The WannaCry virus that shut down the UK health system this week is still making its rounds. It has now reached 150 countries and is continuing to spread. It is expected that the hackers behind the ransomware will update it Monday, so it will be even more dangerous. Computer security experts say that everyone should … Read more
Alphabet’s exec Ruth Porat spoke on a conference call this week about the company’s Q1: “Our revenues of $24.8 billion in the first quarter demonstrate our broad-based strength globally, with revenues up 22% year on year. In constant currency, our consolidated revenues grew 24% versus 1Q 2016. Growth in advertising revenues was again driven by … Read more
The U.S. is one of only two countries that allow drug ads on TV (the other is New Zealand), and spending keeps rising. Most other markets have not increased spending since 2012. $6b was the amount spent last year, mostly on TV, and the ads are shown most heavily during major network’s evening news, Mike … Read more
Facebook has acknowledged that they are exploited by governments in manipulating public opinion, and also said they would try to do something about reducing these types of “information operations.” Governments use Facebook to amplify a view, sow distrust, and spread confusion, according to the company. Recently, Facebook made an attempt to cut down this use … Read more
A team of software designers, technicians, conservators, architects, artists, artisans, working together as Factum Arte, are recreating works of art to be used by the public. Some of their work is already used by museums. The group makes its money by also producing works in the private market. The goal of their public efforts are … Read more
Amazon Prime now has 80m subs. The increase has been steady in the last 2 years. People like Amazon’s fast delivery, cheap prices, easy checkout, and good customer service. Read more
The app may be on every young person’s phone, but it’s losing money. When it launched its IPO this year, it raised $3.4b. But as of January, it’s lost $1.2b. Almost half of that loss was in 2016. It was growing at 15m new daily users in the first 3 quarters of 2016, but the … Read more
The chat app aims to hide even metadata, the graph of its users’ connections and activity (as opposed to just hiding the content of messages). Ricochet applies Tor-like tech to cloak the user’s device, not just web destinations. Messages also do not use a central server to send messages, so the data does not exist … Read more
Profits in the music industry are coming increasingly from streaming and subscriptions, looking at percentage, and even downloads are decreasing a little. CD and DVD sales are becoming less common relatively, but vinyl sales are up. Read more
“If you study Chinese products, you can get inspiration,” according to a woman who works for technology investment firm Andreessen Horowitz. She also works helping U.S. startups learn from Chinese tech. Connie Chan says Chinese tech is ahead of U.S. tech in everything from livestreaming (worth $5b) to messaging. For example, while Americans almost all … Read more
Now that Google is a sub-company inside Alphabet — which is run by founders Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin and Larry Page — Google is run by Sundar Pichai, and his earnings are up almost double from 2015. In 2016, he made $199.7m. $650k is his base pay, and $198.7m was a stock award. Google is reportedly … Read more
According to Nikkei Asia Review, iPhone assemblers in the East — responsible for producing 200 million phones per year — are in talks about moving production to the U.S. The move would mean roughly doubling costs — some of which would likely be passed on to consumers — but may be necessary. President Elect Donald Trump … Read more