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Global Cloud Computing in Industrial IoT Markets, 2020-2025: Technologies, Players, and Solutions – ResearchAndMarkets.com – Yahoo Finance

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Danzig

The "Cloud Computing in Industrial IoT: Market for Cloud support of IIoT by Software, Platforms, Infrastructure (SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS) including Centralized Cloud Edge Computing for Devices and Objects 2020 - 2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This research evaluates the technologies, players, and solutions relied upon for cloud computing in IIoT.

The report analyzes the impact of SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS upon IIoT as well as cloud computing software, platforms, and infrastructure in support of edge computing. The report also assesses market opportunities for cloud computing support of IIoT devices and the objects that will be monitored, actuated, and controlled through IoT enabled processes.

The report includes detailed forecasts for the global and regional outlook as well as by industry vertical, devices, and objects/things from 2020 to 2025.

Cloud computing is moving beyond the consumer and enterprise markets into support for manufacturing and industrial automation of other industry verticals. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) represents a substantial opportunity for both the centralized cloud as a service model for software, platforms, and infrastructure as well as distributed computing wherein IIoT edge computing will enable the ICT industry to leverage real-time processing and analytics.

Target Audience:

Robotics companies

Cloud SPI companies

Manufacturing companies

Systems integration companies

Industrial automation companies

IIoT and industrial service providers

Cloud infrastructure and services companies

Key Topics Covered:

1 Executive Summary

2 Overview

2.1 Cloud Computing

2.2 Cloud Computing Structure

2.3 Traditional Industrial IoT Challenges

2.4 Cloud Computing in Industrial IoT

2.5 Consumer vs. Industrial Cloud Platforms

2.6 Evolution of Fog Computing

2.7 IIoT Cloud Computing Benefits

2.8 Industrial Internet and IIoT

3 IIoT Cloud Computing Ecosystem

3.1 IIoT Cloud Computing Services

Story continues

3.1.1 Infrastructure as a Service

3.1.2 Platform as a Service

3.1.3 Software as a Service

3.2 Cloud Computing Deployment

3.3 IIoT Cloud Computing Applications

3.4 Cloud Manufacturing

3.5 Software Defined IIoT and Industry 4.0

3.6 Smart Connected Enterprise and Workplace

3.7 Cloud Technology in Robotics

3.8 Artificial Intelligence and IIoT Solutions

3.9 IIoT Cloud Computing Challenges

3.10 IIoT Cloud Computing Pricing Models

4 Cloud Computing in IIoT Market Dynamics

4.1 Drivers

4.1.1 Increased Use of Cloud Computing Platforms

4.1.2 Government-favourable policies towards initiatives and innovative efforts

4.1.3 Optimization of operational efficiency and automation

4.2 Challenges

4.2.1 High initial cost

4.2.2 Data Security and Privacy Breaches

5 Case Study: Cloud Computing in IIoT Market

5.1 IoT Use cases of Kemppi

5.2 Smarter Systems for Increasing Customer Productivity Case Study

5.3 Caterpillar's NextGen Human-Machine Interface (HMI) software platform

5.4 Creating Smarter heating and cooling systems with cloud

5.5 Prototyping the Future Automotive Cloud

5.6 Oil and Gas production Smart Case Study

5.7 Rockwell Adapted Microsoft Azure Case Study

5.8 Cloud-first digital transformation

5.9 Eastman Case study for cloud migration

5.10 Data Analytics Improves Transportation Equipment Utilization

6 Industrial IoT Cloud Computing Market

6.1 Global Market Forecasts

6.1.1 Combined Cloud IIoT Market 2020 - 2025

6.1.2 Market by Service Segment 2020 - 2025

6.1.3 Infrastructure Market 2020 - 2025

6.1.4 Software Market 2020 - 2025

6.1.5 Platform Solution Market 2020 - 2025

6.1.6 Market by Cloud Type 2020 - 2025

6.1.7 Private Cloud Computing Market by Deployment 2020 - 2025

6.1.8 Public Cloud Computing Market by Deployment 2020 - 2025

6.1.9 Hybrid Cloud Computing Market by Deployment 2020 - 2025

6.1.10 Market by Industry Vertical 2020 - 2025

6.1.11 Manufacturing Market by Sub-sector 2020 - 2025

6.1.12 Utilities Market by Sub-sector 2020 - 2025

6.2 Regional Market Forecasts

7 IIoT Cloud Connected Devices/Things Forecasts

7.1 Connected Device Forecasts 2020 - 2025

7.1.1 Total Cloud Connected Devices 2020 - 2025

7.1.2 Cloud Connected Devices by Type 2020 - 2025

7.1.3 Cloud Connected Devices by Industry Vertical 2020 - 2025

7.1.4 Cloud Connected Devices by Region 2020 - 2025

7.2 Connected Things/ Objects Forecasts

7.2.1 Total Cloud Connected Things/Objects 2020 - 2025

7.2.2 Cloud Connected Things/Objects by Industry Vertical 2020 - 2025

7.2.3 Cloud Connected Things/Objects by Region 2020 - 2025

8 Company Analysis

8.1 Amazon Web Services (AWS) Inc.

8.1.1 Company Overview

8.1.2 Product and Solutions

8.1.3 Recent Developments

8.2 Cumulocity GmBH

8.3 CISCO Systems Inc.

8.4 SAP SE

8.5 Ampla Soluciones SL

8.6 General Electric (GE)

8.7 AT&T Inc.

8.8 Losant IoT Inc.

8.9 Thethings.io

8.10 XMPro

8.11 Siemens AG

8.12 Robert Bosch GmbH

8.13 IBM Corporation

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Global Cloud Computing in Industrial IoT Markets, 2020-2025: Technologies, Players, and Solutions - ResearchAndMarkets.com - Yahoo Finance

Why distributed cloud is the next generation of cloud computing – IT World Canada

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Danzig

By David SmithGartner, Inc.

Cloud computing promises that customers will gain advantages from several key propositions: shifting the responsibility and work of running hardware and software infrastructure to cloud providers, leveraging the economics of cloud elasticity, benefiting from the pace of innovation in sync with public cloud providers, and more. Yet some organizations hesitate to commit to a total migration to the public cloud model.

These enterprises use a combination or hybrid of private-cloud-inspired and public cloud styles of computing. Hybrid cloud, however, breaks these aforementioned value propositions: One part of a hybrid cloud is architected, owned, controlled and operated by the customer and the other by the public cloud provider. The customer retains responsibility for their part of the operation but cannot leverage the capabilities (such as the skills, innovation pace, investments and techniques) of the public cloud provider.

Newer generations of packaged hybrid cloud offerings can help reduce the impact of these shortcomings. Distributed cloud, the next generation of cloud computing, retains the advantages of cloud computing while extending the range and use cases for cloud. CIOs can use distributed cloud models to target location-dependent cloud use cases that will be required in the future.

Distributed cloud computingis the first cloud model that incorporates physical location of cloud-delivered services as part of its definition. Historically, location has not been relevant to cloud computing definitions. In fact, location has been explicitly abstracted away from the service, which inspired the term cloud computing in the first place.

Distributed cloud has three origins: Public cloud, hybrid cloud and edge computing. Public cloud providers have supported multiple zones and regions for many years. With packaged hybrid offerings, public cloud services (often including necessary hardware and software) can now be distributed to different physical locations, for instance, the edge.

However, ownership, operation, governance, updates and evolution of the services remain the responsibility of the originating public cloud provider. This is a significant shift from the virtually centralized model of most public cloud services and the model associated with the general cloud concept. It will lead to a new era in cloud computing.

Some might ask if distributed cloud is simply a case of edge computing, and the answer is both yes and no. All instances of distributed cloud are also instances of edge computing. But not all instances of edge computing are distributed cloud. This is because many uses of edge involve a public cloud provider that manages the evolution and ongoing control of the resulting environment.

Cloud services from public cloud providers become distributed out to specific and varied physical locations. Operations being physically closer to those who need the capabilities enable low-latency compute. This also ensures a consistent control plane to administer the cloud infrastructure from public to private cloud and extend consistently across both environments. Taken together, these items can deliver major improvements in performance due to the elimination of latency issues, as well as reduce the risk of global network-related outages or control plane inefficiencies.

Distributed cloud creates strategically placed substations of cloud compute, storage and networking that can act as shared cloud pseudo-availability zones. Gartner uses the term substations to evoke the image of subsidiary stations, for instance, branch post offices, where people gather to use services.

Because distributed cloud substations are the responsibility of the originating public cloud provider, the key cloud value propositions of productivity, innovation and support remain intact. In fact, by 2024, most cloud service platforms will provide at least some distributed cloud services that execute at the point of need.

Other advantages of distributed cloud include:

In practical terms, distributed cloud will evolve in two distinct phases. Phase one will consist of a like-for-like hybrid, where enterprise customers will buy cloud substations to mimic the promise of hybrid cloud and avoid latency-based problems.

These customers will not initially embrace the idea of opening their substations to near neighbours, whether geographical or industry-based, and will keep the substation on their premises to themselves. This will have the effect of enabling true hybrid cloud by having public cloud providers take responsibility for everything.

Phase two, or next-gen cloud, will consist of utilities, universities, city governments and telcos, among others, buying cloud substations and opening them for use by near neighbours. This will begin to establish the idea that distributed cloud represents the foundation of the next generation of cloud computing. This will also reflect the need for the continuum of distributed cloud. Next-generation cloud will work based on an assumption that cloud substations are everywhere much like Wi-Fi hot spots.

In both phases, location becomes more transparent again. They allow customers to specify to a provider, I need X to comply with policies Y and latencies Z, and then let the provider configure automatically and transparently. This could potentially represent future phases as well.

Some questions must be addressed beforethe distributed cloud model can be widely adopted. For example:

In the eyes of the CIO, the distributed cloud concept will guide the roadmap for cloud evolution. It will specifically benefit CIOs seeking new opportunities to reach customers in dispersed environments and those who need location-specific services with reduced latency. Using Phase One like-for-like hybrids without sacrificing cloud value propositions will enable real hybrid cloud computing. Thus, distributed cloud not only ushers in the next generation of cloud in Phase Two, but it also helps build a firmer foundation for hybrid as it exists today.

Gartner analysts will provide additional analysis on cloud strategies and infrastructure and operations trends at the Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies Conference taking place virtually December 7-10 in the Americas and EMEA.

Why distributed cloud is the next generation of cloud computing - IT World Canada

Cloud Computing in Industrial IoT Report 2020: The Impact of SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS Upon IIoT as Well as Cloud Computing Software, Platforms, and…

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Danzig

Dublin, Oct. 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Cloud Computing in Industrial IoT: Market for Cloud support of IIoT by Software, Platforms, Infrastructure (SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS) including Centralized Cloud Edge Computing for Devices and Objects 2020 - 2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This research evaluates the technologies, players, and solutions relied upon for cloud computing in IIoT.

The report includes detailed forecasts for the global and regional outlook as well as by industry vertical, devices, and objects/things from 2020 to 2025.

Target Audience:

Key Topics Covered:

1 Executive Summary

2 Overview2.1 Cloud Computing2.2 Cloud Computing Structure2.3 Traditional Industrial IoT Challenges2.4 Cloud Computing in Industrial IoT2.5 Consumer vs. Industrial Cloud Platforms2.6 Evolution of Fog Computing2.7 IIoT Cloud Computing Benefits2.8 Industrial Internet and IIoT

3 IIoT Cloud Computing Ecosystem3.1 IIoT Cloud Computing Services3.1.1 Infrastructure as a Service3.1.2 Platform as a Service3.1.3 Software as a Service3.2 Cloud Computing Deployment3.3 IIoT Cloud Computing Applications3.4 Cloud Manufacturing3.5 Software Defined IIoT and Industry 4.03.6 Smart Connected Enterprise and Workplace3.7 Cloud Technology in Robotics3.8 Artificial Intelligence and IIoT Solutions3.9 IIoT Cloud Computing Challenges3.10 IIoT Cloud Computing Pricing Models

4 Cloud Computing in IIoT Market Dynamics4.1 Drivers4.1.1 Increased Use of Cloud Computing Platforms4.1.2 Government-favourable policies towards initiatives and innovative efforts4.1.3 Optimization of operational efficiency and automation4.2 Challenges4.2.1 High initial cost4.2.2 Data Security and Privacy Breaches

5 Case Study: Cloud Computing in IIoT Market5.1 IoT Use cases of Kemppi5.2 Smarter Systems for Increasing Customer Productivity Case Study5.3 Caterpillar's NextGen Human-Machine Interface (HMI) software platform5.4 Creating Smarter heating and cooling systems with cloud5.5 Prototyping the Future Automotive Cloud5.6 Oil and Gas production Smart Case Study5.7 Rockwell Adapted Microsoft Azure Case Study5.8 Cloud-first digital transformation5.9 Eastman Case study for cloud migration5.10 Data Analytics Improves Transportation Equipment Utilization

6 Industrial IoT Cloud Computing Market6.1 Global Market Forecasts6.1.1 Combined Cloud IIoT Market 2020 - 20256.1.2 Market by Service Segment 2020 - 20256.1.3 Infrastructure Market 2020 - 20256.1.4 Software Market 2020 - 20256.1.5 Platform Solution Market 2020 - 20256.1.6 Market by Cloud Type 2020 - 20256.1.7 Private Cloud Computing Market by Deployment 2020 - 20256.1.8 Public Cloud Computing Market by Deployment 2020 - 20256.1.9 Hybrid Cloud Computing Market by Deployment 2020 - 20256.1.10 Market by Industry Vertical 2020 - 20256.1.11 Manufacturing Market by Sub-sector 2020 - 20256.1.12 Utilities Market by Sub-sector 2020 - 20256.2 Regional Market Forecasts

7 IIoT Cloud Connected Devices/Things Forecasts7.1 Connected Device Forecasts 2020 - 20257.1.1 Total Cloud Connected Devices 2020 - 20257.1.2 Cloud Connected Devices by Type 2020 - 20257.1.3 Cloud Connected Devices by Industry Vertical 2020 - 20257.1.4 Cloud Connected Devices by Region 2020 - 20257.2 Connected Things/ Objects Forecasts7.2.1 Total Cloud Connected Things/Objects 2020 - 20257.2.2 Cloud Connected Things/Objects by Industry Vertical 2020 - 20257.2.3 Cloud Connected Things/Objects by Region 2020 - 2025

8 Company Analysis8.1 Amazon Web Services (AWS) Inc.8.1.1 Company Overview8.1.2 Product and Solutions8.1.3 Recent Developments8.2 Cumulocity GmBH8.3 CISCO Systems Inc.8.4 SAP SE8.5 Ampla Soluciones SL8.6 General Electric (GE)8.7 AT&T Inc.8.8 Losant IoT Inc.8.9 Thethings.io8.10 XMPro8.11 Siemens AG8.12 Robert Bosch GmbH8.13 IBM Corporation8.14 Microsoft Corporation8.15 C3IoT8.16 Meshify8.17 Sierra Wireless Inc.8.18 Carriots8.19 Intel Corporation8.20 PTC8.21 Uptake Technologies Inc.8.22 TempolQ8.23 Honeywell International8.24 Enterox Systems8.25 Aware360 Ltd.8.26 XILINX Inc.8.27 Echelon Corporation8.28 Real Time Innovation (RTI)8.29 Fujitsu Ltd.8.30 Reali Technologies Ltd

9 Conclusions and Recommendations

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/6ecf02

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

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Cloud Computing in Industrial IoT Report 2020: The Impact of SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS Upon IIoT as Well as Cloud Computing Software, Platforms, and...

Cloud computing: The future of public sector analytics? – TechHQ

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Danzig

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has seen enterprises rapidly adapt and transform to enable digital demand in cloud computing. But can the same be said about governments?

These age-old and traditionalist institutions can often be perceived as slow to embrace digital transformation. But, whether its connecting and drawing insight from city-wide Internet of Things (IoT), or reversing entire tax systems in a matter of days, can cloud computing meet the demands placed on the public sector?

The booming uptake of the cloud in recent months has brought a realization that digital transformation can happen anywhere on any timescale. The global pandemic has taken rollouts to the extreme, with previously seven-year digital transformation plans being accelerated to just four days to get benefits out to citizens in need.

The UK government needed to distribute fiscal stimulus at speed following the COVID-19 outbreak, and it turned to cloud computing solutions to help run its entire national tax system in reverse.

The governments cloud strategy makes clear that cloud technology, when properly implemented, has the potential to improve the speed of delivery while increasing security and creating opportunities for organizations to innovate.

That said, there has also been a call for government organizations and functions to work together more effectively across functions to take full advantage of cloud computing solution benefits. There is also an acknowledgment that due to its sheer vastness, organizations need to be wary that there is not a one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to cloud-based technology.

We recognize that one size does not fit all when it comes to the use of public cloud, as many of the organizations we have spoken to have taken valid, and sometimes opposing, strategic decisions. This is often because either cloud technology is so versatile that the same outcome can be achieved in different ways, or because organizations have made decisions based on their unique maturity or capability, said government officials.

Another example of cloud computings effectiveness is in the Netherlands water management system. With one-third of the country below sea level, transparency in water management is paramount for both efficiency and public safety.

Cloud computing helped to analyze real-time data from 15,000 sensors to identify changes in infrastructure and water flow so the government could act quickly and with precision to mitigate potential flooding.

In addition, sensors in streets work in tandem with weather forecasts to predict whether gritting roads for icy conditions would be a waste of money. Predictive analytics applications have proven to have a great effect on city budgets as well as human lives which have ultimately been made possible with the scale of the cloud.

Rotterdam skyline with Erasmus bridge. One-third of the Netherlands is below sea level. Source: Shutterstock

You may not think of a government or city council as having a large IoT estate, said Microsofts director of smart infrastructure, Daniel Sumner, but think of light poles, luminaries, air quality sensors, water meters, and water quality management systems. All of these are connected and generating a huge amount of data.

Prior to Microsoft, Daniel Sumner worked in biosurveillance at the US Department of Homeland Security and used analytics to understand new health threats.

During this period Sumner cites two constant challenges. One was storing data and remaining compliant; the other was managing a large collection of tools to enable machine learning and predictive analytics, allow visualization and dashboard, and for optimization purposes, he said in an interview with Global Government Forum.

Sumner realized a clear need for an end-to-end cloud analytics solution was key in bringing these tools together, and to secure and scale a platform to host them on.

Sumner predicted that customer satisfaction will eventually go a long way in motivating government decisions around cloud computing solutions and data. As citizen experiences continually improve, expectations will rise. Citizens are expecting a level of performance that they experience in the consumer world, added Sumner.

While governments have the responsibility to keep citizens safe, by providing faster access to innovation and improving citizen services, cloud computing solutions are proving to be an agile option in strenuous circumstances. The ability to quickly conjure up virtual machines to test and scale ideas can be an invaluable asset in rolling out new services in days, as opposed to months or even years.

Cloud computing: The future of public sector analytics? - TechHQ

Alibaba Cloud Computing Now Ranked Third-Largest Infrastucture as a Service Provider, Right Behind Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure – Crowdfund…

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Danzig

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Groups (NYSE:BABA) cloud services business may now be on track to generate profits as it continues to receive support from Chinas evolving digital economy.

Last year, Alibaba Cloud had been ranked as the third-largest infrastructure-as-a-service provider, which is right behind Amazon Web Services and Microsofts Azure, Launched in 2009, Alibaba Cloud now claims over 3 million users based in around 200 different countries.

As reported by the SCMP, the Alibaba Group Holding is now expecting its cloud computing services to reach profitability before the digital commerce giants financial year (FY) comes to an end in March 2021.

Headquartered in Hangzhou, Alibaba Cloud is on track to become a more sustainable business. This, according to Alibaba CFO Maggie Wu Wei, whose comments about the digital commerce giants business operations came during a recently held webinar. Wu added that Alibabas smart logistics business (called Cainiao Network) is expected to provide positive operating cash flow during the same time period.

Alibaba Cloud is the largest cloud computing services platform in China. Its also generating significant income for the Alibaba Group. For the quarter that ended in June 2020, Alibabas cloud services (which has around 3 million customers) generated approximately $1.7 billion in revenue, which is 59% more than the previous year.

Daniel Zhang Yong, CEO and chairperson at Alibaba, remarked:

We are redefining cloud computing to integrate data with commerce and business use cases, so as to create real value for the real economy and industry verticals.

He added:

We believe this is an industry-wide opportunity across all sectors. Its the kind of opportunity that comes only once in a generation.In the midst of so many uncertainties, the future of digitalization is the biggest certainty we can see. Digitalization is the biggest opportunity of our time.

As reported in September 2020, Temasek Holdings, a major Singapore state investor, is reportedly looking into making a potential investment in the planned initial public offering (IPO) of Chinese Fintech giant Ant Group, which might be the worlds largest iPO.

GIC Pte Ltd, which is Singapores sovereign wealth fund (one of the worlds largest), might also make a strategic investment in the IPO, according to Reuters, which cited sources familiar with the matter.

Ant Group (previously Ant Financial) is a subsidiary of billionaire Jack Mas Alibaba Group Holding (NYSE:BABA). If and when the IPO is launched, it will aim to list concurrently in Hong Kong and on Shanghais STAR Market. The public offering may be looking to raise up to $30 billion, the sources claim.

In August 2020, UK-based Fintech firm Paysend, which focuses on global payments, revealed that it will be working with Alipay to offer new cross-border money transfer options that aim to bring more seamless and inclusive financial services to consumers throughout the world.

Paysend claims that its agreement with Alipay aims to enable greater financial inclusion by providing convenient access to the international money transfer market. Alipay is a key part of the Ant Group, which is a subsidiary of the Alibaba Group. As reported, Ant Group earned 9.2 billion CNY (appr. $1.3 billion) in profits in the March 2020 quarter.

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Alibaba Cloud Computing Now Ranked Third-Largest Infrastucture as a Service Provider, Right Behind Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure - Crowdfund...

Top Benefits of Passing Microsoft AZ-204 Test and Having Its Related Certification – BOSS Magazine

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Danzig

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Many businesses and organizations in many sectors of the economy have shifted or are currently shifting towards cloud computing. Consequently, many organizations have been set up to provide cloud services to other companies. To date, Microsoft Azure is the second-largest cloud service and this has made Microsoft unveil various Azure certifications as well as their related exams to tackle various aspects of the Azure platform. One of these credentials is the Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate, the accreditation that equips you with the technical competency and knowledge to design, create, test, implement, and maintain apps & services on Azure. Your skills for this badge are validated by passing an exam Exam Collection, which assesses you on diverse Azure concepts ranging from storage, security, optimization as well as third-party services. So, this article will highlight some responsibilities of an Azure Developer and give reasons as to why you should invest in completing AZ-204 test and getting Azure certified.

If you are wondering whether there is any difference between a certified and uncertified practitioner, then this section outlines some of the benefits that you can enjoy once you pass the Author: Amelia X :

As an Azure Developer, what will your typical day involve? Well, you will collaborate with administrators and architects to:

Whether you are new to the field or have experience with the Microsoft Azure platform, getting certified is a step in the right direction towards improving your career. Let the reasons mentioned above act as inspiration for you to enroll for the Microsoft AZ-204 assessment and get its associated certification. All the best as you embark on that journey and become an Azure Developer!

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Top Benefits of Passing Microsoft AZ-204 Test and Having Its Related Certification - BOSS Magazine

Volterra Named a 2020 Cool Vendor in Cloud Computing by Gartner – Business Wire

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Danzig

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Volterra, an innovator in distributed cloud services, today announced it has been named a Cool Vendor in Cloud Computing in the September 2020 Cool Vendors in Cloud Computing report1 by Gartner. The report states innovation in cloud computing continues to accelerate at a rapid pace in cloud infrastructure and platform services. CIOs should assess these Cool Vendors, who are disrupting the cloud market with their innovative approach in enabling operationalization of cloud-native platforms.

Enterprises and service providers are rapidly modernizing their application development through microservices and containers, as well as their deployment by distributing them across clusters and clouds. As cited in the report, Gartner believes that in the future, cloud services will be more distributed beyond centralized cloud regions to different physical locations such as the data center and the edge. CIOs will increasingly leverage cloud-native platform services such as containers and serverless functions to modernize and build new applications.

But this creates a key challenge for DevOps and NetOps teams to evolve their application networking and security, as well as platform services, to be cloud-native and support microservices, distributed workloads and multi-cloud environments.

Volterras distributed cloud services platform is based on two integrated SaaS-based services -- VoltMesh for app networking and security, and VoltStack for app platform services. They are augmented by the companys global app delivery network (ADN), which offloads and secures critical workloads closer to end users for maximum performance and availability.

"We are thrilled to be recognized as a Gartner Cool Vendor in Cloud Computing," said Ankur Singla, Volterra co-founder and CEO. We have a unique approach to integrating key application networking, security and delivery services, and then offering them as a simplified SaaS platform, can address core challenges for both application and I&O teams.

The Volterra distributed cloud services platform is available today as a free service for base users with two multi-cloud clusters and a paid enterprise subscription for larger footprint and/or globally-distributed deployments.

[1] Gartner, Cool Vendors in Cloud Computing, Sid Nag, Arun Chandrasekaran, Raj Bala, Craig Lowery, 17 September 2020. Gartner subscribers can view the full report here.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartners Research & Advisory organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About Volterra

Volterra provides a distributed cloud platform to deploy, network and secure applications across multi-cloud and the edge. Small businesses to Fortune 100 companies and global telcos are using Volterra to deploy and operate distributed applications through a consistent set of cloud services, end-to-end visibility and control. DevOps teams can manage large sets of applications and infrastructure with less complexity. NetOps teams can simplify app-to-app networking and security across clouds.

Volterra Named a 2020 Cool Vendor in Cloud Computing by Gartner - Business Wire

Cloud computing is betting on outer space – Mint

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Danzig

The Redmond headquartered company, however, has competition in the skies. Almost five months earlier, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) had announced a beta of its Cloud Satellite service. But it is Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), the cloud computing arm of Amazon.com, which has a head start in space.

Around two years ago, it launched the AWS Ground Station to allow its customers to control their satellite communications, process data, and scale operations without having to build or manage their own ground station infrastructure. On 30 June, AWS said it was establishing a new space unit called the Aerospace and Satellite Solutions.

These are but a few cases in point to demonstrate that leading cloud computing service providers have begun flexing their muscles in space too. But why is there a sudden race to outer space?

According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), non-geostationary satellite orbits (NGSOs) such as medium earth orbits (MEO) and low earth orbits (LEO) are being increasingly used worldwide. NGSOs, unlike fixed or geostationary satellite orbits, move across the sky during their orbit around the earth. With space launches becoming more affordable and accessible, a slew of private companies are starting to rely on this new array of satellites.

They are used for applications like weather forecasting, surface imaging, communications, and video broadcasts. However, the data from these satellites need to be processed and analysed in data centres on the ground, which explains the term ground stations.

While the cost of the satellite itself is falling, building and running ground stations can cost up to $1 million or more, according to a recent blog post by Jeff Barr, chief evangelist for AWS. Complex data processing also requires a lot of computing power, and the huge data storage requirements only add to the cost.

Leading cloud computing service providers are now starting to offer satellite operators the option to use these ground stations on a pay-per-use or subscription basis, thus, helping the latter save on capital expenditure costs by employing an operating expenditure model.

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These ground stations, thus, can help satellite operators download high-resolution imagery faster, more regularly, and analyse the data with artificial intelligence (AI) toolsall of which results in faster and enhanced monitoring of changing climate patterns, forests and agriculture, among other things.

While Microsoft and IBM are testing their services, AWS Ground Station already has customers such as NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory and satellite operators Iridium Communications and Spire Global. It also has private sector customers such as Lockheed Martin, Maxar Technologies and Capella Space.

Lucrative market

The worldwide cloud infrastructure services market continued to surge in the April-June quarter of this calendar year to touch $34.6 billion, according to research firm Canalys. The growth was attributed to the consumption of cloud-based services for online collaboration and remote working tools, e-commerce, remote learning, and content streaming which hit new records during the lockdown.

During this period, AWS was the leading cloud service provider, accounting for 31% share of the total spend. Microsoft Azure came second, followed by Google Cloud and Alibaba Cloud.

The revenue of the cloud unit of Amazon totalled $10.81 billion in the April-June quarter of this calendar year, accounting for 12% of its parents revenue.

Microsoft, on the other hand, said its commercial cloud surpassed $50 billion in annual revenue for the first time" for the quarter ended June 30 (which is also its financial year ending). But it does not spell out what this commercial cloud consists of.

Nevertheless, the space forays will only add to the revenue of all these companies.

Battle lines in India

Space deals will add spice in India too. Indias cloud computing market was estimated at $2.5 billion in 2018, dominated by infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and software as a service (SaaS), according to industry body Nasscom. It is forecast to touch over $7 Billion in 2022.

AWS, Microsoft and Google are leaders on the local turf too. Last August, for instance, Microsoft signed a deal with Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (Jio)a subsidiary of Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL). The agreement included deploying the Microsoft Azure cloud platform in Jios data centers in locations across India.

This January, Google Cloud signed a deal with Bharti Airtel to cater to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India. However, Google said this July that it was pumping in $4.5 billion into Airtels rival Jio Platforms in exchange for a 7.7% stake. Not surprisingly, a month later, Bharti Airtel announced a multi-year agreement with AWS to deliver cloud solutions to big companies and SMEs in India.

According to Alok Shende, Managing Director of Ascentius Insights, the fusion of cloud computing with networking, linked by a satellite, is expected to shave off milliseconds in transferring data from source to destination. This is the holy grail in many applications, more specifically in finance and in mission-critical applications. There are many India-centric applications (like defence and in the stock markets) where this could play a powerful role."

He believes that for Microsoft, particularly, this move opens a new avenue to entrench itself in the enterprise market where it has traditionally been a strong player on the application side but has lost the leadership position in terms of market share for cloud."

Jayanth Kolla, founder and partner of Convergence Catalyst points out that India has always been a strong player in the space sector with the Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) developing and launching satellites at a fraction of global costs. He believes that the Indian governments decision to open up Indias space sector to private players is an encouraging sign.

It has already resulted in Indian space tech startups such as Pixxel, Bellatrix Aerospace, Vesta Space and Agnikul raising over $20 million funding from venture capitalists (VCs) in the last six months. TV media, agriculture, telemedicine and logistics are a few sectors that can benefit from strong satellite communication and space technology development. The ground station services launch by Microsoft and AWS will only expedite this ecosystem development significantly in India," says Kolla.

Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst and founder of Greyhound Research, concurs that the timing of this space move is right since many organizations are now beginning to try new use-cases by tapping into geospatial data (data related to a specific location on earth) that is omnipresent, given the proliferation of devices and edge computing devices.

This space is increasingly getting busy with the likes of AWS and IBM investing money and resources to cater to this opportunity," notes Gogia. He cautions, however: We believe the trick in making such an offering successful is to ensure that it is cheap to start with, since most of these projects are nothing more than trials and, hence, have an extremely high failure rate."

The distributed cloud

Space is just an additional frontier for the leading cloud services providers. It all began when companies, which traditionally used servers for their computing needs, realised that they could lower costs by accessing IT resources over the internet, and paying only for the services they needed, reducing capexa trend we now know as cloud computing.

Many companies today use private clouds (on-premise), public clouds (on a network, typically the internet) and hybrid clouds (combining public and private). User companies, though, became wise and began adopting a multi-cloud vendor approach to avoid being locked in by any single technology or cloud vendor.

With billions of devices getting connected to each other as part of the Internet of Things (IoT) trend, computing is now also getting done at the so-called edge", which simply means near the source of the data.

General Electric Co. (GE), for instance, believes cloud computing is best suited to situations that demand actions such as significant computing power, management of huge data volumes from across plants, asset health monitoring and machine learning. Edge computing, on the other hand, makes sense in places like mines or offshore oil platforms that have bandwidth constraints, which make it impractical or very expensive to transmit data from machines to the cloud.

During his speech at the Ignite event, for instance, Nadella pointed out that Microsoft was extending Azure from under the sea to outer space". He was referring to Project Natick that aims to serve customers in areas near large bodies of water. Natick uses AI to monitor signs of failure in its servers and other equipment.

Going forward, Microsoft says it will explore powering a Natick data center by a co-located ocean-based green power system, such as offshore wind or tide, with no grid connection".

Similarly, other than deploying internet balloons in space to provide broadband services, Google also provides services to companies like Planet Labs Inc. The US-based aerospace and data analytics company uses Google Cloud platform to process all of its satellite images and Google Cloud storage to host its image archive.

These moves have given rise to a trend called Distributed Cloud, which research firm Gartner describes as distribution of public cloud services to different physical locations".

By 2023, posits a 22 January note by Gartner, the leading cloud service providers will have a distributed ATM-like presence to serve a subset of their services for low-latency application requirements... Micro data centers will be located in areas where a high population of users congregates, while pop-up cloud service points will support temporary requirements like sporting events and concerts."

Greyhound Research believes offerings such as ground stations will be highly valuable in the next wave of investments in more distributed computing environments. More than 7 in 10 of our end-user inquiries with global majors have confirmed that organizations, in the next 3-5 years, will use a large variety of computing environments and make them more contextual to the use-case," says Gogia. This change is likely to be paced multiple times, given the investments in edge networks and 5G that allow remote sites in utilities, oil and gas, manufacturing, and many other scenarios," he adds.

The distributed cloud market is forecast to reach $3.9 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 24.1% during the forecast period from 2020-2025, according to market research firm, IndustryARC. Security, though, remains a concern if proper protocols and policies are not adhered to in a distributed cloud.

For now, though, ground stations that cater to satellite companies will remain one big component of the distribution cloud. A race is clearly on and all the main players are looking up at the sky.

Leslie DMonte is a consultant who writes on the intersection of science and technology

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Cloud computing is betting on outer space - Mint

IBM to split into IT business and cloud computing company – Business Day

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Danzig

Bengaluru IBM is splitting itself into two public companies, capping a years-long effort by the worlds first big computing firm to diversify away from its legacy businesses to focus on high-margin cloud computing.

IBM will list its IT infrastructure services unit, which provides services that include technical support for data centres, as a separate company with a new name by the end of 2021.

Shares of the company were up 7% in early trading on the move by CEO Arvind Krishna, who also engineered IBMs $34bn acquisition of cloud company Red Hat last year.

We divested networking back in the 1990s, we divested PCs back in the 2000s, we divested semiconductors about five years ago because all of them didnt necessarily play into the integrated value proposition, Krishna said on a call with analysts.

In a blog, Krishna called the move a significant shift in the 109-year-old companys business model.

IBM is essentially getting rid of a shrinking, low-margin operation given the cannibalising impact of automation and cloud computing, masking stronger growth for the rest of the operation, Wedbush Securities analyst Moshe Katri said.

The company has shifted focus to cloud growth in recent years, aiming to make up for slowing software sales and seasonal demand for its mainframe servers.

Krishna, who replaced Ginni Rometty as CEO in April, said IBMs software and solutions portfolio would account for the majority of company revenue after the separation.

IBM said it expects to incur nearly $2.5bn in expenses related to the unit spin-off.The company also said it expects third-quarter revenue of $17.6bn and an adjusted profit per share of $2.58, roughly in line with Wall Street estimates.

Reuters

IBM to split into IT business and cloud computing company - Business Day

HCA Healthcare Previews 2020 Third Quarter Results – Web Hosting | Cloud Computing | Datacenter | Domain News – Daily Host News

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Danzig

Will Return Approximately $6 Billion in CARES Act Funding

NASHVILLE, Tenn.(BUSINESS WIRE)HCA Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE: HCA) today announced preliminary financial and operating results for its third quarter ended September 30, 2020. In addition, the Company will return, or repay early, approximately $6 billion of government assistance funds received as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The Companys preliminary financial and operating results are based on current expectations and subject to finalization of the Companys third quarter financial and accounting procedures.

Third Quarter Preview

HCA anticipates revenues for the third quarter of 2020 to approximate $13.300 billion compared to $12.694 billion in the third quarter of 2019. Income before income taxes is expected to approximate $950 million in the third quarter of 2020 compared to $979 million in the third quarter of 2019. Results for the third quarter of 2020 include a reversal of $822 million in government stimulus income recorded in the second quarter of 2020 related to general distribution funds received from the Provider Relief Fund established by the CARES Act. Results for the third quarter of 2019 included losses on retirement of debt of $211 million. Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter of 2020 is expected to approximate $2.030 billion compared to $2.285 billion in the previous years third quarter. Adjusted EBITDA is a non-GAAP financial measure. A table providing supplemental information and reconciling expected income before income taxes to expected Adjusted EBITDA is included in this release.

Same facility admissions for the third quarter of 2020 are expected to decline 4 percent, and same facility equivalent admissions are expected to decline 9 percent, when compared to the third quarter of 2019. Same facility emergency room visits for the third quarter of 2020 are expected to decline 20 percent from the prior years third quarter.

Same facility revenue per equivalent admission is expected to increase approximately 15 percent in the third quarter of 2020 compared to the prior years third quarter due to increases in acuity for patients treated and favorable payer mix during the quarter.

HCA Healthcare anticipates reporting its complete financial and operating results for the third quarter of 2020 on, or about, October 26, 2020.

CARES Act

The CARES Act, enacted on March 27, 2020, was intended to provide emergency financial assistance to healthcare providers for the adverse impact the COVID-19 pandemic could have on their operations. We greatly appreciate the CARES Act funding and the policymakers who fought hard to ensure hospitals would have the essential resources during the pandemic, said Sam Hazen, CEO of HCA Healthcare.

During the early days of the pandemic, the Company took a conservative approach which included a number of actions to meet the operational and financial challenges this global health crisis was expected to present. Many aspects of our approach were outlined in our first quarter release.

As a result of these actions, and other factors, HCA Healthcare is able to return, or repay early, all of its share of Provider Relief Fund distributions of approximately $1.6 billion and approximately $4.4 billion in Medicare accelerated payments. The Company will work with the appropriate government agencies to arrange the payment of these funds. The Company expects to fund the entire amount of such payments from available cash and future cash flows from operations.

As the initial immediacy of the emergency has passed, and with more information, and more experience managing our operations during the pandemic, we believe returning these taxpayer dollars is appropriate and the socially responsible thing to do, said Hazen. Our focus will remain on supporting our patients, employees and physicians and continuing the vital role we play in the communities we serve.

Investor Call

HCA Healthcare will host a conference call for investors at 8:00 a.m. Central Daylight Time tomorrow, October 9, 2020. All interested investors are invited to access a live audio broadcast of the call via webcast. The broadcast will also be available on a replay basis beginning the afternoon of October 9th following the call. The webcast can be accessed through the Companys Investor Relations web page at https://investor.hcahealthcare.com/events-and-presentations.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, which involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements include the Companys capital allocation, as well as other statements that do not relate solely to historical or current facts. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words like may, believe, will, expect, project, estimate, anticipate, plan, initiative or continue. These forward-looking statements are based on our current plans and expectations and are subject to a number of known and unknown uncertainties and risks, many of which are beyond our control, which could significantly affect current plans and expectations and our future financial position and results of operations. These factors include, but are not limited to, (1) the finalization of the Companys third quarter 2020 financial and accounting procedures, (2) developments related to COVID-19, including, without limitation, related to the length and severity of the pandemic; the volume of canceled or rescheduled procedures and the volume of COVID-19 patients cared for across our health systems; measures we are taking to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic; the impact and terms of government and administrative regulation and stimulus (including the CARES Act, the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act and other enacted legislation); changes in revenues due to declining patient volumes, changes in payor mix and deteriorating macroeconomic conditions (including increases in uninsured and underinsured patients); potential increased expenses related to labor, supply chain or other expenditures; workforce disruptions and supply shortages and disruptions; and the timing and availability of effective medical treatments and vaccines, (3) the impact of our substantial indebtedness and the ability to refinance such indebtedness on acceptable terms, as well as risks associated with disruptions in the financial markets and the business of financial institutions as the result of the COVID-19 pandemic which could impact us from a financial perspective, (4) the impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (collectively, the Affordable Care Act), including the effects of court challenges to, any repeal of, or changes to, the Affordable Care Act or additional changes to its implementation, the possible enactment of additional federal or state health care reforms and possible changes to other federal, state or local laws or regulations affecting the health care industry, including single-payer proposals (often referred to as Medicare for All), and also including any such laws or governmental regulations which are adopted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, (5) the effects related to the continued implementation of the sequestration spending reductions required under the Budget Control Act of 2011, and related legislation extending these reductions, and the potential for future deficit reduction legislation that may alter these spending reductions, which include cuts to Medicare payments, or create additional spending reductions, (6) increases in the amount and risk of collectability of uninsured accounts and deductibles and copayment amounts for insured accounts, (7) the ability to achieve operating and financial targets, and attain expected levels of patient volumes and control the costs of providing services, (8) possible changes in Medicare, Medicaid and other state programs, including Medicaid supplemental payment programs or Medicaid waiver programs, that may impact reimbursements to health care providers and insurers and the size of the uninsured or underinsured population, (9) the highly competitive nature of the health care business, (10) changes in service mix, revenue mix and surgical volumes, including potential declines in the population covered under third-party payer agreements, the ability to enter into and renew third-party payer provider agreements on acceptable terms and the impact of consumer-driven health plans and physician utilization trends and practices, (11) the efforts of health insurers, health care providers, large employer groups and others to contain health care costs, (12) the outcome of our continuing efforts to monitor, maintain and comply with appropriate laws, regulations, policies and procedures, (13) increases in wages and the ability to attract and retain qualified management and personnel, including affiliated physicians, nurses and medical and technical support personnel, (14) the availability and terms of capital to fund the expansion of our business and improvements to our existing facilities, (15) changes in accounting practices, (16) changes in general economic conditions nationally and regionally in our markets, including economic and business conditions (and the impact thereof on the financial markets and banking industry) resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, (17) the emergence of and effects related to other pandemics, epidemics and infectious diseases, (18) future divestitures which may result in charges and possible impairments of long-lived assets, (19) changes in business strategy or development plans, (20) delays in receiving payments for services provided, (21) the outcome of pending and any future tax audits, disputes and litigation associated with our tax positions, (22) potential adverse impact of known and unknown government investigations, litigation and other claims that may be made against us, (23) the impact of potential cybersecurity incidents or security breaches, (24) our ongoing ability to demonstrate meaningful use of certified electronic health record (EHR) technology and the impact of interoperability requirements, (25) the impact of natural disasters, such as hurricanes and floods, or similar events beyond our control, (26) changes in the U.S. federal, state, or foreign tax laws including interpretive guidance that may be issued by taxing authorities or other standard setting bodies, and (27) other risk factors described in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019, our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2020 and our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Many of the factors that will determine our future results are beyond our ability to control or predict. In light of the significant uncertainties inherent in the forward-looking statements contained herein, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which reflect managements views only as of the date hereof. We undertake no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements, or to make any other forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

All references to Company and HCA as used throughout this release refer to HCA Healthcare, Inc. and its affiliates.

2020 (Forecast)

2019

$950

$979

(10)

211

Income before income taxes, excluding gains on sales of

940

1,190

700

647

390

448

$2,030

$2,285

Contacts

INVESTOR CONTACT:Mark Kimbrough

615-344-2688

MEDIA CONTACT:Harlow Sumerford

615-344-1851

See the rest here:

HCA Healthcare Previews 2020 Third Quarter Results - Web Hosting | Cloud Computing | Datacenter | Domain News - Daily Host News

Analog Devices and Maxim Integrated Shareholders Approve Combination – Web Hosting | Cloud Computing | Datacenter | Domain News – Daily Host News

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Danzig

NORWOOD, Mass. & SAN JOSE, Calif.(BUSINESS WIRE)Analog Devices, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADI) and Maxim Integrated Products, Inc. (Nasdaq: MXIM) announced that, at their respective special meetings of shareholders held today, ADI and Maxim shareholders voted to approve their respective proposals relating to the pending combination of ADI and Maxim. The combination will strengthen ADI as an analog semiconductor leader with increased breadth and scale across multiple attractive end markets.

We are pleased with the overwhelming support from our shareholders for this exciting combination. Together with Maxim, we will enhance our domain expertise and breadth of engineering capabilities to develop more complete solutions to solve customers most complex problems, said Vincent Roche, President and CEO of Analog Devices. We look forward to joining forces with Maxim to drive the next wave of semiconductor growth and deliver significant value to all our stakeholders.

We appreciate the strong support of our shareholders for Maxims combination with ADI. Together, we will enable the industrys highest performance analog and mixed-signal solutions through our complementary product portfolios, said Tunc Doluca, President and CEO of Maxim.

As previously announced, the waiting period applicable to the consummation of the transaction under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act has expired. The completion of the transaction remains subject to the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions, including receipt of certain non-U.S. regulatory approvals. The companies continue to expect that the transaction will be completed in the summer of 2021.

About Analog Devices

Analog Devices is a leading global high-performance analog technology company dedicated to solving the toughest engineering challenges. We enable our customers to interpret the world around us by intelligently bridging the physical and digital with unmatched technologies that sense, measure, power, connect and interpret. Visit http://www.analog.com.

About Maxim Integrated

Maxim Integrated develops innovative analog and mixed-signal products and technologies to make systems smaller and smarter, with enhanced security and increased energy efficiency. We are empowering design innovation for our automotive, industrial, healthcare, mobile consumer, and cloud data center customers to deliver industry-leading solutions that help change the world. Learn more at http://www.maximintegrated.com.

Forward Looking Statements

This filing relates to the pending business combination transaction between ADI and Maxim. This communication contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements address a variety of subjects, including, for example, projections as to the anticipated benefits of the proposed transaction, the anticipated impact of the proposed transaction on the combined organizations business and future financial and operating results, the expected amount and timing of synergies from the proposed transaction, and the anticipated closing date for the proposed transaction. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about ADIs and Maxims beliefs, plans and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on ADIs and Maxims current expectations and are subject to a number of factors and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements often contain words such as expect, anticipate, intend, plan, believe, estimate, would, target and similar expressions, as well as variations or negatives of these words. The following important factors and uncertainties, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements: the uncertainty as to the extent of the duration, scope and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; political and economic uncertainty, including any faltering in global economic conditions or the stability of credit and financial markets; erosion of consumer confidence and declines in customer spending; unavailability of raw materials, services, supplies or manufacturing capacity; changes in geographic, product or customer mix; changes in export classifications, import and export regulations or duties and tariffs; changes in ADIs or Maxims estimates of their respective expected tax rates based on current tax law; ADIs ability to successfully integrate Maxims businesses and technologies; the risk that the expected benefits and synergies of the proposed transaction and growth prospects of the combined company may not be fully achieved in a timely manner, or at all; adverse results in litigation matters, including the potential for litigation related to the proposed transaction; the risk that ADI or Maxim will be unable to retain and hire key personnel; the risk that the conditions to the transaction are not satisfied on a timely basis or at all or the failure of the transaction to close for any other reason or to close on the anticipated terms, including the anticipated tax treatment; the risk that any regulatory approval, consent or authorization that may be required for the proposed transaction is not obtained or is obtained subject to conditions that are not anticipated; unanticipated difficulties or expenditures relating to the transaction, the response of business partners and retention as a result of the announcement and pendency of the transaction; uncertainty as to the long-term value of ADIs common stock; and the diversion of management time on transaction-related matters. For additional information about other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements, please refer to ADIs and Maxims respective periodic reports and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the risk factors contained in ADIs and Maxims most recent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Annual Reports on Form 10-K. Forward-looking statements represent managements current expectations and are inherently uncertain. Except as required by law, neither ADI nor Maxim undertakes or assumes any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information or to reflect subsequent events or circumstances or otherwise.

(ADI-WEB)

Contacts

Editors Contact InformationMichael Lucarelli

781-461-3282

Senior Director of Investor Relations, ADI

investor.relations@analog.com

Andrea Duffy

646-984-0240

Andrea.Duffy@teneo.com

Kathy Ta

Vice President, Investor Relations, Maxim

kathy.ta@maximintegrated.com

Free Speech and Media Freedom in Corporate India : Countering Their Negative Image – Economic and Political Weekly

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Danzig

There would, perhaps, be no better time in which Sukumar Muralidharan could write a book reflecting on the political implications of the right to free speech in India. At a time when citizens, activists and intellectuals are being put behind bars because they spoke against the government, against the draconian laws from the colonial period, and against the exploitative economic policies of the state, Muralidharan asks the right questions, at the right time. Can freedom of speech survive in a market-driven society where civil liberty is overridden by consumer choices? What kind of journalistic practice protects free speech and journalistic freedom in a fascist state? And, lastly, can social media save the civil society from fake news?

Muralidharans book offers an insiders perspective but from a distance. Although having been a journalist all his life, he is a practising academic. This discursive interface is manifested in the manner he handles intertwined contexts like nationalism, public, civility, state, and media with clinical detachment on the one hand and absolute care on the other.

The book contains eight chapters apart from the introduction and epilogue. Each chapter unfolds with a truth, followed by the deconstruction of that truth in light of freedom of speech. Muralidharan engages extensively and unapologetically with the idea of freedomwhat goes and what remains. Chapter 1 is titled A Patchy Freedom: Commerce, Class and the Value of Speech. It opens with political and historical contexts leading to the emergence of the universal idea of freedom of speech. However, soon it also asks the obvious questions: Who can speak after all? Can freedom of speech be absolute? Or is it class-specific? Whose freedom of speech do we protect and whose do we not? Here, one is reminded of Gayatri Spivaks (1990) legendary and undeniable question: Can the subaltern speak? Echoing similar concerns, Muralidharan suggests that the rise of a corporatised democracy in India is the ultimate blow to free speech and only those with power have the right to speak. Taking Vilfredo Paretos (1991) elite theory forward, Muralidharan asserts that we are living amidst a major democratic deficit where only the power elite enjoys absolute freedom of speech to the near exclusion of the public at large. In that light, what once constituted a universal and fundamental right of citizens in India, is now reduced to an exclusive coterie. Speech is valued only where the money flows.

Taking this point further, in Chapter 2 Nationalism: Citizens Great and Small, he argues that the way nation-building and nationalism emerged in the postcolonial period in India has created a visible social cleavage between the Hindus as the majority and the Muslims as the so-called minority. Consequently, nationalism or the communal manifestation of jingoism is a big roadblock to free speech. Print media in post-independence India has systematically fuelled this anti-Islam feeling to the extent that media neutrality sounds banal today. On the other hand, privatisation of media houses and gradually of every other enterprise in India has produced a standardised consumer behaviour that though indicates growth but demonstrates little cultural diversity that is the backbone of the Indian society. One is reminded of Noam Chomskys (2011) five filters that media houses apply to the news-making process before disseminating them. In a similar fashion, Muralidharan here asserts that anti-Islam sentiments (like the anti-communism sentiments of post-war America) have been mainstreamed in India through print media and popular culture, especially since the post-Babri Masjid demolition (1992) period.Ramayanaand Mahabharatabecame two pinnacles of Hindu culture that Arvind Rajagopal (2001) later critiqued in his extensive works on the Indian public sphere. The usage of the terms great and small in the title of this chapter reflect upon the terms great and little traditions that Yogendra Singh (1986) coined inModernization of Indian Tradition: A Systemic Study of Social Changewith the implication that Brahminical Hindu caste culture has indeed been the great tradition in India. Consequently, it is not just the elite and the powerful but the Hindu high-caste citizens who have the privilege to free speech.

In The State: Exceptions and the Uses of Ambiguity, Muralidharan offers several illustrations from the recent past in India to prove his point. In the last six years under the present regime, India has witnessed random arrests, police brutality and state-sponsored terrorism systematically meted out against tribals, Maoists, activists, journalists and intellectuals. In view of this, Muralidharan asserts that the states that hide the inconvenient truth do not allow journalism to report on the ordinary human sensibility (p 139). He adds that the present Indian states engagement with the Constitution is shrouded in mystery and media freedom to reporting of truth is heavily compromised as a result. He blames the corporate media and rapid commercialisation of the industry for this.

A Glimmer of Hope

However, the future is not totally grim, since the public always find ways to assert, to resist and to have their voices heard. With this high note, he writes Chapter 3 titled Civil Society: Media and the Politics of Anti-politics. Anti-politics here implies the rise of the spontaneous movements led by young people, students and farmers all across the world; for example, the Arab Spring. As part of the new social movements, these spontaneous uprisings defy organised, hierarchical and often misogynistic politics of the mainstream; they are organised around direct participation of young people with lived experiences they are trying to resist and bring in substantial changes in society at large. The political position of these kinds of anti-politics is based on faith in the power of the people. This chapter brings the famous Chilean song back in our everyday conscienceY el pueblo unido Jamsservencido(And the united people will neverbe defeated).

However, rise and sustenance of the anti-politics of the people is not possible, at least, in its present, fruitful sense without the virtual platform of social media, Muralidharan acknowledges. Like Rajagopal, he asserts that the internet has indeed emerged as the digital public sphere, but he is cautious to point out that such digital spheres are constantly under police surveillance. In other words, as Foucault suggested, there is no escape from governmentality. Next, Muralidharan also warns us against the brutality of the social mediaone should not be nave to consider social media as the holy grail of resistance. More often than not, the state uses the digital spaces not just for stalking, but also for systematic hate speeches against its own citizens. In fact, debates around what constitutes counter speech while what is hate speech have been doing rounds for quite some time in public discourses now. Taking them forward, Muralidharan says that civility of the civil society suffers a major setback in social media as the digital spaces are infested with fake accounts and hate speechesboth created by information technology(IT)cells.

Satire and Laughter

While digital space in social media is a cautionary tale, one cannot stop disseminating, one cannot stop resisting, and one cannot stop expressing. Here, Muralidharan turns to political satires and cartoons to express the truth. Focusing extensively on Charlie Hebdo and the attack in its office in Paris in 2015, in the next chapter Satire: The Power of Laughter and the Laughter of Power, he highlights the boon and the bane of satire in authoritarian regimes. One cannot deny that several cartoonists and satirists have been targets the world over for a very long time. Banksy, one of the most popular and prominent satirists of recent times, is anonymous. What does that tell us about the dystopic world we live in? While we revel at the power of laughter in satires, we employ anonymity to cherish that laughter.

In Chapters 5 and 6 Market: Free Speech and the Commercial Imperative and Advertising: Transparency as a Virtue Admired at a Distance, Muralidharan throws light on the reasons behind the dystopia that is now so hard to defeat. In a market-dominated economy and society, free speech is a fiction, he says (p 265). In that sense, if there is no free speech, how can there be media freedom? Whoensures medias access to space and time without unnecessarystate intervention? As a matter of fact, one is not sure whose freedom is moreimportantthe freedom of the public tochoose or the freedom of the advertiser to enforce? In view of that, when news is a commodity, readers are the consumershence, truth, like consent, can also be tailored and manufactured to suit the emotional demands of the latter. Here, advertising plays a significant role.There was a time in the pre-liberalisation,privatisation and globalisation(LPG)era when advertisements financiallysupported news making; now, the advertisement is the news. The global takeover of advertisement corpuses implies gigantic corporate control of airspaces to the extent that media houses close to the regime create and disseminate advertisement contents camouflaged as news. Muralidharan offers the excellent example of brand Modi created by theTimes of India,Dainik Jagran, etc, just before the run-up to the 2014 general elections in India through mediated buzzwords likeModi Wave, Ab ki Bar/Modi Sarkar, Har Har Modi/Har Ghar Modi, NaMo, to name a few. Hence, it is no exaggeration to say, as Muralidharan does, that news has been replaced with advertisement and caters to the demand of the market. This renders the entire discussion of media freedom irrelevant.

This brings us to the last and bare-it-all chapter Journalism: Paid Speech in Sold Media. We have travelled from patchy freedom to paid speech. Be prepared to be Kafkaesque in a world of post truth where one pays their way through the news they want to read. Paid media has witnessed catastrophicsuccess, meandering through fake newsand branding (p 397). Readers have already reached a point of deconstruction from where there is no return. However, the author does offer a slight ray of hopewhat if we are ever able torebuild the journalistic discourse to accommodate freedom back? There is no denying that these are the hopes one lives withnotwithstanding their absurdity.

A well-researched book with an essential ingredient of primary data for anthropological validation, it stands out and is all set to survive the test of time. One is continuously reminded of Faiz Ahmed Faizs famous lines:Bol, ke labh azad hain tere/Bol, zubaan ab tak teri hain.Muralidharan has weaved through the idea of free speech intricately throughout the text and driven the point substantially homefreedom of speech goes hand in hand with freedom of expressionhence, a free media is not an entry point but an end product of the right to free speech, especially in a neo-liberal world. This book points out that it is worth preserving the pragmatic identification of the range of the media as the portals of free speech, truth and free expressionfrom news reports to cartoons and satires to cinema to digital media. Muralidharan has not compartmentalised his vision of freedom, restricting it to print or television. Rather, he tests his hypothesis with conviction across spectrum, but sadly, yet diligently, yields the same resultsfast erosion of freedom of speech in a corporatised society. Kudos to the author for daring to include civility instead of civil society in the title, rightfully reminding the readers that meaningful participation in public life begins with being civil. In our journey from personhood to citizenship, civility is the critical minimum.

One could compare this book with Sanjay AsthanasIndias State-run Media: Broadcasting, Power, and Narrativepublished in 2019. Both Asthana and Muralidharan focus on state-media interface, but the former does so from the perspective of the nation while the latter from the standpoint of the media. Moreover, unlike Asthana, Muralidharan addresses the crucial question of what the location of free speech is if one has to assess the possibility of media freedom in India today.

References

Asthana, Sanjay (2019):Indias State-run Media: Broadcasting, Power, and Narrative, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chomsky, Noam (2011):The Media Control: The Spectacular Achievement of Propaganda, New York: Seven Stories Press.

Pareto, Vilfredo (1991):The Rise and Fall of Elites: Application of Theoretical Sociology, New York: Routledge.

Rahman, Sarvat (2002):100 Poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, New Delhi: Abhinav Publications.

Rajagopal, Arvind (2001):Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Public in India, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Singh, Yogendra (1986):Modernization of Indian Tradition, New Delhi: Rawat Publications.

Spivak, Gayatri (1990):The Post-colonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues, New York: Routledge.

Udupa, Sahana (2015):Making News in Global India: Media, Publics, Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Free Speech and Media Freedom in Corporate India : Countering Their Negative Image - Economic and Political Weekly

How Freedom of Speech Protects You from Rulers Like Trump – The Daily Beast

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Danzig

Not too long ago, I was speaking to an audience at a prominent and highly regarded law school. I was gratified by the sight of this audience: about an equal number of women and men, and a rainbow of different ethnicitiesBlack, Hispanic, Asian.

It was the kind of audience I never saw decades earlier when I was still heading the ACLU and we were fighting to end what had been the historical exclusion of women and people of color at law schools and universities.

The subject we were discussing was speech rights and whether it was ever appropriate, much less constitutional, to prohibit speech because its content was bigoted or hateful.

I was surprised to learn that many in the audience self-identified as progressives and believed that it was both desirable and constitutional to ban what they called hate speech because, they claimed, such speech was a barrier to social justice, to ending the layers of prejudice against women and people of color that had resulted, and still results, in invidious discrimination and subjugation.

I certainly had no quarrel with their passion to end such discrimination and subjugation: I had spent most of my adult life fighting to do just that, and agreed that although much progress had been made, we were still far away from the day when we could declare that fight definitively won.

But I was baffled and surprised that so many in the audience believed that the right to freedom of speech and the cause of social justice were antagonists, and that in order to help attain social justice it was necessary to tolerate, indeed to advocate, bans on speech.

For me, social justice and freedom of speech were not antagonists, but crucial allies that depended on each other.

Historically in the United States, every fight for social justice began with free speech, and depended on the right to speech to initiate and sustain their movement.

In the early years of the 20th century, for example, the nascent labor movement critically requiredand often in the early days did not enjoythe right to meet, to leaflet, to demonstrate, to picket in order to convert their powerlessness into success against oppressive employers.

During the same period, the movement to end lynching of Black people, by courageous advocates like Ida B. Wells, totally depended upon freedom of speech and the right to publish and spread the word about the epidemic of lynchings in the land, and to gather and build opposition to it.

In 1916, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was arrested in New York City nearly every week for distributing informational leaflets on birth control to women victimized and, yes, enslaved by unwanted pregnancies. The beginning of the reproductive rights movement required freedom of speech the way a new plant requires water and sunlight.

The beginning of the reproductive rights movement required freedom of speech the way a new plant requires water and sunlight.

And of course in our own time, the civil rights movement that finally resulted in laws that ended the dominion of Jim Crow in hotels and restaurants and swimming pools and public toilets, on juries and in employment and housing and voting, could not have flourished or succeeded without the First Amendment to protect their efforts to call attention to the abuses of skin-color exclusions and build the support needed to end them.

When in 1955, Rosa Parks sat down in a seat reserved for whites on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and a then-unknown young Baptist minister named Martin Luther King, Jr. stood up to support her by organizing a boycott of those buses, none of that would have been possible without the protection of the First Amendment.

And the same was true of the countless other demonstrations, sit-ins and marches during the years that followed, including the one across the Selma bridge that helped build support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

That is why the hero of that march in Selma, the recently departed and much revered John Lewis, was a fierce advocate for freedom of speech. As Lewis said: Without freedom of speech and the right to dissent, the Civil Rights movement would have been a bird without wings.

And thats also why Martin Luther King, Jr. was such a strong supporter of the First Amendment. As one of his top lieutenants, Hosea Williams, once explained to a national television audience, he supported the right of the Klan to march peacefully because, he said, if he allowed the government the discretion to ban the Klan in Atlanta on Monday, it would use that power to ban him and his efforts to register Black people to vote in rural Georgia the rest of the week and forever after. The first target of the governments restriction of speech is never the last.

And thats the crucial point about First Amendment rights: If we allow the government the discretion to ban hateful speech, the only important question is who gets to decide whats hateful. We can be sure it wont be those who are oppressed, nor their advocates. It will be whoever has political power. And that will too often include people like Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Rudy Giuliani and, yes, Donald Trump and William Barr. Why would Black Lives Matter protesters demonstrating for social justice want to entrust their speech rights to Donald Trump?

The speech that social justice advocates hate is not the same as the speech that Donald Trump hates. And if it became legal to ban hateful speech, it would be Trump and people like him, not social justice advocates or people like me, who would most often be in a position to decide whose speech to ban.

Speech restrictions are like poison gas: they seem like a good idea when youve got the gas and a deserving target in sight. But then the wind shifts and blows the gas back on you.

In the 1970s, in England, the National Union of Students succeeded in getting racist speech banned on university campuses. One of the groups supporting the ban was an organization of Zionists. A few years later, the same student association decided that Zionism was a form of racism, and banned Zionists from speaking on campuses.

The wind had shifted.

Mighty Ira will be released in virtual cinemas on Oct. 9 and available on Amazon, iTunes, and Google Play on October 23.

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How Freedom of Speech Protects You from Rulers Like Trump - The Daily Beast

Partisans in the U.S. increasingly divided on whether offensive content online is taken seriously enough – Pew Research Center

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Danzig

Americans are divided on whether offensive content online is taken seriously enough and on which is more important online: free speech or feeling safe. Republicans and Democrats have grown further apart when it comes to these issues since 2017.

Overall, 55% of Americans say many people take offensive content they see online too seriously, while a smaller share (42%) say offensive content online is too often excused as not a big deal, according to a new Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults conducted in early September 2020. In addition, about half of Americans (53%) say its more important for people to be able to feel welcome and safe online, compared with 45% who believe its more important for people to be able to speak their minds freely online, according to an earlier Center survey fielded in July 2020.

Pew Research Center conducted these studies to understand Americans views about whether offensive content online is taken seriously enough and on which is more important online: free speech or feeling safe. For the analyses on offensive content, we surveyed 10,093 U.S. adults from Sept. 8-13, 2020, while 10,211 U.S. adults were surveyed from July 13-19, 2020 for the analyses about the balance between free speech and feeling safe online.

Everyone who took part in these surveys is a member of the Centers American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. This gives us confidence that any sample can represent the whole U.S. adult population. (See ourMethods 101 explaineron random sampling.) The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about theATPs methodology.

Here arethe questions, responses and methodology usedfor this report.

Americans differences over these issues are tied to partisanship. Roughly six-in-ten Democrats and independents who lean Democratic (59%) say offensive content online is too often excused as not a big deal, while just a quarter of their Republican counterparts agree a 34 percentage point gap. On the other hand, 72% of Republicans and Republican leaners say many people take offensive content they see online too seriously, while about four-in-ten Democrats say the same.

Partisan differences are also present today when asking about feeling safe versus having freedom of speech online. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to think people being able to feel welcome and safe online is more important than people being able to speak their minds freely online (60% vs. 45%), while Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say people being able to speak their minds freely online is more important (54% vs. 38%).

While the overall shares of the public supporting each perspective are nearly identical to when the Center last asked these questions in January 2017, partisan differences have more than doubled in this time. The partisan gap between Democrats and Republicans on whether they believe offensive content online was taken seriously enough has grown from 13 percentage points in 2017 to 33 points today. And while Republicans and Democrats held similar views about the appropriate balance between free speech and feeling safe online in 2017, these partisan differences grew fivefold by 2020, from a 3-point gap to a 15-point gap.

Within the parties, there are ideological differences in partisans views on offensive content. There is a 16-point gap between the shares of liberal Democrats and those in the party with moderate to conservative views saying offensive content online is too often excused as not a big deal (68% vs. 52%). A smaller gap is present when comparing conservative Republicans with those who are moderate to liberal on the issue of whether many people take offensive content they see online too seriously (74% vs. 68%). Conservative Republicans are also more likely than moderate to liberal Republicans to say people being able to speak their minds freely online is more important than people being able to feel welcome and safe online (57% vs. 49%).

Gender differences are also seen within each party. Republican men stand out for valuing people being able to speak their minds freely online over people being able to feel welcome and safe online. These Republican men (63%) are more likely than Republican women (44%) and both Democratic men (44%) and women (34%) to back that idea. Similarly, 76% of Republican men say many people take offensive content they see online too seriously, compared with 67% of Republican women who say the same.

While the shares of Democrats who support this view are much smaller, Democratic men are more likely to voice the view that offensive content online is taken too seriously compared with Democratic women (43% vs. 36%). These gender differences on the issue of whether people take offensive content they see online too seriously are largely due to the differences between conservative Republican men and women (80% vs. 68%) and liberal Democratic men and women (36% vs. 27%); their more moderate counterparts differed little by gender.

Regardless of political affiliation, women in both parties are more likely than their male counterparts to think offensive content online isnt taken seriously enough and to prioritize people feeling safe over people being able to express themselves freely online. Even when conservative Republican women are considered, about half or more of women say people being able to feel welcome and safe online is more important than people being able to speak their minds freely online.

In addition to valuing people feeling safe online and thinking offensive content online isnt taken seriously enough, both Democrats (77%) and women (72%) are more likely to say social media companies have a responsibility to remove offensive content from their platforms as compared with Republicans and men (52% and 59%, respectively), according to a 2019 Center survey.

Note: Here arethe questions, responses and methodology usedfor this report.

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Partisans in the U.S. increasingly divided on whether offensive content online is taken seriously enough - Pew Research Center

HOA orders Trump supporters to pull the plug on shocking signs – WHAS11.com

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Danzig

Two people in Louisville ordered to disconnect electric shock device on Trump campaign signs.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. Were they protecting freedom of speech or creating a neighborhood hazard? The answer depends on who you ask. A Louisville neighborhood is buzzing after two residents electrified their political signs, they say, to keep them from being stolen. Both residents are fans of President Donald Trump.

It's a fence charger that I had up in 2016, Walter Francis explained. But that's all they (thieves) would get would be a shock.

An electrical current flowed through his sign of political pride and signs just around the corner at Shirley Borowick's place.

In 2016 we had 3 or 4 signs stolen until we put electricity on them and they were left," Mrs. Borowick explained. So, we figured this time we would just put the electricity on to begin with without having them stolen.

Mr. Francis says he had 6 signs stolen in 2016 and was not going to let it happen again.

An electric fence box hangs from a tree in his front yard, up the line from two signs. Shirley and Walter hoped that a taste of juice would leave an impression on anyone considering stealing their power-packed message.

They were, indeed, not stolen as of this week. But someone in the Stone Lakes subdivision complained and that short-circuited the conservative neighbors plans.

Someone called the police, so Shirley added an additional warning that read, No trespassing! High Voltage!

That's when the fire department made a visit. Posts about the sight lit up a private community group and the H-O-A sent a note telling both families to disarm the campaign ads. Both say that they since pulled the plug. But they insist this isn't about the electricity rather it's an attack on free speech and their chosen candidate.

An HOA attorney argues it has everything to do with danger and nothing to do with the content of the political signs.

Attorney Kerry Butler released this statement:

A few days ago, through our neighborhoods official Facebook page, we were made aware of two (2) homes in our neighborhood which had campaign signs in their yard, which campaign signs were wired to a live electrical current. These displays were designed, presumably as a deterrent to anyone who might attempt to steal the signs, to provide an electrical shock to anyone who might come in contact with the signs.

The Board of Directors of Stone Lakes Homeowners Association, Inc. takes their responsibilities as board members very seriously, and no single subject is of greater importance to the Board that the safety of their neighbors. After the Board made a determination that a nuisance, as well as a dangerous situation with the potential to cause injury to anyone who might come in contact with the signs existed, letters were mailed by the HOAs attorney to the two (2) sets of homeowners where the signs in question were displayed. The content of the campaign signs in question, did not factor into the Boards decision to send the letters to the homeowners. The residents were not demanded to remove the campaign signs, but only that they be disconnected from any electrical power source, so as to alleviate any concerns of injury to any person or pet.

In an October 8th phone call, the HOAs attorney again clarified to one (1) of the homeowners that the content of the campaign signs was not an issue, and that the campaign signs could stay, so long as they were disconnected from the electrical power source, and so long as a third hand-written sign which read No Trespassing!! Stay Off High Voltage!! Stay Off was removed from the lot to alleviate perception of danger. The Stone Lakes HOA Board has no interest in attempting to infringe on anyones freedom of speech. Stone Lakes is a safe and friendly neighborhood, and the Board took action to ensure that it remains safe and friendly for all residents and visitors.

Shirley and Walter say their signs are staying through the election. He has a new message to would-be thieves.

If they were to get caught on my lawn trying to take my signs, they might have a problem, he said.

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HOA orders Trump supporters to pull the plug on shocking signs - WHAS11.com

LSU may shine on the gridiron, but it falls short on free speech: survey – The College Fix

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Danzig

LSU may shine on the gridiron, but it falls short on free speech: survey

October 9, 2020

Louisiana State Universitys football team went undefeated last season. The school is at the back of the pack, however, when it comes to protecting the First Amendment.

That according to a report in RealClearEducation, which points out the Baton Rouge-based public university came in 53rd out of 55 schools in a survey it conducted recently in partnership with College Pulse and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

Donavan Newkirk reports:

More than two-thirds (68%) of LSU students have felt at some point they could not express their opinion on a subject because of how students, a professor, or the administration would respond.

Students also say they experience the suppression of First Amendment rights.

This August, several residential advisors resigned out of concern that LSU is not adequately prepared for COVID-19, according to FIRE. According to a report, the RAs were specifically forbidden from speaking to the media, including the on-campus newspaper, The Reveille.

The report also notes that in 2015 LSU fired a tenured early-childhood education professor for using coarse language in class and FIRE gives LSU a red light rating, meaning it has at least one policy that both clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech.

Read the entire article at RealClearEducation.

IMAGE: Flickr

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LSU may shine on the gridiron, but it falls short on free speech: survey - The College Fix

Turbulence Ahead: Navigating Political Speech in the Workplace during an Election Year and Global Pandemic – JD Supra

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Danzig

Seyfarth Synopsis: In a tumultuous year full of social unrest, a pandemic, and a Presidential election, it is no wonder employers find themselves grappling with howand whetherto regulate politics in the workplace. Options for employers differ dramatically depending on context and location and whether an employer seeks to regulate behavior in the workplace or off-duty conduct, such as posting on social media.

With less than four weeks to go until election day, political speech in the workplace is at a high-water mark, and employers nationwide are grappling with employees seeking to wear masks and other clothing in support of a candidate, a social issue, or a political message and engaging in political activity off-duty, including posts on social media and attending protests or political rallies. In many cases the speech or activity at issue does not implicate working conditions directly but it nevertheless causes distractions in the workplace, such as disagreements among coworkers or offended customers. Depending on the messaging at issue, political speech by employees may also impact an employers business or brand.

These are some of the reasons employers might consider instituting limitations on political speech in the workplace. Such limitations are often lawful, but it depends on the context--specifically, whether an employer is public or private, where the employer is located, whether an employee is at-will or has an employment agreement, and whether the speech at issue relates to working conditions. As discussed below, because of state and federal constitutional provisions, a public employers ability to restrict political speech by employees is generally less than that of a private-sector employer.

Even so, private-sector employers are constrained by federal and state laws when it comes to regulating employee speech, including political speech.

The National Labor Relations Act

Section 7 of the NLRA gives employees the right to unionize, to join together to advance employee interests, and to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection. Section 8(a)(1) makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer to interfere with Section 7 rights. In many instances, it can be difficult to determine whether a type of speech or activity is purely political in nature or whether it touches on working conditions, such that it might be activity or speech protected by Section 7.

For example, if employees distribute literature in support of a political candidate at work but tie their support to a work-related issue, i.e., this candidate will improve our healthcare or vote for candidate because he will pass laws to raise our wages, the speech would arguably be protected by Section 7, even if it is political in nature. Conversely, an employee wearing a Vote for Smith button--with no connection to the workplace--would not be protected by Section 7. In Eastex v. NLRB, 437 U.S. 556 (1976), a group of employees requested permission from the employer to distribute a newsletter urging employees to support a union. The newsletter also encouraged employees to lobby legislators in opposition to the states right-to-work statute and the Presidents planned veto of an increase in the minimum wage. The employer denied the request, stating that the political items had nothing to do with the employers relationship with the union. The Supreme Court rejected the employers reasoning, instead holding that employees do not lose Section 7 protection simply because they seek to improve terms and conditions of employment or otherwise improve their lot as employees through channels outside the immediate employee-employer relationship. Id. at 565.

Where permitted by state law, private-sector employers can often regulate political speech in the workplace by enforcing their existing policies on items such as solicitation and distribution of literature, uniforms, dress code, and policies against violence, threats, intimidation, discrimination, and harassment, including EEO policies. For example, while the NLRA would restrict an employer from banning union buttons or insignia, an employer can implement dress code policies prohibiting the display of purely political buttons and logos in the workplace without running afoul of the NLRA.

Other federal laws

Similar to the NLRA analysis, activity or speech that is purely political in nature is unlikely to be protected under other federal statutes such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. But political speech that constitutes animus towards other coworkers in a protected class or that creates a hostile work environment may require an employer to intervene to avoid liability under those statutes.

But What About the First Amendment?

One issue that often gets raised initially by employees is the First Amendment. This can be somewhat confusing because many are taught about freedom of speech in school--specifically in the context of political movements and activities. Of course, this is a misunderstanding in the context of private employment. The First Amendment protects against government activity, not activity in the private sector. Thus, government employees do have a right against retaliation for expressing their views, including political views, under the First Amendment, and public-sector employers will have to engage in a balancing test before restricting employee speech on matters of public concern. But this does not extend to private sector employees, unless another state or local law extends it to them.

A Complex Web of State and Local Laws

As soon as employee political activity issues arise, one of the first things that an employer should consider is where, geographically, the issue is arising. This is because the employers ability to regulate the conduct largely depends on the jurisdiction in which the employee political activity takes place. Some states (and localities) have no laws regulating this topic. Others have laws that moderately regulate an employers ability to regulate political activity. Still, others have broad protections for both on-duty and off-duty conduct. While we will not discuss every states and localitys laws, we will discuss some common types of laws and provide a few examples.

For example, some states (like Maine) have no laws regulating employer involvement in limiting employee political activities in the workplace. Employers in states like this have less to consider when it comes to placing limits on employee political activity. Similarly, other states (like Georgia) only ban threats to personal safety. The situations where this type of law places an actual limit on an employers ability to regulate employee political activity would seem to be exceedingly rare given the severe type of conduct required to trigger it.

Another group of states (for example, Wyoming, Virginia, Vermont, New Hampshire, Kansas, and Oklahoma) and even the federal government for particular elections have general bans on voter intimidation and coercion. These laws would presumably encompass employer behavior. Other states have more tangible protections directed specifically at employers, but may be limited to traditional notions of political activity, such as influencing voting in various ways. For example, several states prohibit employers from taking or threatening to take adverse employment action against employees, such as terminations, layoffs, or pay reductions, based on the result of an election or how an employee votes. Examples of states with laws along these lines are Florida, Delaware, Arizona, and Alabama.

Other states go further and protect employees from adverse actions based on the employees engaging in broader political activities or lawful off-duty conduct. For example, Connecticut actually extends First Amendment protections to private sector employees. California prohibits employers from making rules or policies that tend to control or direct political activities, and likewise prohibits employers from threatening discharge to influence political activity. California also prevents employers from taking adverse action against employees based on lawful off-duty conduct. New York and North Dakota have similar protections for lawful off-duty conduct. That said, these protections are not unlimited. In general, employers may limit the activity if necessary to further a legitimate business interest or if the limit is unrelated to the political activity itself.

As can be seen, there is a wide spectrum of laws in this area. So, one of the first things an employer needs to consider is geography. The location of the employee typically will determine the amount of employer limitation permissible. The next thing to consider is the type of employee conduct at issue. Is it as simple as voting? Or, does it involve more general political activity of employees (promoting candidates or social causes)? The latter involves the more difficult scenario. We discuss a few examples below in both the off-duty context and in the workplace.

Off-duty political speech

Off-duty political speech can also impact employers, particularly on social media. As discussed above, depending on the speech at issue, political posts by employees can create rifts among coworkers or somehow imply the endorsement of the employer, upsetting customers or attracting unwanted media attention. As with on-duty conduct, an employers best avenue to resolve issues is by enforcing its existing policies. While we would not advise that an employer go so far as to ban an employee from engaging in any off-duty political conduct, employers in most cases can protect their legitimate business interests and enforce existing policies applicable to social media use, including EEO policies and policies prohibiting harassment, threats of violence, and bullying.

Example 1: Employee posts an article on Facebook discussing the Me Too movement and says Weve seen enough. Time to stand up for our female coworkers in the workplace. Such a post implicates working conditions and is likely protected by the NLRA. Additionally, the off-duty nature of this activity would render it protected under many state laws.

Example 2: Employee retweets a tweet from a well-known white supremacist containing racial slurs. Such conduct would violate many of the employers policies, including anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies. Further, an employer who fails to take action after learning of such a post could later face claims that it allowed a hostile work environment. The employer can discipline the employee under these circumstances but should make sure that it addresses these issues consistently. The employer should also document how it became aware of any such posts to avoid later claims of unlawful employee surveillance or discriminatory targeting.

Political Speech in the Workplace:

As discussed above, state laws place various limitations on an employers ability to limit political activity in the workplace.

Example 1: Employer puts up a poster supporting same-sex marriage in the employers lunch room. An employee believes that marriage should only be recognized between one man and one woman, rips the poster off the wall, and throws it in the trash. Can the employer discipline or terminate the employee? It depends on the state and the employers motivation. However, as discussed above, any stated reason for discipline or termination reason must be unrelated to the employees view point given that it may qualify as political activity under various state laws. For example, if the conduct violated a policy against destruction of employer property or an anti-harassment policy, the discipline or termination could be lawful even in the most restrictive states.

Example 2: Two employees are discussing presidential candidates at work by the water cooler. The two employees disagree with one another, and the conversation degenerates. One employee begins to insult the other by calling the other employee names, using profanity, and even a racial slur. Such conduct would almost certainly violate the employers anti-harassment, anti-discrimination, anti-bullying, and potentially other workplace policies. Thus, the employer likely could also discipline this employee based on the violation of these policies, but it could not discipline the employee because of their support of a particular candidate.

The examples above are just some of the types of issues that can arise when it comes to political speech. Many are arising now due to the impending presidential election, and they tend to come up more often during election years. However, given how hotly contested the current election is, it is unlikely that issues related to political speech will recede any time soon. As the examples above illustrate, the intersection of politics and the workplace can pose a conundrum for employers. As you navigate these waters, Seyfarth is here to help.

Our Democracies Need to Change – The New York Times

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Danzig

PAUL POLMAN What weve seen in the Covid crisis once more is the difficulty of global governance. Increasingly, the issues that we face like the issues of the interdependence of the financial markets, cybersecurity, climate change and now also pandemics require, without any doubt, a global response. These issues know no borders. And yet weve got about 86 countries putting export restrictions in place around [personal protective equipment] materials. Weve seen a lack of cooperation between governments in terms of solidarity. The developing markets have gotten virtually zero support from the developed markets. So global governance is, without any doubt, at a low. And the reason it is at a low is that most institutions were created 70 years ago. And, frankly, unlike businesses that might have adjusted their strategies 10, 15, 20 times, global governance has not evolved.

ARON CRAMER One of the reasons that some oil and gas companies have begun to move on climate change more decisively is because they recognize that they can no longer attract the best and the brightest. They simply wont have an employee base if they dont contribute whats needed in a very profound way on climate. Its very unlikely that Amazon would have moved on climate without a very public display from its employees and, mostly, its younger employees to demand quite publicly that the company adopt an approach that is compatible with what we need to do on climate. Businesses have to understand that 21st-century talent expects that we can take on these big social issues, not least climate change, and without that, the pool of talent will not be available, and no company would possibly survive or thrive.

In recent months, the multifront battle between social media platforms, their users and the authorities who would regulate them has accelerated even further. What role does, or should, government play in keeping platforms honest and their users safe? And what tools can help citizens be more engaged?

PANELISTS Dan Shefet, lawyer, Paris Court of Appeal; Wietse Van Ransbeeck, co-founder and chief executive, CitizenLab, a citizen-engagement platform; and Orit Farkash-Hacohen, Israeli minister for strategic affairs.

ORIT FARKASH-HACOHEN Today there is no doubt that social media has become a haven for fake news, for incitement, for hate speech. What happens in my view is that in the name of, or on behalf of, freedom of speech, some groups spread fake news and violence around social media networks. And that is something that a state, every state, cannot overlook. As a minister, I started a process of engagement with the social media networks in Israel. We are conducting a round table with social media because I think that we cant do it alone. Only enforcement and regulation will not do the trick. Social media networks must understand that they have power, and with power comes responsibility and accountability. And the fact is that, at the end of the day, they have the power to control the minds and to corrupt minds. This cannot be overlooked. So were implementing a program of four steps with the social media giants. We want them to create relevant and clear policies. They should enforce their policies without double standards. They should be transparent about the facts. And, lastly, [they should] remove problematic content.

WIETSE VAN RANSBEECK So we [at CitizenLab] provide a digital democracy platform. There are of course many other tools, or other platforms available. But what we do is we help citizens have a say in local policymaking within government projects, but also more from the bottom up, where citizens can bring up their proposals. Whats different, compared to social media, is that it actually starts from a broader question: How are we going to constitute the public sphere in the digital era? And social media are not a means to have a constructive debate. We all know about filter bubbles on social media networks, the echo chambers. So I think its also the responsibility of the government to rethink how we are going to create that digital democracy. And such [government-administered] platforms can be interesting because those platforms are owned by the government; they are the data owners. So when it comes to manipulation, the government is in control. They can also, when they procure those platforms, design the platforms in a way that some democratic values are safeguarded, in the sense that when we talk about transparency and openness, they can procure open-source platforms and make sure that the algorithms are open and transparent, but at the same time, when artificial intelligence is used, that its explained to the citizens in what way it is used. So I believe that probably the most important aspect is that those platforms can constitute a space where you have citizens from different backgrounds deliberate and have conversations with each other. And that is essential for democracy in the digital age, that were not only talking to people like us, but that we can have conversations with people who have different opinions.

DAN SHEFET Ive had the opportunity of following almost all the cases before the International Criminal Court, the special tribunal on [Rwanda], the special tribunal on Yugoslavia and even the Nuremberg trials, dealing with incitement, and I can tell you that it is extremely difficult, even for the most trained judges, to decide whether something is illicit speech or not. There are many, many cases from these high-level courts, where somebody is either acquitted or convicted at the first level, and that decision is overturned on appeal. In other words, its extremely difficult. And I dont see how we can oblige social media to be more clever than professional judges in terms of defining whether something is illicit speech or not, given, of course, that once we do that, we mathematically restrict not only free speech, but we also impose upon these organizations accountability sanctions, which are not related to knowledge. And that, to me, is not possible from a legal point of view.

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Our Democracies Need to Change - The New York Times

How Big Tech became such a big target on Capitol Hill – CNBC

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Danzig

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg walks past members of the news media as he enters the office of U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) while meeting with lawmakers to discuss "future internet regulation on Capitol Hill in Washington, September 19, 2019.

Joshua Roberts | Reuters

After a 16-month investigation into competitive practices at the largest U.S. tech companies,Democratic congressional staffers laid out their findings this week in a 449-page report. They concluded that Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google enjoy monopoly power that needs to be reined in, whether that means breaking the companies up, blocking future acquisitions or forcing them to open their platforms.

Wall Street shrugged at the news. Three of the four stocks rose the day after the report's release, reflecting investors' long-held view that regulators and politicians are in no position to squelch Big Tech's continuing rise and market share expansion.

Still, lawmakers certainly aren't putting the matter to rest. And with Joe Biden carrying a commanding lead in the polls less than a month before the Nov. 3 election, tech companies face the possibility of Democrats controlling the White House and both branches of Congress in 2021.

Should Democrats win the Senate, it would put Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who are among the loudest voices calling for the break up of Big Tech, in the majority.

Here's what Warren had to sayin early 2019:

"Today's big tech companies have too much power too much power over our economy, our society, and our democracy. They've bulldozed competition, used our private information for profit, and tilted the playing field against everyone else. And in the process, they have hurt small businesses and stifled innovation."

How did this happen? Just a decade or two ago, tech companies were seen as innovators, as young industry disruptors focused on making consumers' lives easier. How did they turn into the dark faces of corporate America, with their every move questioned at the highest levels of government?

There's no single answer. But here are a few key things that happened in recent years to paint a giant bullseye on tech.

Five years ago, Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Facebook were among the most valuable companies in the world, worth a combined $2 trillion. Today, that number is above $7 trillion, more than tripling over the last half-decade, while the broader S&P 500 climbed 73% over the same stretch.

The five tech giants are by far the most valuable U.S. companies and now make up over one-fifth of the S&P 500 and a whopping 46% of the Nasdaq 100.

Lawmakers have largely decided to give Microsoft a pass as they probe Big Tech for anti-competitive behavior, despite the software maker's swelling market cap and influence.

What they see in each of the other four is are companies that price out competition, exploit consumers, rip off partners or collect vast amounts of user data. Sometimes, all of the above.

The massive market cap appreciation and consolidation is the result of revenue growth, profitability and investor expectations that nothing's going to challenge the dominance of these companies. Trillion-dollar valuations and immense profit margins also foster a self-perpetuating cycle: The tech giants have such high equity value and big cash hoards, they can easily outbid smaller players.

While history is filled with companies enjoying dominant market positions and outsized market caps, the difference today is that one industry is home to all of them.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos

Alex Wong | Getty Images

Amazon has gone from being the everything store to the everything company.

Well past its original e-commerce roots, it's now a major player in cloud infrastructure, media, consumer hardware, grocery, payments and advertising, and has big ambitions in health care and other industries.

Even with annual revenue poised to top $350 billion, Amazon continues to report steady revenue growth and has recently started generating hefty profits, thanks to Amazon Web Services, its cloud computing business.

The extent of that business became clear for the first time in April 2015, when Amazon started reporting its finances and revealed that AWS was earning about about $1 billion a year in profits, even as the entire company was breaking even or losing money. In other words, while everybody thought Amazon was an e-retailer with a nice side business in cloud computing, it had quietly built a gigantic and profitable software business.

Last year, AWS earned more than $9 billion in profit on $35 billion in sales, making it the number-three software company by sales volume, trailing only Microsoft and Oracle.

Then, after helping spur the decline of physical retail for years, Amazon jumped into the brick-and-mortar world, buying upscale grocer Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in 2017. Would Amazon do to groceries what it did to information technology?

Amazon's physical footprint also includes its unmatched network of fulfillment centers and last-mile delivery facilities. It's now America's second largest employer and has continued to aggressively hire amid a broader economic downturn tied to the coronavirus pandemic.

Amazon upset lawmakers in 2017, when it courted proposals for its next headquarters and had cities offering up all sorts subsidies to try and win the deal. It ended up choosing two cities -- New York and Washington, D.C., only to back out of New York at the last minute because of fierce opposition from some locals.

The eccentricity and ambition of CEO Jeff Bezos has contributed to the company's mythos. Bezos spends billions a year on his private space travel company, Blue Origin. He bought the Washington Post in 2013, giving him an influential arm of the national media (although he does not exercise editorial oversight) and turning him into a favorite punching bag for President Donald Trump, as the Post frequently criticized Trump as both candidate and president. In 2017 he became the richest person in the world, and in 2019 publiclyconfronted a tabloid that threatened to publish details of an extra-marital affair.

While investors have cheered Amazon's growth, politicians from both parties have recently decried its unfettered expansion, includingits unruly marketplace and alleged anti-competitive tactics. Calls to break up Amazon peaked this summer when CEO Bezos appeared in front of Congress for the first time to answer questions about its market power and business practices.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai testifies before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law during a hearing on "Online Platforms and Market Power" in the Rayburn House office Building on Capitol Hill, in Washington, July 29, 2020.

Mandel Ngan | Pool via Reuters

In a little more than a decade, Facebook and Google have completely reshaped the world of advertising.

Last year, the companies recorded a combined $232 billion in sales, up almost 10-fold from 2009.

EMarketer said it started using the term duopoly in 2017, but the ad industry saw the trend quite clearly before that. As of 2016, according to eMarketer's own data, the companies controlled a combined 57.9% of the digital U.S. ad market. Based on estimates provided in late 2019, that share has topped 60%.

Meanwhile, advertising dollars for the news industry plummeted from $38 billion in 2008 to $14 billion in 2018, according to the Pew Research Center. The News Media Alliance argued this year in a letter to the Department of Justice that Google had for years used news content to enhance its bottom line, pulling money from the actual content providers.

It's not just the news business that's hurting. TheWorld Advertising Research Center (WARC) predicted earlier this year that global advertisers would spend more on Google and Facebook than on television. The third-largest U.S. digital ad company is now Amazon, which doesn't help Big Tech's defense against regulators.

Business reliance on Facebook was underscored this year when a large roster of major marketers paused spending in support of a campaign called "Stop Hate For Profit," to pressure the company to take steps to stop the spread of hate speech and misinformation on the site. Some of those advertisers said they wanted to stop spending on Facebook permanently, but they ultimately couldn't afford such a drastic move.

Facebook co-founder, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill April 11, 2018 in Washington, DC.

Yasin Ozturk | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

In his first public appearance after Trump's election in 2016, CEO Mark Zuckerberg swiftly dismissed criticisms that his company played much of a role in the outcome.

"Personally I think the idea that fake news on Facebook, which is a very small amount of the content, influenced the election in any way I think is a pretty crazy idea,"Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg was quickly proven wrong. Facebookpublished a case studyin April 2017 confirming that outside groups had attempted to use its social network to sway the outcome of the 2016 election. In Feb. 2018, a federal grand jury indicted 13 Russian nationals and an accompanying FBI report detailed how they used Facebook and Twitter to wage "information warfare" against the U.S. and "sow discord" in the American political system in an effort to help Trump win.

In 2018, reporters at the New York Times and The Observer revealed that consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had improperly accessed the data of 50 million Facebook users (later revised to 87 million) and used it to try and sway potential voters towards Trump.

Around the same time, U.N. investigators determined the companyplayed a determining rolein the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

"It has ... substantively contributed to the level of acrimony and dissension and conflict, if you will, within the public," said Marzuki Darusman, chairman of the U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar.

The hits kept coming, as government agencies began digging deep into Facebook's practices.

In December 2018, the U.K. Parliament published 250 pages of internal Facebook documents, providing insight into the company's strategies against competitors. In one example, Zuckerberg instructed his staff to cut off the ability for users of Twitter's Vine social app to connect it with Facebook as a way to find their friends on the service.

Early the following year, as part of her presidential campaign platform, Sen. Warren proposed the breakup of Facebook, potentially including separating Instagram and WhatsApp. Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes echoed Warren in May 2019, when he called for splitting the company apart.

"The most problematic aspect of Facebook's power is Mark's unilateral control over speech," Hughes wrote. "There is no precedent for his ability to monitor, organize and even censor the conversations of two billion people."

The Federal Trade Commission launched an antitrust investigationin June 2019,followed a couple months later by state attorneys generaland theDepartment of Justice. In November, California State Attorney General Xavier Becerra disclosed that his state had also begun a probe into Facebook the prior year.

Consumer data is the currency of the internet. Increasingly, when people look around their house, car or office, they see or hear Google, Facebook and Amazon in every corner.

The 2018 Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal may have been the biggest wake-up call, but perhaps the first was when Edward Snowdenleaked details of the National Security Agency's tapping of U.S. phone calls. Consumers who had thought communications networks offered the same privacy as a quiet personal conversation realized that wasn't the case.

In 2018, a local Seattle TV network reported that a family in Portland blamed its AmazonAlexa device for recording a private conversation and then sending it to a random contact. Amazon called the event an "extremely rare occurrence" and said it was triggered because the device interpreted something the family said as "Alexa," and then followed a command that was never given.

Facebook users have for years accused it ofeavesdropping on conversations through its apps. How else could Facebook or Instagram show an ad for a product they were just talking about with a friend in a real-world conversation? But Facebook repeatedly insists it doesn't listen. That suggests its behavioral ad targeting is just frighteningly good.

Privacy has been a particularly resonant issue this year, amid the national conversation around the excessive use of force by police and fears of government surveillance. Ring, the Amazon-owned doorbell company, has faced criticism for partnering with police forces. Amazon and Microsoft both yielded to pressure to announce that their facial recognition software is not being used by police departments.

Consensus has grown in Congress over the need for a national digital privacy law to protect Americans against the exploitation of new technologies. In the meantime, we all keep handing over our data.

The congressional report does not mean that the big tech companies are going to be broken up this year, or any time soon. Instead, the report was intended as a broad recommendation to Congress to reshape the antitrust laws to go beyond their currently narrow scope of protecting consumers on pricing and competition, and instead think about "workers, entrepreneurs, independent businesses, open markets, a fair economy and democratic ideals."

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission and various other federal and state governments are investigating confronting the big technology companies one at a time on a wide variety of issues, from labor practices to privacy to fair competition. But those cases can take years to complete, as Microsoft's experience in the 1990s and 2000s shows, and the companies can absorb huge fines without lasting damage -- Facebook's stock actually rose in July 2019 after the FTC fined it $5 billion over privacy lapses.

Nonetheless, the fact that Congress is not afraid to issue a 449-page damning indictment of Big Tech in an election year shows how much attitudes in D.C. have changed. The clock is ticking.

WATCH: Antitrust expert breaks down Big Tech concerns

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How Big Tech became such a big target on Capitol Hill - CNBC

Daily Crunch: Big tech responds to antitrust report – TechCrunch

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Danzig

The major tech platforms push back against the House antitrust report, Google Assistant gets a guest mode and we interview a freshly minted Nobel laureate. This is your Daily Crunch for October 7, 2020.

The big story: Big tech responds to antitrust report

The House Judiciary Committee released its tech antitrust report late yesterday, concluding that the big tech platforms should face additional regulation. Recommendations include creating new separations to prevent dominant platforms from operating in adjacent lines of business, new requirements for interoperability and data portability and increased restrictions on mergers and acquisitions.

For now, these are just recommendations and they werent endorsed by the committees Republican minority. But they have prompted forceful responses from four of the companies targeted by the report: Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.

Amazon, for example, dismissed the committees views as fringe notions and regulatory spitballing, while Apple said it vehemently disagrees with the reports conclusions.

The tech giants

Google Assistant gets an incognito-like guest mode With Guest mode on, Google Assistant wont offer personalized responses and your interactions wont be saved to your account.

Slack introduces new features to ease messaging between business partners One new feature: Slack Connect DMs, allowing users inside an organization to collaborate with anyone outside their company simply by sending an invite.

Instagrams Threads app now lets you message everyone, like its Direct app once did These changes are rolling out shortly after a major update to Instagrams messaging platform.

Startups, funding and venture capital

Envisics nabs $50M for its in-car holographic display tech at a $250M+ valuation The startup brings together computer vision, machine learning, big data analytics and navigation to build hardware that integrates into vehicles to project holographic, head-up displays.

Shogun raises $35M to help brands take on Amazon with faster and better sites of their own Shogun lets companies build sites that sit on top of e-commerce back-ends like Shopify, Big Commerce or Magento.

DoorDash introduces a new corporate product, DoorDash for Work DoorDash says it conducted a survey of 1,000 working Americans last month and found that 90% of them said they miss at least one food-related benefit from the office.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

Transportation VCs suggest frayed US-China ties will impact mobility markets During TechCrunchs annual Mobility event, we interviewed three investors who spend much of their time focused on shifts in the transportation industry.

Unqorks $207M Series C underscores growing enterprise demand for no-code apps The no-code/low-code world could be enjoying an even sharper tailwind than anticipated.

Media roundup: Google to cut big checks for news publishers, Substack continues to draw top creators, more I do my best to highlight the latest trends, platform shifts and noteworthy funding rounds.

(Reminder: Extra Crunch is our subscription membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna shares her perspective on COVID-19 and CRISPR CRISPR co-discoverer Jennifer Doudna was named a Nobel laureate in Chemistry today, so it seemed like the perfect time to post video of our interview at Disrupt.

Tech-publisher coalition backs new push for browser-level privacy controls A coalition of privacy-forward tech companies, publishers and advocacy groups has taken the wraps off of an initiative to develop a new standard that gives internet users a simple way to put digital guardrails around their data.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunchs roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If youd like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.

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Daily Crunch: Big tech responds to antitrust report - TechCrunch

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