inc. that will allow owners of its smart televisions to watch content purchased on Apple’s iTunes service. Apple previously announced in November that Amazon.com Inc.’s Echo devices would support Apple Music, and the recent moves signal a potential shift in Apple’s willingness to allow its content to be distributed on devices made by competing companies. (CNN)
  • The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating fake text messages sent to some Republican members of the House from someone claiming to be a top aide to Vice President Mike Pence, according to people familiar with the matter. The impostor reportedly posed as Alyssa Farah, Pence’s press secretary and a former House staffer, and sought to obtain the locations of certain lawmakers and their availability for meetings. (The Wall Street Journal)

Chart Review

Events Calendar (All Times Local)

Monday
No events scheduled
Tuesday
CES 2019 8:30 a.m.
Delaware, Eastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey Area Regional Planning committees meeting 10 a.m.
Wednesday
CES 2019 8:30 a.m.
Thursday
CES 2019 8:30 a.m.
Region 17 (Kentucky) 700 and 800 MHz Regional Planning Committees planning meetings 1:30 p.m.
Friday
CES 2019 8 a.m.
NTIA’s BroadbandUSA Program hosts broadband workshop 9 a.m.
FCBA lunch event on intellectual property 12:15 p.m.
Colorado Regional Planning committees meetings 1 p.m.

The Brands That Defined 2018

Which brands won 2018, who’s on the rise, and key lessons for brands to take into the new year.

General

NASA administrator rescinds invitation to Russian counterpart after backlash on Capitol Hill
Christian Davenport, The Washington Post

Facing mounting criticism from Capitol Hill, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has rescinded an invitation to the controversial head of the Russian space agency to visit the United States. In an exclusive interview with The Washington Post, Bridenstine said that the invitation was an attempt to maintain relations with Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.

Chinese tech investors flee Silicon Valley as Trump tightens scrutiny
Heather Somerville, Reuters

New Trump administration policies aimed at curbing China’s access to American innovation have all but halted Chinese investment in U.S. technology startups, as both investors and startup founders abandon deals amid scrutiny from Washington. Chinese venture funding in U.S. startups crested to a record $3 billion last year, according to New York economic research firm Rhodium Group, spurred by a rush of investors and tech companies scrambling to complete deals before a new regulatory regime was approved in August.

Tesla CEO Musk breaks ground at Shanghai Gigafactory to launch China push
Yilei Sun and Adam Jourdan, Reuters

Tesla Inc broke ground on Monday for its Shanghai Gigafactory where it plans to begin making its Model 3 electric vehicles (EV) by year-end, a first step in localizing production in the world’s largest auto market. At a ceremony at the site of the plant on the outskirts of Shanghai, Chief Executive Elon Musk joined the city’s mayor and other local government officials to formally begin construction of a factory that Tesla has said will cost around $2 billion.

Trump says he’s not concerned about Apple because it builds products in China
Lauren Feiner, CNBC

A day after Apple cratered tens of billions of dollars in market value on the news of its lowered revenue forecast for the quarter, President Donald Trump said he is unconcerned about the company or its impact on the U.S. economy. “Apple was at a number that was incredible and they’re going to be fine. Apple is a great company,” Trump told reporters at a conference in the Rose Garden of the White House Friday, taking credit for Apple’s stock surge that he said was “up hundreds of percent” since he became president.

Chinese tech firms lay lower at CES 2019 amid trade tensions
Matt O’Brien, The Associated Press

The CES 2019 gadget show, which kicks off Sunday, will showcase the expanding influence and sway of China’s rapidly growing technology sector. But some of its firms are stepping back from the spotlight amid rising U.S. national-security concerns over Chinese tech and a trans-Pacific trade war launched by President Donald Trump.

Lawmakers make second bipartisan push to elevate federal IT official
Jacqueline Thomsen, The Hill

A bipartisan duo of lawmakers on Friday reintroduced legislation that would elevate the post of the federal government’s chief information officer, as well as establish a new line for reporting about information technology across the administration. Reps. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) and Will Hurd (R-Texas), the chairwoman and ranking member, respectively, of the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Information Technology, reintroduced the bill after it failed to pass Congress during the last legislative session.

Stock Rally Falters as Dollar Declines, Oil Jumps: Markets Wrap
Eddie van der Walt, Bloomberg

U.S. stock futures struggled for direction and European equities dropped as the surge in risk appetite from late last week lost momentum. The dollar fell to the lowest in more than two months against peers.

Intellectual Property and Antitrust

The U.S.’s Star Witness in the Qualcomm Antitrust Suit: China’s Huawei
Kartikay Mehrotra and Ian King, Bloomberg

Two of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s biggest witnesses in the opening day of its trial against Qualcomm Inc. for allegedly harming competition for smartphone components were Chinese companies. That’s not surprising: the Asian country is the largest smartphone maker and most of the world’s biggest makers of those devices are based there.

Telecom, Wireless and TV

Netflix and chill no more – streaming is getting complicated
Mae Anderson, The Associated Press

Streaming TV may never again be as simple, or as affordable, as it is now. Disney and WarnerMedia are each launching their own streaming services in 2019 in a challenge to Netflix’s dominance.

Huawei launches server chipset as China pushes to cut reliance on imports
Sijia Jiang, Reuters

Huawei Technologies Co Ltd on Monday launched a new chipset for use in servers, at a time when China is pushing to enhance its chip-making capabilities and reduce its heavy reliance on imports, especially from the United States. Huawei, which gets the bulk of its revenue from the sale of telecommunications equipment and smartphones, is seeking growth avenues in cloud computing and enterprise services as its equipment business comes under increased scrutiny in the West amid worries about Chinese government influence over the firm.

Mobile Technology and Social Media

The Phone That’s Failing Apple: iPhone XR
Yoko Kubota, The Wall Street Journal

When Apple Inc. launched the iPhone XR in October, Tim Cook singled out the device to his more than a million followers on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter . “Wonderful to see so many people in China enjoying the new iPhone XR,” he said.

Apple’s Woes — Not Its Gadgets Overshadow Tech’s Big Trade Show
Selina Wang and Mark Gurman, Bloomberg

Apple Inc. won’t be placing a giant booth at the big CES tech trade show starting Sunday in Las Vegas, but its recent sales warning — and the country it blamed for the shortfall — will undoubtedly be the talk of the show. Typically, Apple casts a shadow over CES due to anticipation for the iPhone maker’s next product, competitors racing to beat them to the market and hundreds of accessory makers looking to make a buck on the iPhone maker’s platform.

Daimler and Bosch Cruise Into Robotaxi Era With Driverless Shuttles
Christoph Rauwald, Bloomberg

Four years ago, Daimler AG dazzled with a self-driving luxury lounge in Las Vegas with a concept vehicle boasting a sleek interior that promised to pamper its well-heeled passengers into the automotive future. This year the Mercedes-Benz maker is back at the annual Consumer Electronics Show, though with a more utilitarian slant: a bubble-like autonomous shuttle designed to reliably ferry people and goods around town at limited speeds.

Amazon’s cashierless Go stores could be a $4 billion business by 2021, new research suggests
Rani Molla, Recode

Amazon Go is not only trying to out-convenience convenience stores, it could out-earn them, too. And that could mean a new, giant multi-billion dollar business for Amazon within just a few years.

Inside Facebook’s dating experiment in Colombia
Gideon Long, Financial Times

When Facebook said it would start a dating service in Colombia in September, Erika Ramos signed up. Single, 35, living in Bogotá, she was tired of the way some men on Tinder made inappropriate advances and how the app kept asking her to upgrade to its premium services, Tinder Plus and Tinder Gold.

Cybersecurity and Privacy

Security researchers find over a dozen iPhone apps linked to Golduck malware
Zack Whittaker, TechCrunch

Security researchers say they’ve found more than a dozen iPhone apps covertly communicating with a server associated with Golduck, a historically Android-focused malware that infects popular classic game apps. The malware has been known about for over a year, after it was first discovered by Appthority infecting classic and retro games on Google Play, by embedding backdoor code that allowed malicious payloads to be silently pushed to the device.

Blood Pressure, Baby’s Pulse, Sperm Potency: Home Health Devices Are Tracking More Than Ever
Katherine Bindley, The Wall Street Journal

Companies are planning to get personal—very personal—at the 2019 CES technology show this week in Las Vegas. The annual event for showcasing the latest in consumer technology will feature self-driving shuttle buses, 5G wireless hubs, artificially intelligent ovens and more, but exhibitors will also be displaying their ability to intuit deeper health data directly from users, often with cheap, even wearable, devices.

Opinions, Editorials and Perspectives

A reason to despair about the digital future: Deepfakes
Editorial Board, The Washington Post

A despairing prediction for the digital future came from an unlikely source recently. Speaking of “deepfakes,” or media manipulated through artificial intelligence, the actress Scarlett Johansson told The Post that “the Internet is a vast wormhole of darkness that eats itself.”

What’s Worse Than Facebook?
Crispin Sartwell, The Wall Street Journal

Social media faces a dilemma: Mark Zuckerberg or Xi Jinping? Despite the many drawbacks, I’d go with Mr. Zuckerberg.

We Should Be Able to Take Facebook to Court
Neema Singh Guliani, The New York Times

After The New York Times revealed last month that Facebook continued to share personal information of millions of consumers with companies like Netflix, Yahoo, Spotify and Google — despite contrary assertions to Congress — many people decided to delete their Facebook accounts. But if Facebook’s actions, as described by The Times, violated the law, consumers should be able to send an even more powerful message, one that could leave a much larger imprint on the company’s ledger books: suing the company for damages.

Why My Chinese Dad Switched From an iPhone to a Huawei
Yuan Ren, The New York Times

I got my first iPhone during Chinese New Year in early 2012. It wasn’t anything I’d aspired to own.

TV Stations, Don’t Pig Out on Netflix’s European Cash
Alex Webb, Bloomberg

It’s a conundrum confronting broadcasters across Europe: with television ad sales in structural decline, just how do they weather the Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. storm? There might just be a way for the likes of ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE and Television Francaise 1 to use new European Union rules to their advantage.

States must rework their arguments against OCC fintech charters
Brian Knight, The Hill

nnovation and competition are critical for driving improvement in our economy, allowing new and better ways of solving old problems and preventing more-established firms from getting too comfortable. While these positive changes to our phones, cars and homes are clear, there are less obvious areas, like regulation, where innovation is also leading to better outcomes.

Research Reports

The Task Ahead of Us: Transforming the Global Economy With Connectivity, Automation, and Intelligence
Robert D. Atkinson, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

Economies are complex production systems with myriad subcomponent production systems—that is, industries—from manufacturing to health care to retail. What and how these production systems produce is grounded in technology.

Morning Consult