General
SoftBank Scraps $16 Billion Plan to Buy Most of WeWork
Eliot Brown, The Wall Street Journal
SoftBank Group Corp. has scrapped a planned $16 billion investment in shared-office space provider WeWork Cos., opting instead for a smaller deal of about $2 billion amid market turbulence and opposition from investment partners, according to people familiar with the matter. The two companies could announce the smaller deal as soon as Tuesday, valuing WeWork at about $36 billion, with half of the money going to buy shares from existing investors, the people said.
Trump-appointed judge scolds Russian firm for its anti-Mueller rhetoric
Katelyn Polantz, CNN
A Trump-appointed federal judge on Monday reprimanded the lawyer defending the indicted Russian company Concord Management and Consulting for being “unprofessional, inappropriate and ineffective.” Concord, accused of backing a Russian conspiracy to distribute politically charged social media posts to American voters, has been fighting to free evidence in its case that the Justice Department locked down because it is sensitive to national security.
IBM unveils first standalone quantum computer
Richard Waters, Financial Times
This is one computer you won’t be able to buy after the Consumer Electronics Show. IBM has built the first standalone quantum computer, packing some of the world’s most advanced science into a 9ft glass cube.
What to Watch at This Year’s CES Tech Conference in Las Vegas
Jeran Wittenstein, Bloomberg
Las Vegas will be at the center of the consumer technology industry this week as executives, investors and analysts convene for the annual CES conference. Dozens of companies will give presentations at the event, where attendance is expected to top 180,000, with the trade war between the U.S. and China as well as Apple’s sales woes looming over the gathering.
U.S. Stock Futures Climb With Europe; Dollar Gains: Markets Wrap
Eddie van der Walt, Bloomberg
U.S. stock futures and European equities advanced Tuesday as investors awaited developments on trade talks between the world’s largest economies. Asian shares were mixed as a rebounding dollar put pressure on emerging markets.
Intellectual Property and Antitrust
IBM was awarded the most patents in 2018, but overall grants declined by 3.5 percent
Ingrid Lunden, TechCrunch
We may have passed the peak of the “patent war” in the mobile industry, but the concept of patents as power is far from disappearing, since they continue to be a strong marker for how a company is breaking new ground in technology, and do sometimes help to safeguard an inventor’s or company’s original work — even if the legal enforcement around patents sometimes gets abused. Patent research firm IFI Claims today published its annual report on how patent grants played out in the tech industry in the past year, and it’s a mixed picture as well.
Telecom, Wireless and TV
LG Electronics sees 80 percent drop in fourth-quarter profit; analysts point to thinning TV margins
Heekyong Yang and Ju-min Park, Reuters
South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc said on Tuesday its fourth-quarter operating profit likely plummeted 80 percent from the same period a year earlier, falling well below analyst expectations. The world’s second-biggest television set maker behind compatriot Samsung Electronics Co Ltd estimated profit of 75.3 billion won ($67.03 million) for October-December last year.
AT&T eliminated more than 10,000 US jobs in 2018, union says
Emily Birnbaum, The Hill
Telecommunications giant AT&T eliminated more than 10,000 U.S. jobs last year and outsourced some of those positions to contractors overseas, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) said in a report released Monday. CWA for months has raised questions about AT&T’s layoffs following the 2017 tax-cut law, which the union says resulted in roughly $20 billion in tax savings for the telecom company.
Wireless Companies Put Their Big 5G Gambles on Display at CES
Scott Moritz, Bloomberg
Fifth-generation wireless technology may one day handle sci-fi tasks like guiding driverless cars, but today’s consumers are more concerned with making their phones work faster — and that’s not lost on mobile carriers headed to CES in Las Vegas. In coming weeks, AT&T Inc. will introduce an interim “5G E” service that promises 50 percent faster internet speeds in many places.
Mobile Technology and Social Media
Elected officials cannot silence critics on social media, appeals court rules
Ann E. Marimow, The Washington Post
An elected official in Virginia violated the First Amendment when she temporarily blocked a constituent on Facebook, a federal appeals court ruled Monday, in a novel case with implications for how government officials nationwide interact with constituents on social media. The unanimous ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit is the first from an appeals court to answer the question of whether free speech protections prevent public officials from barring critics from their social media feeds.
Democrats Faked Online Push to Outlaw Alcohol in Alabama Race
Scott Shane and Alan Blinder, The New York Times
The “Dry Alabama” Facebook page, illustrated with stark images of car wrecks and videos of families ruined by drink, had a blunt message: Alcohol is the devil’s work, and the state should ban it entirely.
Ford wants its cars to ‘talk’ with traffic lights and pedestrians
Matt McFarland, CNN
Ford is building cars that “talk” with traffic lights, road signs and pedestrians. At CES 2019 in Las Vegas on Monday, the automaker announced plans to start selling cars that feature this type of technology in 2022.
Uber CEO Says Market Turmoil Won’t Derail IPO Plans
Newley Purnell, The Wall Street Journal
ber Technologies Inc. Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said market turbulence in the U.S. would be unlikely to affect the ride-hailing titan’s plans for a public listing. “Any company that’s going public would like to do it in a positive, stable market,” Mr. Khosrowshahi said in an interview Tuesday in Singapore.
Netflix Awards $11.7 Million Pay Package to Incoming CFO Spencer Neumann
Anders Melin, Bloomberg
Netflix Inc.’s Spencer Neumann will get $10 million in annual pay and receive an additional $1.7 million bonus as chief financial officer. Neumann’s yearly compensation will be split between a salary and stock options, the Los Gatos, California-based firm said Monday in a regulatory filing.
Intel working with Facebook on AI chip coming later this year
Stephen Nellis, Reuters
Intel Corp said on Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that it is working with Facebook Inc to finish a new artificial intelligence chip in the second half of this year. The chips are Intel’s gambit to retain hold of a fast-growing segment of the artificial intelligence computing market but will face competition from similar chips from Nvidia Corp and Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services unit.
Nvidia dives into a new business segment with Drive AutoPilot
Kirsten Korosec, TechCrunch
Nvidia’s automotive ambitions seemed targeted solely on creating a platform to enable fully autonomous vehicles, notably the robotaxis that so many companies hope to deploy in the coming decade. It turns out that Nvidia has also been working a more near-term product that opens it up to a different segment in the automotive industry.
Cybersecurity and Privacy
German Man Is Arrested Over Hacking of Public Figures’ Data
Melissa Eddy, The New York Times
The German authorities have arrested a man suspected of stealing the personal data of hundreds of lawmakers, journalists and other personalities and of illegally publishing the information on the internet, the Federal Criminal Office said on Tuesday. Officers searched the 20-year-old suspect’s home on Sunday, two days after the hacking attacks were made public, and confiscated his computers and papers.
Survey: Americans Warming to Use of Facial Recognition Tech
Frank Konkel, Nextgov
A growing number of Americans are OK with the facial recognition technology, especially if it increases public safety, according to a national survey released Monday. Conducted on a national poll of 3,151 U.S. adults in December, the survey found only one in four Americans believe the federal government should strictly limit the use of facial biometrics technology.
South Carolina voting machines miscounted hundreds of ballots, report finds
Benjamin Freed, StateScoop
An analysis of South Carolina’s voting equipment found that state election officials miscounted hundreds of ballots during the primary and general elections in 2018 because of “continued software deficiencies.” Conducted on behalf of the League of Women Voters by Duane Buell, a computer science professor at the University of South Carolina, the study published last week found that in one primary race, voting machines in one precinct double counted 148 votes.
Opinions, Editorials and Perspectives
The Digital Economy is Thriving, But Tax Uncertainty Threatens Its Future
Steve Pociask, Morning Consult
As the new legislative session begins, old habits are hard to break. Policymakers are struggling to adapt to the complexities of the digital economy, and, unfortunately, consumers will pay the price.
Amazon Is No. 1, for Now
The Editorial Board, The Wall Street Journal
One may wonder whether Jeff Bezos at the creation of Amazon thought the company would one day live up to its namesake river—which is to say, simply the biggest. Amazon, which began life online merchandising books and music, on Monday became the world’s biggest company by market capitalization at a few nickles and dimes over $796 billion.
Big Tech moves into the sights of US regulators
The Editorial Board, Financial Times
As the “ techlash” widens against technology companies, markets are jittery that 2019 will be the year when the likes of Facebook and Google are finally curbed by regulators. The volatility of tech stock prices is in part a reaction to worries that the drumbeat of scandals around privacy, election manipulation and anti-competitive behaviour will prompt tougher rules from Washington or Brussels.
How to rein in Big Tech
Steven Hill, The Washington Post
Every month, new controversies emerge regarding Facebook, Google, Twitter and other Internet-based companies. Self-regulation clearly has not worked, and this slow-dawning reality has led to a number of proposals to rein them in. Some critics have proposed regulating the platform companies as utilities, or even as monopolies.
Western Tech Is Ready to Name the Next Red Menace
Tim Culpan, Bloomberg
Just as Western hawks learn how to pronounce “Huawei,” expect them to start uttering a more familiar name in the war against perceived Chinese espionage. The Lenovo brand is stamped onto millions of desktops, laptops and smartphones worldwide.
Research Reports
2018 Patent Rankings and Trends
IFI Claims Patent Services
The Top 50 and related rankings from IFI provide insights into the world’s most innovative companies and R&D organizations. Our CLAIMS Direct platform processes thousands of new patent documents every day and standardizes the data, enabling quick and accurate analysis.
AT&T 2018 Jobs Report
Communications Workers of America
Iconic U.S. telecom giant AT&T received an unprecedented windfall from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which President Trump signed into law in December 2017. But despite this massive boost to its profits, the company is choosing to undercut and offshore American jobs.
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