Monthly Archives: July 2017

Facebook, Snap, Twitter…

Investments,

Facebook posts astounding results

The stock price of Facebook surged more than 3% in after-hours trading, after posting better than expected quarterly results. The social media giant reported diluted earnings per share of $1.31 versus the estimates of $1.13, marking a 71% increase from the same period last year. Revenue was reported at $9.3 billion, which is 47% higher than a year ago.

The CFO of Facebook, David Wehner, said that ads are going to contribute less to growth in the following quarter. Facebook is looking to generate more revenue out if the news feed with Facebook TV – a long form video service is set to launch mid-August and ads placed in Facebook Messenger, messaging service with 1.2 billion daily users, is still in “early stages”.

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Facebook, Banking and Electric Cars

Investments,

Facebook TV coming in mid-August, maybe..

Reportedly, Facebook is finally coming out with its iteration of on-demand TV. The company has reached out to its partners, asking them to turn in the first episodes of their inexpensive, short-form programs.

According to undisclosed sources, Facebook is funding some higher-end content. The newly released content is going to be accessible separate from the news feed, in a new “Video” tab, alongside user-generated content.

Facebook is looking to make something higher-end than Google’s YouTube, yet is not willing to compete with other original content providers such as Netflix, HBO and Showtime.

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Alphabet drops after earnings

Investments

The shares of the parent company of Google – Alphabet traded lower in after-hours trading on Monday. The online advertising giant reported revenue of $26.01 billon, which represents roughly a 21% increase year-over-year.

Affected by the EU anti-trust case, in which the company was fined $2.74 billion for prioritizing their own shopping service over the shopping services of the competitors, the reported profit fell sharply.

The main worry investors have are the rising traffic acquisition costs, which came in at $5.09 billion, higher than the estimated $4.75 billion. The CFO of Alphabet – Ruth Porat said that the company is focusing on “dollar growth” in revenue and operating income, “not margins”.

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Dark net poses a “potentially disruptive risk” – Goldman Sachs

Investments, ,

With the general population becoming more and more conscious about their internet privacy every day, some seek anonymity in the “dark net”. The dark net, which is the decentralized version of the world wide web, mostly associated with illegal activities and cryptocurrency transactions, according to data, receives around 440 thousand daily users from the US alone.

“How is this relevant?” you might ask.

Well, according to Goldman Sachs – two reasons:

  • Firstly, due to the fact that the dark net enables individuals to browse the internet anonymously, out of the reach of traditional search engines, data-collection for advertising revenue reliant websites could take a significant hit to their top-line.
  • Secondly, because the dark net is used to conduct various illegal activities, a more direct regulation of the internet could be called for, which in turn has the ability to slow the innovation of large internet companies such as Google, Amazon and Facebook.

LINK: Rising ‘Dark Net’ may spell trouble for Google, Facebook, says Goldman

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Musk’s Hyperloop might become reality

Investments,

According to tweets by Elon Musk, aka. The Tony Stark of real life, on Thursday, “verbal” government approval for digging the world’s longest tunnel for his newest venture – The Boring Company, has been reached. The tunnel is to be dug from New York to Washington D.C. and is a part of another one of Musk’s ideas, Hyperloop.

For those who have been out of the loop, pun fully intended, Hyperloop is a high-speed transportation alternative, which would make the journey from NYC to D.C. in around a half an hour.

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Facebook to launch a subscription news service

Investments

With the goldmine, that online advertising is, slowly getting depleted of its resources, it only makes sense for companies to look for ways to cash in on the ever-growing customer base. Facebook is set to launch a premium subscription news service.

After hearing the concerns of several newspapers of having little control on how their stories were being exhibited and how fake news were affecting the overall landscape of the news industry. Additionally, the News Media Alliance, which represents over 2000 newspapers and digital publishers, accused Facebook and Google for benefiting from news stories without properly compensating publishers.

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AI deep-learning briefly explained and why Nvidia has the upper hand

Investments,

It seems that the abbreviation AI and the phrase “deep learning” get thrown around an awful lot lately. Understandably so, as presented in the chart below, the frequency of Google searches for “deep learning” has grown considerably in the last 5 years, one can easily see an exponential growth pattern. Everyone seems to want to find out what exactly it is and how to benefit.

The increase of interest reflects the change of focus of industry leading companies rather precisely. Nvidia, Intel, AMD and now Fujitsu have set out on a quest to create the best – most capable hardware for artificial intelligence. All of the aforementioned companies have come out or are coming out with AI optimized hardware.

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Google Glass – now for professionals

Investments, ,

Remember Google Glass – the way ahead of its time, privacy nightmare – Google’s take on augmented reality that nobody has heard anything about in four years? Well, it turns out its making a comeback in the enterprise market.

Reportedly, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, revealed its plans for the augmented reality glasses on Tuesday. The new – Enterprise Edition of Glass – is going to be used by professionals who need a heads-up display while they work.

A company called Augmedix is offering the device as a part of their subscription service for doctors. Additionally, workers from companies like Volkswagen, General Electric and Boeing are utilizing Google Glass to keep their hands free while performing various tasks.

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Netflix stock surges. Amazon after Blue Apron?

Investments,

Netflix stock surges after beating expectations

The shares of Netflix surged more than 10% in after-hours trading on Monday after the on-demand video streaming giant beat analyst expectations for top-line as well as subscriber growth. The amount of international subscribers surpassed the amount of subscribers in the US for the first time, growing by 1.01 million and 4.27 million respectively. Revenue came in at $2.79b, indicating annual growth of 32%. However, Netflix reported negative cash-flow of $608 million, down from negative $423 million reported last quarter.

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“AI is a fundamental risk to the human civilization”, Elon Musk

Investments,

Elon Musk, in an interview at the National Governors Association meeting, said that AI is a fundamental risk to the human civilization. He backed his claims by saying that robots are going to be smarter than humans in any way, therefore having an edge over the regular person, eventually using the knowledge to destroy the human race.

Musk mentioned that the way to prevent something like that from happening is to proactively start regulating the creation of artificial intelligence, restricting the creation of something that could be harmful to the civilization.

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