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Anti-trust hearing into Tech giants spoils market, Microsoft and Tesla continue to drive forward and IT is a big mover - Finfeed

On July 27 the chief executives of four of the worlds most prominent technology companies,Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL) and Facebook (FB.), will appear before the US Congress as part of an ongoing antitrust investigation into their market power.

This is the latest in a series of developments that includes federal and state-level investigations in the US into the market practices of these companies. Back in 2018, as part of the Sustainalytics publication, ESG Risks on the Horizon, it was noted that the antitrust related scrutiny of major technology companies is likely to persist given the market concentration these companies had established within the digital economy.

While there is significant uncertainty as to the ultimate regulatory response, given the outsized position of these four companies in the S&P 500 and sustainability indices, this type of regulatory and market scrutiny is an area that is important for investors to examine in terms of long-term risks to the enterprise value of these companies.

Apple has just pledged to go carbon neutral across its entirebusiness, manufacturing supply chain, and product life cycle by 2030 (it's already carbon neutral in its global operations).

Businesses have a profound opportunity to help build a more sustainable future, one born of our common concern for the planet we share,says its chief executive Tim Cook. This covers the "E" of ESG, but how do these tech companies score on the social and governance aspects of their business?

When it comes to online business models, the European Commission became the first regulatory agency to look into the market practices of tech companies when it launched a formal investigation into Google in 2010. Starting in 2017, the EC levied three multi-billion-dollar fines against Google totalling more than $9 billion, along with requiring changes to how it does business in certain segments.

The crux of the European regulatory view was and remains that Googles dominance has a negative effect on the online ecosystem as it prevents smaller competitors from offering comparable goods and services and reduces consumer choice. A similar view did not take hold in the US until recently as the existing antitrust regulatory framework there largely relies on pricing as a signal to determine abuse of market power.

Over the past year, tech companies have been at the forefront of several controversies related to anti-competitive behaviour. Indeed, 2019 marked the start of major anti-trust investigations led by both the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the European Commission. The hearing on July 27 is the first time that chief executives from all four tech companies will be in front of US lawmakers and marks the first time that Amazon boss Jeff Bezos takes part in a congressional hearing.

All four companies have to been able to leverage the network effect to secure leading market positions for their offerings making it increasingly challenging for smaller players to succeed in the digital ecosystem. The network effect refers to the economic concept that states that a service becomes more valuable as more people utilise it, a characteristic that is particularly valuable in the digital ecosystem.

For example, Alphabets Google has established a competitive economic moat from network effects as the gateway to the internet through its online search offering. As a result, it has been able to secure leading positions for its comparison shopping, online advertising, and mobile offerings. This has, without doubt, created benefits for consumers in terms of convenience and cost, a point that is hard to argue against. However, there are implications to the market.

Our research indicates that all four companies have weak management of business ethics-related risks, which includes anti-competitive practices along with issues such as taxation. This, in part, stems from a combination of inadequate management systems to mitigate antitrust concerns over the long term but also the frequency of investigations, fines and lawsuits associated with their exercise of market power.

As part of the broader business ethics assessment, we also examine issues such as taxation, which is another area of where these companies are facing significant regulatory pushback. A case in point is Alphabet and its main subsidiary Google. Google has been the subject of regulatory scrutiny in the EU since 2010 and while it has attempted to address the ECs concerns, it has so far been unsuccessful and continues to appeal the three penalties that have been levied against it. Fundamentally, Google and most tech companies have a philosophical difference in what they view as anti-competitive behaviour. In Googles view, they have simply built better solutions that have resulted in its market dominance.

Source: Sustainalytics, 2020

Despite their lacklustre performance on business ethics management, the share price of all four companies experienced positive momentum in the past few months and often were a haven from market volatility caused by Covid-19. For example, Amazons share price has increased by almost 25% since the beginning of the year, driven by its position as the leading e-commerce solution in developed markets like North America. While these companies are attractive investments and rightfully so given their market positions and scale, we think that it is important to examine the implications associated with their market power and how they manage it. They all have the financial resources to absorb major penalties, it is this social licence to operate that may be subject to erosion from expanding regulatory and civil society scrutiny.

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Tech Giants, Anti-trust and ESG - Morningstar

Julia Carrie Wong, senior technology reporter, Guardian US: Good morning from Oakland. To kick us off, Id love to hear how tech reporting has changed for you since the lockdowns began?

Alex Hern, UK technology editor: Well, on the positive side, its got a lot more efficient. Stripped of the ability to invite me halfway across the city for a friendly chat, the largest companies in the world are now easier to get hold of on the phone, which saves everyone some time and me the cost of a tube fare.

Thankfully, for me at least, offline reporting has never been that important for tech. I probably have more trusted sources whose names, let alone faces, I dont know than the average journalist, but at least theyre as easy to get hold of as ever.

There have been a greater-than-normal number of tech stories that break out of the bubble in this period, too. First we had the wave of concern about Zooms security problems, and then the focus on the UK governments test and trace app first positive, as everyone wanted to know when it would come and how it could save us, but gradually turning sour as it became clear that the Department of Health had embarked on a costly, hubristic mission to build its own app instead of relying on technology provided by Apple and Google. More recently, the Facebook ad boycott and the renewed fears over TikTok, Huawei and Chinese influence have also become front-page news.

The biggest problem for me has been immersing too deeply: its easy to forget that the whole world isnt deeply obsessed with the text-generation capabilities of the new GPT-3 AI when you havent met a normal human being for several months.

How about you? Does Oakland feel as central to the tech world when you cant leave your home? And more generally, do you think all these new normals around tech hours on Zoom, a newfound reliance on online shopping, an awful lot more time on video games are they going to stick around?

JCW: Before the pandemic, I often felt that Oakland (where I live and where the Guardians west coast bureau is located) was very much not in the centre of the tech world. Its not on the straight line from San Francisco to Silicon Valley and while there are a few startups and tech companies here, its generally better known as a place where tech companies dont end up coming (eg Uber) than a place where they do.

Now that were all working from home, that feels incredibly silly. The centre of gravity has shifted to where people live instead of where they would commute for eight hours a day, and that has really thrown into relief how stark the differences between the places where we live are and how much we live on the internet. Different counties, let alone states and countries, are having completely different material experiences of the coronavirus, and talking to friends or family a few hundred miles away really reinforces how local our lives have become. At the same time, I think it has really thrown into relief how important digital spaces are, and raised the stakes for the debates and battles over how those digital spaces should be governed.

Has this experience changed your perspective on any aspects of the tech industry or tech reporting? What have you been most surprised by?

AH: Im surprised at how much of the tech backlash seems like a distant memory. The first few months in lockdown really opened up a well of goodwill towards the largest technology companies: from Amazon delivering Covid tests in the UK, to Google, Microsoft, Apple and Zoom becoming cornerstones of our social lives, it feels like the idea that we could ever feasibly boycott these companies is from a different era.

That early period was one of wild growth in the most unlikely areas. Im usually the one introducing my friends and family to new services, but the viral growth of services like Houseparty took even me by surprise. Our lives were turned upside down in a moment, and everyone was willing to try new things as a result. Some of those were, in hindsight, flashes in the pan (Ive not used Houseparty in two months) but others look like theyll stick around.

That said, the shine is clearly starting to wear off now. Where Apple and Googles exposure notification service was once welcomed with open arms, for instance, its now starting to raise uncomfortable questions about the two companies desire to overrule elected governments. And the BLM protests in the US threw Facebook in particular back into crisis.

Oakland has obviously been heavily involved in that wave of dissent. Does it make tech feel like a distraction, or are there links between the movement and our beat that youve enjoyed drawing out?

JCW: I dont know that the goodwill that tech giants were able to accrue during the early days of the pandemic was as pronounced here in the US, though perhaps my memory is clouded. Certainly our reliance on tech giant services has increased, but I also think that there has been some shine coming off the idea that tech companies are competent. We tend to be more suspicious of government than private companies in the US, so when Trump announced that Google was going to fix all our testing woes in the early weeks, it seemed like a classic American solution to a massive societal challenge: let the private sector innovate our way out of this mess. But the reality of what Verily was able to provide was far from what was promised, and five months later testing here is still a mess that neither Alphabet nor our government has fixed.

Meanwhile, Facebook courted good press with its supposedly aggressive stance toward coronavirus misinformation, but I think weve all seen that even when Facebook is willing to set aside its (supposed) principles about free expression, the companys enforcement is so lacklustre that misinformation is as bad as ever.

As for Oakland and Black Lives Matter, its been interesting to reflect on the roots of the movement, both locally and in social media. The phrase #BlackLivesMatter was coined in a Facebook post by Alicia Garza, a local activist, seven years ago this month. I used to do some activism work with Alicia back in those days (before I was a journalist), and its truly incredible to see how her influence has grown and how her words have helped define and propel this global movement. Part of that is down to the revolutionary power of the internet, but a huge amount of it is down to the organising work and sustained struggle of activists like her and so many others.

During the early days of the George Floyd uprising, I covered a youth protest in downtown Oakland that ended when the police, with almost zero provocation, deployed a huge amount of teargas against an overwhelmingly peaceful crowd. I ended up walking a long way through Oakland that evening to get back home, while helicopters overhead blared an announcement that I was subject to arrest for breaking curfew. It was an uncanny and somewhat frightening experience, and one that pushed me to try to tease out all the different ways that the internet and social media have created this new reality.

Has the social unrest around BLM and coronavirus changed how you think about tech?

AH: How could it not? One of the biggest, and scariest, examples for me was seeing what happened when an entire nation got forced into living an Extremely Online life. I, and I would imagine you as well, have spent a good chunk of my spare time communicating on the internet since I was about 11 years old, and I like to think Im quite good at it. But for a lot of people objectively, people with a healthier social life than me, really online socialising is just a small part of their life. Or was, until lockdown hit.

Misinformation online is nothing new, and Ive been covering the hoaxes and scams around 5G for well over a year now, but the whole thing kicked into a new gear in April, and it was upsetting to see. I spoke to some telecoms workers who had been attacked in the street for poisoning people with 5G (they werent actually working on 5G of course) and we saw a spate of firebombings across the nation.

I had thought that the more people were online, the better. Even despite all the ills weve both reported. But this period has shown me that, well, the analogue life has its advantages too.

But if Im looking for an upside, BLM has shown one obvious one: handing every single person in America a camera that they carry on their persons at all time is transformative in holding power to account. Black people have been killed by police for years. But it took the killings being caught on camera again and again and again and again for a nation, and a world, to finally admit that these werent one-off events, but were signs of a serious, and deadly pattern, that needed to be confronted and ended.

One last question for you: whats been your ray of light in the past four months?

JCW: Im grateful for the resilience and strength of the people who continue to protest. I also joined Nextdoor expressly to follow the intense drama over an aggressive wild turkey that menaces visitors to a local rose garden and well, that was worth it.

How about you?

AH: The most low-tech pleasure imaginable: I set up a bird feeder in the window next to my desk. I was worried it would be for nothing, because its so close to me that I assumed no bird would brave it while I was sitting there, but so far Ive had blue tits, robins, sparrows and even helped fledge a family of great tits. Ive even entertained thoughts of moving out of the city for good, on the assumption that some level of homeworking becomes the norm as we move out of this period.

Though Ive also become extremely good at the battle royale video game Apex Legends, so its not all pastoral loveliness.

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Covid-19 and technology: This time has shown me that analogue life has its advantages - The Guardian

The US VIX fell to 24 to trade at two-month low, aided by reports from Oxford University and biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca that their COVID-19 vaccine has shown early signs of producing anti-bodies. Though the initial rally on that news was faded by market participants, its added to hopes that the path out of the virus crisis is becoming slightly clearer.

3. EU leaders inch towards compromise on recovery fund: For the most part, it was all eyes on Europe overnight. European leaders have inched closer to an agreement on an economic recovery package for the bloc, after several days negotiations and brinkmanship.

Once again with the North-South divide apparent, reports have emerged that the EU will agree to 750 billion ($1.22 trillion) package, that will include a watered-down 390 billion, rather than 500 billion, in grants. The news underpinned a further push higher in the Euro in overnight trade, with European yield spreads narrowing significantly.

4. FX markets show a bias towards risk and growth: Price action in broader currency markets proved bullish, too. The stronger Euro pushed the Dollar down, and the general risk-on mentality of market participants bolstered growth currencies.

The Pound led the charge higher, making a foray into the 1.26-handle, while the safe-haven Japanese Yen was the major underperformer. The AUD/USD continued to grind its way higher, to push above the 70-cent handle, and eye down a challenge of technical resistance at Junes highs around 0.7050.

5. Bond yields and gold signal some degree of caution: There were perhaps some concerning signals in price action overnight. Despite the lift in risk-assets, and amidst talk of more economic stimulus in the US and Europe, sovereign bond yields continued to push lower last night.

Perhaps a reflection more of future monetary policy than economic fundamentals, the benchmark 10 Year US Treasury yield fell to 61 basis points overnight. The broad-based decline yields gave gold prices another boost, which fetched as much as $US1820 in US trade, to record a new 9-year high.

6. ASX200 to open higher, as focus remains on COVID-19: The ASX200 ought to follow Wall Streets positive lead this morning, with SPI Futures implying the index will open roughly 0.8 per cent higher.

Local investors will remain on virus-watch, as Australias COVID-19 second wave remains preciously at a crossroad. Intraday volatility has proven greatest around the times of the Victorian and New South Wales daily COVID-19 updates. The trend held true again yesterday, with yesterdays bank and energy 0.53 per cent drop in the ASX200 precipitated by the addresses.

7. RBA to highlight the calendar in the day ahead: Local trade will be highlighted by RBA news today. The central bank releases the minutes for its July meeting, while RBA Governor Lowe will deliver a speech shortly after that release titled COVID-19: The Labor Market and Public-sector Balance Sheets.

As always, the markets will searching for clues from the RBA about the changing outlook for the domestic economy, along with potential signs of greater and/or new policy support the central bank may ply if the countrys recovery begins to peter-away.

8. Market watch:

ASX futures up 42 points or 0.7% to 6012 near 7am AEST

This column was produced in commercial partnership between The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and IG

Information is of a general nature only.

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8@eight: ASX set to rise as tech giants surge on Wall Street - Sydney Morning Herald

Politicians and officials in Germany are scrambling to tighten up the regulatory oversight of fintech companies following the collapse last month ofWirecard, the online payment processor.

The company, once worth more than $27 billion,filed for insolvency after admitting that a huge fraud had been perpetrated and that more than $2 billion was missing from its accounts. The CEO, Markus Braun, resigned and was arrested.As Europes largest fintech, Wirecard was widely regarded as a national champion in Germany, and so the collapse has caused a national bout of soul searching.

The authorities were really horrified. The regulators were horrified. Investors were horrified. The Finance Ministry were horrified. Everybody was horrified, said professor Dorothea Schaefer, research director, financial markets at the German Institute for Economic Research DIW Berlin. It is felt that this inflicts great damage on Germany as a financial center.

The damage stems from theapparentcredulity of German regulators and the financial community as a whole. It wasnt that long ago that Wirecards CEO, now under arrest on suspicion of false accounting, was hailed as a financial mastermindand a rarity in Germany a tech boss able to compete with the giants of Silicon Valley. At last years NOAH Conference of internet executives and investors in Berlin, Braun was given a platform to brag about his companys superb performance.

I do not like to show off normally, but we have delivered every year an average share price increase of 36% since we went public in 2005, he said.

And yet alarm bells had been ringing about Braun long before last months shocking announcement that huge amounts of money had gone missing.

You dont get to a 2 billion euro [$2.3 billion] hole in your accounts overnight, said Dan McCrum of the Financial Times in London. Something clearly had to have been happening over quite a prolonged period oftime.

McCrum had been writing about Wirecards accounting for years and had provoked the companys ire in the process.Itaccused him of market manipulation of driving down the price of Wirecard sharesin order to make a profit from short selling. To McCrums astonishment, the German regulator sided with Wirecard and launched a criminal investigation against the him, even though he was working for a reputable newspaper .

You do feel a little like the world has turnedupside down when you discover that youre under criminal investigation just for doing your job as a journalist, he said.

McCrum and Wirecards other criticshave been vindicated by the companys collapse. Conversely, Germanys reputation has been tarnished.

Its definitely very embarrassing at a time when the German financial sector is trying to make a renewed play to be the main base for European financial operations after Brexit, said Chris Green, an independent tech analyst.

Frankfurthas been pushingitself as Europes key financial center, able to pick up the mantle from the city of London after the United Kingdom leaves the regulatory jurisdiction of the European Union at the end of this year. Berlin has also been pitching to attract more tech companies from Britain.

Wirecard is a definite setback, Green said. It will make Germany a harder sell for technology companies looking to use it as a base.

But German accountingexpert Henning Zuelch of HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management maintains that Wirecard is an exception, what he calls one bad case out of 1,000 good cases.

Zuelch insists that theres nothing wrong in principle with Germanys regulatory framework. The Wirecard debacle, he said, was partly due to serious understaffing at the enforcement level: Only 15 people have been monitoring companies across the whole German capital market.

We can fix that, he said. We will learn a lot from the Wirecard scandal and make big improvements. This is a temporary embarrassment.

And, he said, such a saga is hardly unprecedented: A stock market darling bats away allegations of dodgy dealing while the regulator misses a trick and investorsgladly accept a companys denials so long as the share price continues todazzle. Not a uniquely German story.

Also, the scramble to tighten things up will not be confined to Germany. Wirecards auditor, Ernst & Young, which stands accused of failing to spot the irregularities, is one of the Big Four accounting firms based in the U.K. The British regulators annual review of auditingquality has just concluded that fully one-third of audits by the leading firms need improvement.

Were going to get our butts kicked again over Wirecard, observed one senior U.K. bean counter.

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The collapse of tech giant Wirecard triggers national angst in Germany - Marketplace

Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive officer of Amazon.com Inc., listens during an Economic Club of Washington discussion in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Sept. 13, 2018.

Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The blockbuster antitrust hearing featuring CEOs fromAmazon,Apple,FacebookandGooglescheduled for Monday will likely be postponed, two people familiar with the matter told CNBC, due to a conflict with the memorial service for the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.

The House Judiciary Committee and the Antitrust Subcommittee, which is set to host the hearing, have not yet confirmed the move and spokespeople did not immediately comment.

The hearing, which was set to feature Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, is meant to be the culmination of a more than year-long investigation into the four tech giants. Following the hearing, lawmakers plan to issue a report based on their findings throughout the investigation and propose legislation that would aim to bring antitrust laws up to date to be responsive to issues unique to digital marketplaces.

The project has been delayed already by the public health crisis that's interrupted Congress' normal course of business. Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline, D-R.I., said in January he expected the report to be completed by early April, but that timeline has since been shifted at least several months.

It's not yet clear when the hearing will be rescheduled.

A special ceremony is scheduled in honor of Lewis on Monday at 2 p.m. ET at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. After, he will lie in state at the Capitol.The antitrust hearing had been scheduled to begin at noon.

-CNBC's Ylan Mui contributed to this report.

Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.

WATCH:How US antitrust law works, and what it means for Big Tech

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Tech CEO hearing will probably be postponed, sources say - CNBC

The testimony is scheduled for a hearing Wednesday by the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust.

Four Big Tech CEOs Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Google's Sundar Pichai and Apple's Tim Cook will answer for their companies' practices before Congress at a hearing Wednesday by the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust.

The panel has conducted a bipartisan investigation over the past year of the tech giants' market dominance and their effect on consumers.

It's the first such congressional review of the tech industry. It has aimed to determine whether existing competition policies and century-old antitrust laws are adequate or if new legislation and more funding for enforcement are needed.

The four CEOs are expected to testify remotely.

The hearing originally was set for Monday. It was rescheduled to allow lawmakers who are committee members to participate in commemorations at the U.S. Capitol on Monday and Tuesday for Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights icon and longtime Georgia congressman who died July 17.

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Zuckerberg, Bezos, other tech CEOs to testify on competition - WBIR.com

But the countrys answer to Americas Nasdaq is not for the faint of heart

Jul 22nd 2020

SHANGHAIS STAR market, a stock exchange for Chinas home-grown technology firms, celebrates its first birthday today. It has much to cheer about. Launched with an ambition to rival Nasdaq, a venue in New York where many American tech giants are listed, the toddler has surpassed the older ChiNext exchange in Shenzhen and already ranks second globally by capital raised in IPOs so far this year. And it just received a lovely present. On July 20th Ant Group, the financial-services arm of Alibaba, an e-commerce giant, said it had chosen STAR as one of two exchanges on which it is planning its long-awaited listing (the other winner is Hong Kong, which has also grown popular among fast-growing Chinese companies). Though the exact size and timing of the offering are still unknown, it could well turn out to be the largest IPO ever. Ant was last valued at $150bn in 2018; listing even a small portion of its shares could place it above Saudi Aramcos IPO last year, the largest yet at $26bn.

Two factors explain STARs appeal to issuers. First, it enjoys rock-solid political backing. Chinas government sees it as a way to channel capital towards young technologies it wants to nurture, from high-tech sensors to quantum computing. To help money flow, it has loosened restrictions that apply to stock offerings elsewhere (eg, on other Chinese exchanges, an informal price cap of 23 times earnings and a 44% ceiling on first-day gains). It has also fast-tracked IPO approvals, which can take years on other exchanges. Second, the mood has soured against Chinese companies in America, where many promising companies from the mainland would have traditionally considered listing. America has threatened to impose sanctions on Chinese officials. Earlier this year, the Senate also passed legislation that could force American-listed Chinese firms to delist if they fail to show their audit work papers to American regulators for three consecutive years. That makes Asian alternatives more palatable.

It helps that investors like STAR too. Some offerings have attracted orders amounting to thousands of times the quantum of shares up for sale; some stocks have rocketed tenfold within hours of listing. But STAR is not for the faint-hearted. The prices of shares listed there are sometimes way off those of similar securities listed on more mature markets, hinting that they may be divorced from company fundamentals. The Shanghai price of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, a chipmaker that raised 53.2bn yuan ($7.6bn) in early July through a dual IPO, is more than three times its Hong Kong price, for example. Such inconsistencies can exist on the way down, as well as on the way up. As investors sell older stocks to pile into the newest and flashiest offerings, prices can slide by double-digit percentages, suggesting the market may not have the liquidity yet to absorb large IPOs in quick succession.

This creates a conundrum for Chinas rulers. Investors positive reaction to STAR may prompt regulators to ease stockmarket rules on other mainland exchanges, leading to more efficient, liquid markets and allowing the government to funnel capital to strategic sectors. But untamed speculation by fickle punters makes bubbles more likely, and the political, PR and financial risks of market crashes rank among the things that keep Chinas masters awake at night. If it proves little else than a fashionable casino, STARs allure could dim fast.

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China's newest technology stock exchange is thriving despite the pandemic - The Economist

Washington (AFP) - A highly anticipated congressional hearing on anti-competitive practices, bringing together the heads of four US technology giants, has been rescheduled for noon (1600 GMT) Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee has announced.

The heads of Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple -- the world's biggest technology companies -- will be testifying at a time of growing complaints about their dominance and amid calls by some politicians and activists to break them up.

The hearing, originally set for Monday, was rescheduled. The committee did not offer a reason, but civil rights icon and long-time congressman John Lewis will be lying in state in the US Capitol on Monday and Tuesday.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the four tech leaders -- Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Tim Cook (Apple), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Sundar Pichai (Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube) -- will be allowed to appear virtually if they wish.

It will be a first congressional appearance for Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post.

Pressure has been growing both from the right and the left -- and sometimes internally -- to do something about the overwhelming dominance of the internet platforms.

The Judiciary Committee has spent more than a year conducting a sweeping investigation into the four companies to determine whether they are guilty of any antitrust abuses and, if so, to consider possible remedies.

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US Congress to question heads of tech giants on Wednesday - Yahoo News

Dell is considering spinning off VMware next year, raising questions on the future of a critical player in cloud computing.

Dell acquired VMware in 2015 after its $67 billion merger with EMC ,giving it control of a powerhouse in virtualization software, which made it possible for businesses to tap disparate computer systems, reducing the need for hardware. VMware in particular has struck partnerships with Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft making it a secret superpower in the cloud wars.

Dell announced last week that it was exploring the spinoff which it said would benefit the shareholders, partners and customers, although it is also open to maintaining its 81% ownership of the software giant.

Some experts point to another scenario: VMware being acquired by another tech giant.

VMware's virtualization technology made it a rising star of cloud computing, the fast-growing trend which allows businesses to set up their networks in web-based platforms, making it possible to scale down or even abandon private, on-premise data centers.

VMware has become even more important in a newer trend called hybrid cloud, in which businesses maintain networks in web-based platforms, while keeping huge chunks of data and applications in private, on-premise data centers.

These trends actually made VMware, an influential players in the cloud, and a valued partner for its top players: Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

"The virtualization layer arbitrates whatever is below and above it," analyst Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies Associates told Business Insider. "VMware is the king of that. VMware would be a valuable property to any company in the enterprise space with the means to execute the deal. What any of them gains is a competitive edge."

But he also said VMware is "a pretty big fish to swallow. So, whoever bought it would have to have a pretty big war chest."

VMware has a market cap of about $57 billion. Analyst Ray Wang of Constellation Research estimated that VMware's price tag would be at least $70 billion, which means the pool of would-be buyers would be limited.

These are 5 tech giants that may be interested in buying VMware if Dell decides to sell it, according to experts:

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These 5 tech giants could buy VMware if Dell chooses to sell the software giant, according to analysts: 'VMware would be a valuable property to any...

Stocks traded lower on Thursday as Microsoft led shares of major tech companies lower and traders pored through disappointing unemployment data.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 271 points, or 1%. The S&P 500 slid 1% and the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.9%.

Microsoft shares were down by 3.7% despite reporting better-than-expected earnings for the previous quarter.Though the company's results were largely positive, Microsoft said its transactional license purchasing continued to slow and that subsidiary LinkedIn was negatively impacted by the weak job market.

Other tech giants were also under pressure. Amazon dropped 3%. Apple traded 3.7% lower. Netflix slid 1.9%. Tesla, meanwhile, gave back its earlier gains falling 4.2% despite reporting earnings thatblew past analyst expectations.Elon Musk's automaker also said it's set "for a successful second half" and reiterated its goal of delivering 500,000 vehicles this year.

Christopher Harvey, senior analyst at Wells Fargo Securities, noted these "uber-cap" tech stocks have led the sharp gains off the 2020 lows, adding: "We are seeing growing similarities to the late 1990's."

"Overall, our intermediate-term worry is that a melt-up may destabilize the marketplace and easy come, easy go i.e., as stocks aggressively discount easy 1H21 comps but do not factor in political risks," Harvey said in a note.

The latest unemployment figures also dented market sentiment.

U.S. weekly jobless claims came in at 1.416 million for last week, marking the 18th straight week in which initial claims totaled more than 1 million. Economists expected another 1.3 million workers to have filed initial claims for state unemployment benefits, according to Dow Jones.

"The surge of COVID cases in the Sun Belt and the stalling out of reopening activities in other states has seemingly caused another round of layoffs that has stymied the nascent labor market recovery," said Thomas Simons, money market economist at Jefferies, in a note.

This stalling in the labor market comes as lawmakers work on an additional stimulus package for those impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

On Wednesday, sources told CNBC that Republicans wereconsidering extending a $600-per-week unemployment benefit at a reduced rate of $100 per week. On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin saidan extension in unemployment benefits will be based on "approximately 70% wage replacement."

CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this report.

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Stocks fall to session low, with Dow the dropping 250 points as tech falters - CNBC

Swiss keyboard startup Typewise has bagged a $1 million seed round to build out a typo-busting, privacy-safe next word prediction engine designed to run entirely offline. No cloud connectivity, no data mining risk is the basic idea.

They also intend the tech to work on text inputs made on any device, be it a smartphone or desktop, a wearable, VR or something weirder that Elon Musk might want to plug into your brain in future.

For now theyve got a smartphone keyboard app thats had around 250,000 downloads with some 65,000 active users at this point.

The seed funding breaks down into $700K from more than a dozen local business angels; and $340K via the Swiss government through a mechanism (called Innosuisse projects), akin to a research grant, which is paying for the startup to employ machine learning experts at Zurichs ETH research university to build out the core AI.

The team soft launched a smartphone keyboard app late last year, which includes some additional tweaks (such as an optional honeycomb layout they tout as more efficient; and the ability to edit next word predictions so the keyboard quickly groks your slang) to get users to start feeding in data to build out their AI.

Their main focus is on developing an offline next word prediction engine which could be licensed for use anywhere users are texting, not just on a mobile device.

The goal is to develop a world-leading text prediction engine that runs completely on-device, says co-founder David Eberle. The smartphone keyboard really is a first use case. Its great to test and develop our algorithms in a real-life setting with tens of thousands of users. The larger play is to bring word/sentence completion to any application that involves text entry, on mobiles or desktop (or in future also wearables/VR/Brain-Computer Interfaces).

Currently its pretty much only Google working on this (see Gmails auto completion feature). Applications such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, Telegram, or even SAP, Oracle, Salesforce would want such productivity increase and at that level privacy/data security matters a lot. Ultimately we envision that every human-machine interface is, at least on the text-input level, powered by Typewise.

Youd be forgiven for thinking all this sounds a bit retro, given the earlier boom in smartphone AI keyboards such as SwiftKey (now owned by Microsoft).

The founders have also pushed specific elements of their current keyboard app such as the distinctive honeycomb layout before, going down a crowdfunding route back in 2015, when they were calling the concept Wrio. But they reckon its now time to go all in hence relaunching the business as Typewise and shooting to build a licensing business for offline next word prediction.

Well use the funds to develop advanced text predictions first launching it in the keyboard app and then bringing it to the desktop to start building partnerships with relevant software vendors, says Eberle, noting theyre working on various enhancements to the keyboard app and also plan to spend on marketing to try to hit 1M active users next year.

We have more innovative stuff [incoming] on the UX side as well, e.g. interacting with auto correction (so the user can easily intervene when it does something wrong in many countries users just turn it off on all keyboards because it gets annoying), gamifying the general typing experience (big opportunity for kids/teenagers, also making them more aware of what and how they type), etc.

The competitive landscape around smartphone keyboard tech, largely dominated by tech giants, has left room for indie plays, is the thinking. Nor is Typewise the only startup thinking that way (Fleksy has similar ambitions, for one). However gaining traction vs such giants and over long established typing methods is the tricky bit.

Android maker Google has ploughed resource into its Gboard AI keyboard larding it with features. While, on iOS, Apples interface for switching to a third party keyboard is infamously frustrating and finicky; the opposite of a seamless experience. Plus the native keyboard offers next word prediction baked in and Apple has plenty of privacy credit. So why would a user bother switching is the problem there.

Competing for smartphone users fingers as an indie certainly isnt easy. Alternative keyboard layouts and input mechanism are always a very tough sell as they disrupt peoples muscle memory and hit mobile users hard in their comfort and productivity zone. Unless the user is patient and/or stubborn enough to stick with a frustratingly different experience theyll soon ditch for the keyboard devil they know. (Qwerty is an ancient typewriter layout turned typing habit we English speakers just cant kick.)

Given all that, Typewises retooled focus on offline next word prediction to do white label b2b licensing makes more sense assuming they can pull off the core tech.

And, again, theyre competing at a data disadvantage on that front vs more established tech giant keyboard players, even as they argue thats also a market opportunity.

Google and Microsoft (thanks to the acquisition of SwiftKey) have a solid technology in place and have started to offer text predictions outside of the keyboard; many of their competitors, however, will want to embed a proprietary (difficult to build) or independent technology, especially if their value proposition is focused on privacy/confidentiality, Eberle argues.

Would Telegram want to use Googles text predictions? Would SAP want that their clients data goes through Microsofts prediction algorithms? Thats where we see our right to win: world-class text predictions that run on-device (privacy) and are made in Switzerland (independent environment, no security back doors, etc).

Early impressions of Typewises next word prediction smarts (gleaned by via checking out its iOS app) are pretty low key (ha!). But its v1 of the AI and Eberle talks bullishly of having world class developers working on it.

The collaboration with ETH just started a few weeks ago and thus there are no significant improvements yet visible in the live app, he tells TechCrunch. As the collaboration runs until the end of 2021 (with the opportunity of extension) the vast majority of innovation is still to come.

He also tells us Typewise is working with ETHsProf. Thomas Hofmann (chair of the Data Analytic Lab, formerly at Google), as well as having has two PhDs in NLP/ML and one MSc in ML contributing to the effort.

We get exclusive rights to the [ETH] technology; they dont hold equity but they get paid by the Swiss government on our behalf, Eberle also notes.

Typewise says its smartphone app supports more than 35 languages. But its next word prediction AI can only handle English, German, French, Italian and Spanish at this point. The startup says more are being added.

Read the original post:

Typewise taps $1M to build an offline next word prediction engine - TechCrunch

With help from John Hendel and Cristiano Lima

Programming announcement: Our newsletters are evolving. Morning Tech will continue to publish daily for POLITICO Pro subscribers, but starting in fall 2020 will consolidate to a weekly newsletter for all others. There will be no changes to the policy newsletters available to POLITICO Pro subscribers. To continue to receive Morning Tech daily, as well as access POLITICO Pros full suite of policy tools and trackers, get in touch about a Pro subscription. Already a Pro subscriber? Learn more here.

Airwaves in the air: Senators will dive in today on ways to get the U.S. ready for 5G, a debate coming right as a long-awaited FCC spectrum auction kicks off.

Surveillance fight continues: More Democrats are backing bicameral legislation banning the federal governments use of facial recognition, including former presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

Ten points for Twitter: Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, one of the civil rights leaders spearheading the #StopHateforProfit advertising boycott against Facebook, commended Twitter for doing what he thinks Facebook wont.

ITS THURSDAY; WELCOME TO MORNING TECH! Im your host, Alexandra Levine.

Got a news tip? Write Alex at [emailprotected], or follow along @Ali_Lev and @alexandra.levine. An event for our calendar? Send details to [emailprotected] Anything else? Full team info below. And don't forget: Add @MorningTech and @PoliticoPro on Twitter.

TODAY: 5G AIRWAVES IN THE SPOTLIGHT Wireless spectrum will take center stage across a number of fronts today. At 10 a.m., the Senate Commerce telecom subcommittee will hear from a slate of industry and analyst witnesses about how the FCC and administration have managed the airwaves in the wake of a series of high-profile 5G spats.

If wireless companies dont have enough airwaves, rural areas will fall behind in getting 5G, subcommittee chair John Thune (R-S.D.) plans to warn in opening remarks. Hell call for the federal government to focus on making more efficient use of its own federally held airwaves and to better use the Spectrum Relocation Fund, a federal pot of money that helps cover the cost of agencies moving to new spectrum bands. We need to make sure the interagency process when making these decisions is transparent, the GOP whip will say.

Tom Power, general counsel for wireless trade group CTIA, plans to warn of global implications surrounding limited availability of prime mid-band spectrum. Other nations are beating us to the punch, Power will testify. Hell recommend the lower 3 MHz band, currently held by the Pentagon, as the next best target.

And watch for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who just introduced new spectrum legislation, S. 4234 (116), with fellow GOP Texan Sen. John Cornyn. The Ensuring Public Safetys Access to Airwaves Act would safeguard public safety spectrum known as the T-band while also imposing deadlines on the Commerce Department to identify government-held airwaves to reallocate for the private sector.

One timely hook: The FCC is today kicking off its first auction of this prized mid-band spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band. If given my choice, I would have started it three years ago, Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who has long advocated for freeing such mid-band spectrum, said during an event Wednesday. In todays auction, 271 applicants won the right to bid, including big carriers like T-Mobile.

FACIAL RECOGNITION BAN BILL: WHOS IN, AND WHOS OUT? Digital rights group Fight for the Future and members of the Ban Facial Recognition coalition are pressuring members of Congress to come out for or against recent legislation that is one of the most ambitious Capitol Hill crackdowns to date on facial recognition technology. The Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act would stop the federal governments use of facial recognition in the U.S., but the bill still has no GOP backers.

Even so, support among Democrats is growing: In addition to Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), who jointly introduced the legislation in late June, the bill has picked up about a dozen new co-sponsors across both chambers of Congress, most notably former 2020 hopefuls Warren and Sanders. At a time when Americans are demanding that we address systemic racism in law enforcement, the use of facial recognition technology is a step in the wrong direction, Merkley said Wednesday. The federal government must ban facial recognition until we have confidence that it doesnt exacerbate racism.

An online congressional scorecard launched by the advocacy groups on Wednesday is keeping tabs on who has and has not formally gotten on board.

Jim Jordan. | Kevin Dietsch/Pool via AP

JORDANS LATEST BIG TECH HEARING ASK Top House Judiciary Republican Jim Jordan of Ohio on Wednesday called for the committees Democratic leaders to invite Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to the upcoming blockbuster hearing with the Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon chiefs. Jordan wrote in a letter that he wants to hear from Twitter about its power in the marketplace, its role in moderating content on its platform, and the causes for its recent highly publicized security breaches. Twitter, which is dwarfed by rivals like Facebook, has not been a target of antitrust scrutiny. But Republicans have accused it of stifling conservative viewpoints.

Some big tech critics said adding Twitter would divert from the sessions focus: allegations of anticompetitive behavior by the four tech giants. Republicans concerned by Google & other Big Tech companies (i.e. not Twitter, which is less than 1/20th the size of Facebook) should be alarmed by this strange demand, said Luther Lowe, SVP of public policy at Google competitor Yelp. Its only effect would be diluting the substance of a historic hearing with the 4 CEOs.

Dont expect to see @Jack on the (virtual) dais: Its the third such letter by Jordan calling for changes to the hearing format, and thus far, Judiciary Democrats havent indicated any interest in following through on his demands. He has not been invited, a spokesperson for Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), chair of the antitrust subcommittee hosting the hearing, tweeted Wednesday in response to a post about Republicans call for Dorsey to testify. Twitter declined comment. (More on how groups and lawmakers are jockeying to shape the hearing here.)

Plus: Do tech companies have too much power to shape politics? A majority of Americans think so, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. 72% of U.S. adults say social media companies have too much power and influence in politics today, and just one-fifth feel the tech giants have the right amount of political power, per the study. About half of Americans would like to see more regulation of these companies.

THUMBS UP FOR TWITTER, DOWN FOR FACEBOOK One of the civil rights leaders behind the ongoing Facebook advertising boycott jabbed the social network Wednesday as he praised one of its rivals. Twitter that day announced a clarification on its treatment of Jewish symbols on the platform, characterizing the 'yellow star' or yellow badge symbol [as] being used by those seeking to target Jewish people and as a violation of the Twitter Rules. Twitter declared that the Star of David, on the other hand, should not be classified as a hateful symbol, despite some accounts being incorrectly flagged over those images.

Greenblatt praised Twitter for clarifying the difference between images used to harass and when used to express identity and empathy, adding that the league had reached out to the company to help it understand and fix the issue. Notable that they moved swiftly to correct this problem, Greenblatt said, taking a subtle swing at Facebook: While we can't expect social media platforms to be perfect, we can expect them to correct problems when they learn of them. #StopHateForProfit.

The ADL is also out with a new video this morning accusing Mark Zuckerberg of still giving hate groups the biggest platform theyve ever had, profiting from hate, and keeping intact a business model that rewards division. It continues: Are you finally going to listen to us, Mark? Are you willing to stop profiting from hate?

Julie Elmer, a former trial lawyer with the Justice Departments antitrust division, has joined the law firm Freshfields as a partner. Matthew Haskins, former deputy assistant secretary of Defense for legislative affairs, is now working for the new public policy practice of Amazon Web Services. Jack Wilmer, the Pentagon's top cybersecurity official, is slated to leave his post at the end of July, POLITICO reports.

Lobbying latest, via POLITICO Influence: Twitter has added TwinLogic Strategies to its lineup of outside lobbying firms, which also includes the Integrated Solutions Group and the Joseph Group. And T-Mobile has hired BL Partners Group to lobby on telecommunications, financial services and tax reform issues, according to a disclosure filing. The company also recently brought on Howard Symons of Jenner & Block and retains about 30 other Washington lobbying firms.

Setting a precedent: After Twitter did so first, other Silicon Valley companies, including Facebook and YouTube, said they were also considering crackdowns on QAnon, WaPo reports.

Opinion: Europe must not rush Google-Fitbit deal, a group of academics and antitrust and privacy experts in Europe write in POLITICO.

ICYMI: A Senate committee Wednesday approved a bill to ban federal employees from downloading or using video-sharing app TikTok on government devices, a proposal gaining broad momentum across Washington, Cristiano reports.

Eyeballs watching emoji: A group of U.S. tech investors has launched an ambitious plan to buy TikTok from its Chinese owner, as the popular short-video app tries to escape being banned by the White House, Ars Technica reports.

A message from Facebook:

Facebook launches Global State of Small Business Report. At Facebook, we are committed to helping small businesses succeed. We partnered with the World Bank and the OECD to survey businesses in 50+ countries and regions to understand the challenges they face and ways we can better support them. Go further: Read the first report

View from the West Coast: These California privacy initiative opponents might surprise you, via POLITICOs Katy Murphy in Sacramento.

Reality check: Elon Musks controversial comments about the pandemic had little effect on Teslas bottom line, WaPo reports.

Funny seeing you here: The DoD recently gave a slice of cash from the CARES Act to U.S. drone companies, POLITICO reports, hoping it would juice the domestic market in the Trump administration's latest gambit to try to undercut Chinese dominance in the drone marketplace.

New on the competition scene: Slack is accusing Microsoft, which has long escaped antitrust allegations, of corporate bullying taking the complaint to European regulators, WaPo reports.

Tips, comments, suggestions? Send them along via email to our team: Bob King ([emailprotected], @bkingdc), Heidi Vogt ([emailprotected], @HeidiVogt), Nancy Scola ([emailprotected], @nancyscola), Steven Overly ([emailprotected], @stevenoverly), John Hendel ([emailprotected], @JohnHendel), Cristiano Lima ([emailprotected], @viaCristiano), Alexandra S. Levine ([emailprotected], @Ali_Lev), and Leah Nylen ([emailprotected], @leah_nylen).

A message from Facebook:

Facebook helps small businesses with the Summer of Support Program

As many storefronts remain closed, Boost with Facebook's Summer of Support program is helping millions of people and small business owners gain skills and find resources they need to grow and transition online.

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5G takes the Senate stage - Politico

Peter Altmaier (CDU), Federal Minister of Economics and Energy, speaks at the virtual Gaia-X expert forum of the Federal Ministry of Economics.

picture alliance

The two biggest economies in the European Union hope they have an answer to the domination enjoyed by American and Chinese companies in the cloud computing industry: Gaia X

Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Alibaba are the four main players globally when it comes to cloud services. However, European policymakers have grown anxious about their dependence on a small number of major tech companies, which aren't European.

That has been the case in particular since the United States enacted a law in 2018 that compels U.S. firms to hand in data to American authorities, even if the latter is stored elsewhere in the world. Germany and France have concerns that the data of European citizens is at risk.

"Gaia X is a two-fold approach to a problem we face in Europe and a problem that every company in the world faces right now," Marco-Alexander Breit, head of Task Force Artificial Intelligence at the German economy ministry, told CNBC's "Beyond the Valley" podcast.

"We combine infrastructure services like data storage, data processing in Europe, but it is open for participation even for companies that are not from European origin, as long as they stick to our rules and adhere to our standards," said Breit, who heads the Gaia X project in Germany.

It is about realizing that relying too much maybe on external players, whether they are American or Chinese or from anywhere else, is not great in the new economy...

Dexter Thillien

senior industry analyst, Fitch Solutions

The Franco-German project, born in 2018, aims to provide a secure infrastructure for data, while simultaneously allowing companies to move data across borders. Its overarching principle is to enable European nations to become digitally sovereign a concept that has gained traction in recent years and could prove challenging for the traditional tech giants.

It's a "first step toward a broader ambition," said Dexter Thillien, senior industry analyst at Fitch Solutions.

"It is about realizing that relying too much maybe on external players, whether they are American or Chinese or from anywhere else, is not great in the new economy where data is going to be more important, and you need a European alternative," he added.

More than 300 organizations worldwide are involved with the project so far, including Orange, Deutsche Telekom and SAP. The goal is to launch the infrastructure in late 2020 or early 2021.

Gaia X would, for instance, give health care providers the ability to exchange data and algorithms in a safe way with other hospitals in their proximity. That could in turn help with emergency transplants and other life-threatening conditions.

However, the initiative has to become more attractive than the big players if it wants to succeed, Thillien said.

"It is not going to be easy for that product to find its place," he said, citing budget and technical constraints.

The annual budget for Gaia X is 1.5 million euros ($1.7 million).

Nonetheless, Breit said he believes those seemingly limited financial resources "are not important."

"The X framework and the X entity has only the responsibilities to make the ecosystem work, to negotiate the standards, to negotiate the rules, and to provide standardized IPs for example to make the software run," he said, adding that the major advancements in artificial intelligence would remain a task for the big tech companies themselves.

IP, or internet protocol, refers to a set of rules that facilitates the movement of data across networks. There are varying IP standards.

Read the rest here:

Meet Gaia X Europe's answer to the power of U.S. and Chinese cloud giants - CNBC

Major League Baseball will look to Big Tech companies like Apple and Google to help with its shortened season that is scheduled to begin Thursday.

On Monday, MLB provided a preview of how games will look and sound during the pandemic, with features like artificial crowd noise and an upgraded replay system for fans watching from home.

Two games are scheduled for opening night: The defending World Series champion Washington Nationals host the New York Yankees at 7 p.m. ET, followed by theLos Angeles Dodgers hosting the San Francisco Giants at 10 p.m. ET.

As part of the league's Covid-19 health and safety protocols, MLB said it would ban traditional video stations shared throughout clubhouses. The league took advantage of its 2016 partnership with Apple to expand the dugout iPad program. It will now distribute 15 iPads to each team for players and staff to dissect performances and additional team content like scouting reports.

Google will also play a part, with all 30 teams using Google Cloud to run MLB's stat-tracking system, Statcast, and provide digital infrastructure for everything from team websites to online ticket sales.

MLB partnered with the Google in March to be the league's official cloud partner.Jason Gaedtke, MLB chief technology officer, said Monday that the league selected Google for the firm's "strength in large scale data processing, analytics and specifically machine-learning."

With its Statcast 3D platform powered by Google, MLB said broadcasts can re-create game footage in a variety of virtual perspectives. Concepts like displaying a player's home run trails, pitching angles from a catcher and umpire's perspective and how play is affected by weather conditions will now be available for national and regional broadcast partners.

Before Covid-19 delayed the current season, MLB completed its first significant technology refresh, an overhaul of its replay operation. It's the first upgrade since the league rolled out its expanded instant replay system in 2014, according to Chris Marinak, MLB executive VP of strategy technology and innovation.

Canadian telecommunications company Mitel assisted league with its new Replay Center located in New Jersey. The system can receive 48 channels of video and take in 24 isolation cameras from all over the field, said Marinak.

Also, the league placed 4K cameras to overlook fields. The cameras are generally used to look at a base runner's placement and "other wide-angle things that may not be available during the broadcast," Marinak said.

MLB said the tech upgrades will help get footage to umpires faster to cut down on the time spent reviewing plays. It will also help the team to decide whether or not to challenge a call.

And with the new camera angles added, MLB decreased the time a team can decide to dispute a call from 30 seconds to 20 seconds for the 2020 season.

Another critical partner will be Sony.

Ballparks will have 12 4K cameras and feature Sony's Hawk-Eye tracking system, which MLB said will help it better track player positioning and movement and "everything that is happening on the field, with no blind spots," according to Gaedtke.

Sony, which renewed its deal with MLB last December, will also provide teams artificial crowd noise. Clubs are required to use some form of fake sounds designed to emulate regular contests with spectators, since games will be held in empty stadiums.

Sony has made available 75 samples of crowd sounds from its MLB video game. The league will provide teams with an iPad filled with the samples that will be controlled by an audio technician during games.

Ryan Zander, MLB vice president of broadcast products and services and new broadcast technology, said clubs would continue to provide traditional organists and batter walk-up music in games, too.

"The idea is to enable the clubs with as much as possible as it relates to creating a realistic environment," Zander said, adding that broadcasters will pick up the sound with natural microphones normally used for crowd noise.

MLB said its baseball operations department would handle any disputes around the artificial sounds, but added it's not anticipating any problems.

MLB will also use virtual ads this season to "make up for lost brand exposure" and "create some new inventory for our partnerships," according to Marinak.

The league generally uses virtual signage at premier events like postseason games and the MLB All-Star Game, but not for regular season regional games.

MLB will oversee the ads on national broadcasts and clubs will manage local ad placements. But if a club decides to install physical ads for a particular game, MLB could restrict virtual ads.

"What we've done this season is qualified a bunch of technologies and devised a plan and framework to make this technology available for all clubs who want to take advantage of the program," said Zander.

Zander added there are guidelines to ad placements in efforts to "make the signage look as authentic as possible, not have it be disruptive to the viewer." The ads can be placed in areas including seating sections, foul ball territory and the pitcher's mound. Teams will be allowed to rotate virtual ads every half inning.

And with fans tuned in, some teams could take advantage of more augmented reality experiences. The New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies experimented with AR options in 2017and Michael Harris, Phillies VP of marketing and new media, told CNBC the team also had success with an their AR bobblehead promotion last season featuring pitcher Aaron Nola.

Here is the original post:

Apple, Google and Sony will be critical to MLB season shortened by coronavirus - CNBC

The U.S. commerce department is adding 11 China-based companies on the list of companies allegedly committing human rights violations against the Uighur, an ethnic group in east and central Asia, The Telegraph reported.

But how did Amazon, Google, Apple, and other tech companies find themselves into this issue?

Right as these Chinese companies are added to the list for allegedly committing human rights abuses against these minorities and Muslim groups from the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, one of these companies, Nanchang O-Film Tech is reportedly partnered with several mainstream tech and automobile companies.

These companies include Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Dell, GM, Google, and more.

(Photo : World Uyghur Congress / Facebook)World Uyghur Congress shares photos of the campaign for human rights.

The U.S. commerce department said that these companies have committed "mass arbitrary detention, forced labor, involuntary collection of biometric data and genetic analysis" against these minorities, and will face restriction on American products, particularly in technology.

According to another report on Digital Trends, information from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's International Cyber Policy Centre entitled Uyghurs For Sale, revealed that since 2017, millions of Uighur and members of the Turkic Muslim minorities are sent to camps in Xinjiang for re-education, but are subject to forced labor and political indoctrination to give up their current beliefs.

The Institute is a think tank supported by the Australian government, and funded by the country's defense department, the report further noted..

"Beijing actively promotes the reprehensible practice of forced labor and abusive DNA collection and analysis schemes to repress its citizens," commerce department secretary Wilbur Ross said. "This action will ensure that our goods and technologies are not used in the Chinese Communist Party's despicable offensive against defenseless Muslim minority populations."

The company being accused, Nanchang O-Film Tech, has made no comments with the media as of press time. Even the tech companies they are partnered with, Amazon, Apple, GM, Microsoft, and Dell have not responded to the accusation.

These actions are part of the efforts from the U.S. government to curb these illegal activities from mainland Chinese companies. O-Film is allegedly using cameras, fingerprint sensors, and more to impose their principles upon these minorities, as they source out their information.

For instance, Apple is known for its yearly reports on its supplies, but apparently, it seems to hide several poor working conditions, including child labor and workers' safety. Also, Amazon has been accused of not providing sufficient health benefits to their employees in light of the pandemic.

There are now more than 40 companies listed by the U.S. Department of Commerce that allegedly violates human rights policies. These efforts are expected to further protect the rights of these groups.

Also Read: U.K. News: After Interfering with Gov't on Huawei Deal, the Tory Rebels Now Wants Chinese Nuclear Station Out

2018 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

Read more from the original source:

11 China-based Suppliers of US Tech Giants Sanctioned Over Alleged Human Rights Abuses vs the Uighur - Tech Times

Jim Cramer

Scott Mlyn | CNBC

CNBC's Jim Cramer said Monday that the moves of three major tech stocks were "truly insane and unlike any i have ever seen in my life."

Cramer's comments in a tweet came as shares of Amazon and Microsoft, two of the largest U.S. stocks by market cap, jumped by 7.9% and 4.3% respectively during Monday's session. Electric vehicle company Tesla also surged 9.5%, continuing a blistering run that has seen its shares rise 60% since June 29.

The gains helped to push the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite up 2.5% on Monday.

Amazon's move represents a share reversal for the e-commerce and cloud company, which saw its shares sink all five days last week. Monday's jump erased almost all of those losses.

Both Amazon and Microsoft, which fell in four of five sessions last week, have outpaced the broader market this year, with their subscription and cloud businesses proving to be resistant to the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.

Tesla has left both of those tech giants behind with is run this year, rising nearly 300%. Tesla and Microsoft are scheduled to report quarterly earnings results on Wednesday.

Read more here:

Cramer says moves in tech stocks are 'truly insane' as Amazon and Tesla climb - CNBC

A concept image of Net City. Source: NBBJ

For a long time, the concept of smart cities powered by sensors, artificial intelligence and big data have captured our imaginations. And while these concepts wont fall into place overnight, we are beginning to see them slowly take route in the urban environments around us.

As we approach what we hope are the tailwinds of the Covid-19 pandemic, we also approach a point of reflection. The potential power and practicality of smart cities continues to be a topic of debate. A recent TechHQ article documented Sidewalk Labs abandoned plans for a smart city development in an area of Toronto.

With lingering question marks over privacy and the monetization of citizens data, many cities and governments are skirting around the unmediated adoption of smart city technology. However, with life in the fast lane stymied the world over and with the chance to think differently about the use of space around us the case around smart city technology is as prominent as ever, and some tech giants are pressing on with what they see as rethinking cities to be for and about people.

Chinese technology Tencent is one such business. As we covered recently, it has drafted up plans for a 2 million square meter smart city to occupy the southeastern region of Shenzhen, dubbed by some as Chinas Silicon Valley. According to Jonathan Ward, design partner at the smart citys architectural firm NBJJ, the area has been planned to focus its technology on people and the environment first.

Net City. Source: NBBJ

This sentiment speaks to an idyllic model of urban planning, detaching itself (linguistically, at least) from data-oriented concerns surrounding other smart cities, but it will likely portend the way that public bodies increasingly introduce smart city concepts to citizens as we continue to emerge from the pandemic, and as smart city technology continues to permeate in the years to come.

Net City will comprise Tencent offices and residences for its employees, as well as public amenities such as parks and a waterfront area. Ward goes on to claim that the city which will have few streets for cars and hence very few vehicles is a model for the future of city building [] such a precedence on green spaces points to advanced urban agriculture and a rethinking of traditional city values.

Alongside cutting-edge technology in artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous vehicles, all under the shadow of metallic buildings, Ward believes urban innovation should go hand-in-hand with the design of spaces, buildings and cities that are restorative [] with plentiful indoor-outdoor spaces. As society reboots after a pandemic, we will see whether these kind of smart city experiments bear fruit within the coming decade, or begin to churn up some of the same concerns as Sidewalk Labs dalliance.

Kris Hartley, assistant professor, Education University of Hong Kong, upholds such optimism, but with a word of warning. If technology is to shape the post-Covid world and theres no doubting that itll play a big role then technological progress must [] assert itself as a tool for positive change in urban residents everyday lives.

For smart cities to really be smart, then, Hartley suggests they must prioritize sustainability by reducing car use, increasing planning strategies around the needs of people, allowing greater public access, and with increased environmental conservation. At the same time, powered by thousands, if not millions of IoT sensors and AI technology, connected cities also mean data-intensive ones. Will efforts to make cities clean with technology simply offload their carbon footprint to the data center?

A piece in The Engineer mulls this very question, and points to work across UK, US, Germany and India where digital transformation and tech is being used as a unifying asset. Ravi Gopinath, chief cloud & product officer at AVEVA, talked of the potential for tech to overcome its own energy issues to contribute to a citys resilience.

A rendering of the Quayside, part of the now scrapped Sidewalk Labs Toronto smart city concept. Source: Sidewalk Toronto

The outlook from Michael Ganser an engineer with German telematics systems firm Kapsch TrafficCom is similarly bright. He forecasts that the introduction of new digital technologies like networked cars and adaptive traffic lights if installed in all of the worlds cities with populations of more than 200,000 people would save the planet 2% in man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

More than 500 smart cities are being built across China, according to government data. These cities are equipped with sensors, cameras, and other gadgets that can crunch data on everything from traffic and pollution, to public health and security. The data anxiety can certainly be excused, and such concerns are not going to go away.

Throughout the coronavirus lockdown, surveillance took on an even more pertinent role than usual, and in smart cities this kind of monitoring will be at worst a kind of under-the-surface, biopolitical hazard. In China, Covid-19 has left the door open for Beijing to ramp up citizen surveillance by introducing new and invasive methods under the guise of fighting the pandemic, whether thats talking drones berating people for not wearing masks, or CCTV installed outside the homes of quarantined individuals.

In the case of Tencents proposal, there may be implications, with time, for Shenzhens neighbor to the South: Hong Kong. In Chinas communist state, though, the general public has less say (Xu Chengwei; public-policy researcher at Singapore Management University).

Smart cities are and will remain, according to authorities a major part of Chinas plan to spur growth amidst a global economic downturn. Hartley warns that the narrative around Covid-19 recovery and resilience is likely to be shaped around urbanism. There may well be an increase in purpose-built towns as demonstration projects or test-bed experiments.

Whether Net City proves to be such a test-bed for heightened surveillance and problematic data processing or whether it can pave the way for the post-Covid, green city revolution remains to be seen. Its construction is scheduled to begin later in 2020.

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Could the pandemic affect our perspective on smart cities? - Tech Wire Asia

Google headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Google on Thursday said it's nixing commission fees for retailers selling products on the company's shopping platform, as the search giant tries to catch up to Amazon and its dominant ecommerce operation.

Previously, Google charged merchants to list items with the company's Buy with Google program, which lets people buy items directly through Google's website instead of being sent to an outside digital store. The fee was about 10 to 15% of the sale, comparable to Amazon's rates. The pilot is starting in the US before expanding internationally.

Subscribe to the CNET Now newsletter for our editors' picks of the most important stories of the day.

The apparent goal is to build up Google's shopping service by luring sellers to list their items there in addition to other platforms, instead of skipping Google because of extra fees.

"This removes a major barrier for marketplaces to participate because the duplicate commission has gone," Bill Ready, president of Google's commerce division, said in an interview. "Now they can more easily participate."

For consumers, the change could mean seeing a bigger selection of products when they search on Google. The company could then try to persuade sellers to run more paid product ads on its platform. As it stands now, Google isn't a major ecommerce player. In the US, Amazon is the undisputed leader in online sales, with 38% of the share, according to research firm eMarketer. Walmart is a distant second, with just shy of 6%, followed by eBay's 4.5%. Google doesn't crack the top 10.

Google also said it will let sellers import their inventory data to Google's service from other ecommerce platforms, including Amazon. The company is also partnering with PayPal and Shopify, which helps people create online stores, for payment processing and order management.

The changes intensify an already fierce rivalry with Amazon. The two tech giants have been warring on multiple fronts, including smart home technology. Google's Home smart speaker and Assistant voice software have been sprinting to catch up to Amazon's Echo and Alexa.

Ready wouldn't address Google's competition with Amazon. Google also declined to disclose how many merchants it has in its Buy with Google program, or how much revenue the company has generated through commission fees in the past year.

Thursday's updates come as Google makes a bigger push into ecommerce. In April, the company brought free retail listings to its search engine's shopping tab. Last month, Google expanded the listings to be shown directly in the company's search results, some of the most prized real estate on the internet.

Google has drawn blowback in the past for its shopping efforts. Two years ago, Google was hit with a $1.7 billion fine from the EU for what the commission called "abusive" ad practices, especially when it came to the placement of Google's shopping ads.

Next week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai will join the heads of Facebook, Amazon and Apple at an antitrust hearing as part of an investigation by a House Judiciary subcommittee. Google is expected to address questions about its digital ad business, as well as accusations the company's platforms give preferential treatment to its own products.

Read more:

Google has a plan to lure shoppers away from Amazon - CNET

The potential power and practicality of smart cities continues to be a topic of debate in the midst and tailwinds of Covid-19. A recent TechHQ article documented Sidewalk Labs abandoned plans for a smart city development in an area of Toronto. With lingering question marks over privacy and the monetization of citizens data, many cities and governments are skirting around the unmediated adoption of smart city technology.

However, with life in the fast lane stymied the world over and with the chance to think differently about the use of space around us the case around smart city technology is as prominent as ever, and some tech giants are pressing on with what they see as rethinking cities to be for and about people.

Chinese technology Tencent is one such business. It has drafted up plans for a 2 million square meter smart city to occupy the southeastern region of Shenzhen, dubbed by some as Chinas Silicon Valley. According to Jonathan Ward, design partner at the smart citys architectural firm NBBJ, the area has been planned to focus its technology on people and the environment first.

Net City. Source: NBBJ

This sentiment speaks to an idyllic model of urban planning, detaching itself (linguistically, at least) from data-oriented concerns surrounding other smart cities, but it will likely portend the way that public bodies increasingly introduce smart city concepts to citizens as we continue to emerge from the pandemic, and as smart city technology continues to permeate in the years to come.

Net City will comprise Tencent offices and residences for its employees, as well as public amenities such as parks and a waterfront area. Ward goes on to claim that the city which will have few streets for cars and hence very few vehicles is a model for the future of city building [] such a precedence on green spaces points to advanced urban agriculture and a rethinking of traditional city values.

Alongside cutting-edge technology in artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous vehicles, all under the shadow of metallic buildings, Ward believes urban innovation should go hand-in-hand with the design of spaces, buildings and cities that are restorative [] with plentiful indoor-outdoor spaces. As society reboots after a pandemic, we will see whether these kind of smart city experiments bear fruit within the coming decade, or begin to churn up some of the same concerns as Sidewalk Labs dalliance.

Kris Hartley, assistant professor, Education University of Hong Kong, upholds such optimism, but with a word of warning. If technology is to shape the post-Covid world and theres no doubting that itll play a big role then technological progress must [] assert itself as a tool for positive change in urban residents everyday lives.

For smart cities to really be smart, then, Hartley suggests they must prioritize sustainability by reducing car use, increasing planning strategies around the needs of people, allowing greater public access, and with increased environmental conservation. At the same time, powered by thousands, if not millions of IoT sensors and AI technology, connected cities also mean data-intensive ones. Will efforts to make cities clean with technology simply offload their carbon footprint to the data center?

A piece in The Engineer mulls this very question, and points to work across UK, US, Germany and India where digital transformation and tech is being used as a unifying asset. Ravi Gopinath, chief cloud & product officer at AVEVA, talked of the potential for tech to overcome its own energy issues to contribute to a citys resilience.

A rendering of the Quayside, part of the now scrapped Sidewalk Labs Toronto smart city concept. Source: Sidewalk Toronto

The outlook from Michael Ganser an engineer with German telematics systems firm Kapsch TrafficCom is similarly bright. He forecasts that the introduction of new digital technologies like networked cars and adaptive traffic lights if installed in all of the worlds cities with populations of more than 200,000 people would save the planet 2% in man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

More than 500 smart cities are being built across China, according to government data. These cities are equipped with sensors, cameras, and other gadgets that can crunch data on everything from traffic and pollution, to public health and security. The data anxiety can certainly be excused, and such concerns are not going to go away.

Throughout the coronavirus lockdown, surveillance took on an even more pertinent role than usual, and in smart cities this kind of monitoring will be at worst a kind of under-the-surface, biopolitical hazard. In China, Covid-19 has left the door open for Beijing to ramp up citizen surveillance by introducing new and invasive methods under the guise of fighting the pandemic, whether thats talking drones berating people for not wearing masks, or CCTV installed outside the homes of quarantined individuals.

In the case of Tencents proposal, there may be implications, with time, for Shenzhens neighbor to the South: Hong Kong. In Chinas communist state, though, the general public has less say (Xu Chengwei; public-policy researcher at Singapore Management University).

Smart cities are and will remain, according to authorities a major part of Chinas plan to spur growth amidst a global economic downturn. Hartley warns that the narrative around Covid-19 recovery and resilience is likely to be shaped around urbanism. There may well be an increase in purpose-built towns as demonstration projects or test-bed experiments.

Whether Net City proves to be such a test-bed for heightened surveillance and problematic data processing or whether it can pave the way for the post-Covid, green city revolution remains to be seen. Its construction is scheduled to begin later in 2020.

Continue reading here:

What does the pandemic mean for the smart city revolution? - TechHQ