General
Amazon leases 15 more Boeing planes to expand air cargo network by 28%
Paul Sawers, VentureBeat
Amazon has announced plans to expand its air cargo network by more than a quarter to 70 planes by 2021, after signing a deal with GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS) to lease 15 Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
‘I feel like a target’: US trade war worries tech workers of Chinese descent
Julia Carrie Wong, The Guardian
Technology workers of Chinese descent say that they are experiencing backlash due to the US-China trade war and fears over Huawei, according to a survey commissioned by the Guardian through Blind, an app allowing anonymous workplace communication.
Government watchdog says cost of NASA rocket continues to rise, a threat to Trump’s moon mission
Christian Davenport, The Washington Post
The rocket NASA plans to use to get astronauts to the moon by 2024 has for years suffered significant cost overruns and schedule delays. But those problems are even worse than originally thought, according to a federal watchdog report expected to be released Wednesday.
Uber Eyes Acquisition of Mighty AI for Self-Driving Car Effort
Amir Efrati and Nick Wingfield, The Information
Uber has held recent talks to buy Seattle-based Mighty AI, a startup that helps autonomous vehicle developers train their computer vision algorithms to better identify objects on the road, said three people briefed on the discussions. The potential deal is another sign of a looming shakeout in the self-driving car field, where companies have collectively raised billions of dollars to tackle similar problems.
Target Outages Illustrate Retail’s Growing Tech Complexity
Sara Castellanos, The Wall Street Journal
The technical problems at Target Corp. stores over the weekend illustrate the challenge of unifying a large retailer’s technology infrastructure with its bricks-and-mortar presence and underscore the importance of having trusted vendors and backup plans.
The future of diversity and inclusion in tech
Megan Rose Dickey, TechCrunch
Silicon Valley is entering a new phase in its quest for diversity and inclusion in the technology industry. Some advocates call this part “the end of the beginning,” Code2040 CEO Karla Monterroso tells TechCrunch.
U.S. Futures Mark Time Before Fed as Bonds Decline: Markets Wrap
Todd White, Bloomberg
U.S. equity futures adopted a holding pattern on Wednesday while European stocks and Treasuries slipped as investors prepare for the latest Federal Reserve meeting to conclude, with anticipation growing that policy makers will signal a readiness to lower rates.
Intellectual Property and Antitrust
Activists urge Google to break up before regulators force it to
Paresh Dave, Reuters
Shareholder activists want Google parent Alphabet Inc to break itself up before regulators force the world’s biggest internet ad seller to split into different pieces. SumOfUs, a U.S.-based group that aims to curb the growing power of corporations, is set to make that proposal at Alphabet’s annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday at an auditorium at the company’s offices in Sunnyvale, California.
Andrew Yang says breaking up big tech won’t solve ‘fundamental problems’ of social media
The Hill
Entrepreneur and Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang warned Tuesday that breaking up big tech companies, an idea that has drawn support from fellow 2020 contenders, wouldn’t address the fundamental problems of social media.
Microsoft’s Missteps Offer Antitrust Lessons for Tech’s Big Four
Dina Bass, Bloomberg
Of the five biggest tech companies in the U.S., Microsoft is the only one that isn’t currently in the crosshairs of U.S. antitrust authorities. The software giant already took its turn through the regulatory wringer starting two decades ago, a years-long confrontation that resulted in the finding that the Redmond, Washington-based company had illegally maintained its monopoly for personal-computer operating-system software.
Google is investigating claims it steals lyrics from Genius
Corinne Reichert, CNET
Google has responded to reports that it’s stealing lyrics from Genius, explaining how it finds lyrics to show on its search pages. Google conceded its lyrics feature has been “under scrutiny this week,” but said it pays music publishers for the rights to display their lyrics.
Telecom, Wireless and TV
Huawei Sanctions Evidence Deemed Too Risky for China to See
Patricia Hurtado, Bloomberg
Some evidence used to charge Huawei Technologies Co. with bank fraud and violating U.S. sanctions on Iran was deemed so sensitive that the Chinese telecom giant’s lawyers must now take unusual steps to review the information — and even then, the company may never see it.
Wisconsin Assembly passes 5G technology regulation bill
The Associated Press
The Wisconsin Assembly has passed a bill that would limit the regulation of 5G, or “small cell,” technology. The bill approved Tuesday now heads to Gov. Tony Evers for his consideration.
Mobile Technology and Social Media
Facebook Token Runs Into Instant Political Opposition in Europe
Alastair Marsh, Bloomberg
Facebook Inc.’s ambitious plan to roll out its own cryptocurrency ran into immediate political opposition in Europe, with calls for tighter regulation of the social-media giant. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the digital currency known as Libra shouldn’t be seen as a replacement for traditional currencies.
Facebook Warns It Can’t Fully Solve Toxic Content Problem
Joe Mayes and Stefan Nicola, Bloomberg
Facebook Inc. is under pressure to rid its site of hate speech and fake news but warned it can’t build a platform impervious to human nature. “This is not a fully solvable problem,” Carolyn Everson, a vice president responsible for marketing at the social media giant, said on a panel Tuesday at the Cannes Lions advertising festival in the south of France.
Twice burned: Winklevii overshadowed by Zuckerberg yet again
Barbara Ortutary, The Associated Press
Can a Libra and two Geminis get along? How about Facebook and the Winklevoss twins?
Cybersecurity and Privacy
House votes against curtailing warrantless collection of Americans’ data
Emily Birnbaum, The Hill
The House on Tuesday rejected an amendment that would have limited the government’s ability to collect Americans’ personal communications without a warrant. The House voted 175-253 against the amendment introduced by Reps. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) amid opposition from national security hawks.
State attorneys general demand that Congress take action on election security
Maggie Miller, The Hill
Twenty-two Democratic state attorneys general demanded Tuesday that Congress take action to secure election systems ahead of the 2020 vote. The group of attorneys general, led by Minnesota’s Keith Ellison, sent a letter to the leaders from each party of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Senate Rules Committee begging them to work together to bolster election security in the states, including passing legislation.
Maryland Gov. Hogan sets up new computer security office to protect state networks
Ian Duncan, The Baltimore Sun
Gov. Larry Hogan signed an executive order Tuesday designed to strengthen the state’s defenses against cyber attacks, appointing a single official with responsibility for computer security at all state agencies. The order creates the post of Maryland Chief Information Security Officer, who will lead a security management office in the state’s IT department and chair a council that will coordinate cyber security efforts among state agencies.
China’s Most Advanced Big Brother Experiment Is a Bureaucratic Mess
Bloomberg
The city of Suzhou, known as “the Venice of the East” for its web of intricate waterways, captured the imagination of Marco Polo when he journeyed through China more than seven centuries ago. Today it’s drawing attention for another grand project: a sprawling network of databases designed to track the behavior of China’s population.
How 13 Became the Internet’s Age of Adulthood
Julie Jargon, The Wall Street Journal
At 13, kids are still more than a decade from having a fully developed prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain involved in decision-making and impulse control. And yet parents and educators unleash them on the internet at that age—if not before—because they’re told children in the U.S. must be at least 13 to download certain apps, create email accounts and sign up for social media.
Opinions, Editorials and Perspectives
New York AG: Sprint, T-Mobile merger would raise prices and hurt consumers
Letitia James, USA Today
Whether talking about cars, baby food or cellphones, competition has always been a driver of innovation and lower prices. That’s why I and nine other attorneys general have sued to halt the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint.
Facebook and Google Don’t Need Your Data to Make Lots of Money
Gabriel Weinberg, The New York Times
It’s easy to see tech companies as a monolithic villain in the battle over consumer privacy. But in fact, there are countless tech companies, like mine, that believe that people have a fundamental right to avoid being put under surveillance and that it should be easy for them to exercise that right.
Facebook Under Oath: You Have No Expectation of Privacy
Charlie Warzel, The New York Times
In a San Francisco courtroom a few weeks ago, Facebook’s lawyers said the quiet part out loud: Users have no reasonable expectation of privacy.
Sprint Deal Now a Regulatory Joke
Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., The Wall Street Journal
If you thought the Justice Department’s handling of the AT&T and Time Warner merger was an embarrassment, check out its act in the pending tie-up of Sprint and T-Mobile. To recap, while insisting his actions were unrelated to Donald Trump’s denunciation of the deal during the campaign, Justice’s antitrust chief Makan Delrahim sued to stop the AT&T merger on flimsy grounds.
Research Reports
CTA Quarterly Outlook Reports – Q1 2019
Consumer Technology Association
A unique offering in the marketplace, CTA’s quarterly outlook reports measure current and future performance of key CE categories by providing analysis, forecasting and perspective on a range of measures.
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