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Smart appliances make purchase decisions

August 13, 2019August 12, 2019by sbsikesLeave a Comment

Smart home as shopping platforms

A new report (for purchase) from Business Insider reports that people are using their smart speakers to perform research about products, but not to actually purchase products. The report predicts the smart refrigerator will be the food control center of the home — informing grocery shopping and food delivery. The report covers the strong alliance opportunities between smart appliance makers (that will order goods) and consumer products providers (that will supply the goods ordered by connected appliances).

dis-rup-shun: Dis-intermediation of traditional supply chains is coming. Washing machines and refrigerators sold through Amazon will be delivered with, guess what, automatic links to Amazon.com, pre-configured with your Amazon.com account, to order detergent, milk, eggs and soft drinks from Amazon.com. Who should worry? Appliances makers, grocery stores, and BestBuy.

Find my iPhone works for AirPods

If your AirPods are missing and still powered and still within range of your iPhone, you can use an app to find them. CNBC

dis-rup-shun: The beauty of the connected economy is the ability to bail yourself out of dumb moves — many have found phones in backseats of moving Uber’s, golf courses, under the bed covers, and in the possession of thieves with a quick search from a friend’s device. AirPods, one of the most likely devices to be lost, can be found if they are in Bluetooth range, but unfortunately that is less than about 300 feet, so success may be limited.

Four rocket companies vying for critical Air Force contract

Submissions are due this week for bidders for 24 launches for Air Force surveillance rockets which will take place between 2022 and 2026. Two of four big bidders will win the contract in 60%/40% split. Bidders are United Launch Alliance (Boeing and Lockheed Martin), SpaceX (Elon Musk), Blue Origin (Jeff Bezos) and Northrop Grumman. The contest has very large implications about the future of the U.S. space program as well as the welfare of the competing companies. ArsTechnica

dis-rup-shun: This contest pits traditional aerospace contractors with deep government ties with tech company startups. The traditional contractors have a great deal to lose, as they are not focused on the private space business and have few other customers besides the military establishment. The tech upstarts have focused on more economical rockets and lower cost crafts, giving them a potential advantage, and meaning that they will have great influence on the future of space — both government and private funded. Expect one incumbent and one startup to win the contract, providing both low-cost innovation and trusted providers on the job — likely United Launch Alliance and SpaceX.

The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google

Scott Galloway’s book on “the Four Horsemen” offers a candid look at the actions and power of the tech giants, not afraid of offering strong opinions, and praising the companies for their impressive accomplishments. The NYU Stern Marketing professor has long been a student of the companies. Huffpost

dis-rup-shun: To consider the unchecked power of the big four is sobering — why have these companies not been subject to more regulation? On the other hand, each of these companies has played an out sized role in making the fantastic tech-powered world we live in today. Where would we be without them. Expect a significant amount of restrictions and regulations to be placed on at least three of these companies, Facebook, Amazon and Google, over the next two years as their power has become too large to overlook.

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Disney launches Netflix killer

August 7, 2019by sbsikesLeave a Comment

Disney announces streaming bundle

Disney is ready to accelerate the undoing of the pay TV industry with its announced streaming bundle, offering ESPN, Disney and Hulu at the price of $12.99. That price is equivalent to Netflix and Amazon Prime. The Verge

dis-rup-shun: This changes the streaming game, and the pay TV game altogether. Why? First of all, getting these packages at this price means that Disney is selling at a loss and plans to play the long game. That’s bad news for Netflix, a company that doesn’t plan to make a profit for a long time, and has stated that it will eventually reach profitability through original programming. It will take a great deal of original programming to come close to original content of non-stop sports, Disney’s catalog, and the less interesting Hulu catalog. Given a choice, why take Netflix at all? Because of a few interesting shows. Secondly, AT&T, now entering the streaming game with its Time Warner acquisition, is clearly playing the long game with its own studio. It is also in the streaming business to recapture the cord cutters that are leaving DirecTV for bundles such as Disney’s.

Amazon price pressure — anti-competitive?

Amazon is under investigation by the FTC. What’s of interest to the Feds is Amazon’s practice of telling its third party sellers who offer the same products on other marketplaces for a lower price that they may lose some Amazon perks, like listings at the top of a page, or Prime shipping. This causes the sellers to raise prices on marketplaces such as eBay or Walmart.com. Amazon’s costs for listing and advertising, however, are the highest online. The Verge

dis-rup-shun: When you control the largest online marketplace (by far) and you charge your customers fees for placing products in that market, and you penalize customers for setting their own prices, you just may have more influence than “the free market.” Consumers might benefit from knowing that they don’t have to shop because all marketplaces offer the same goods at the same price, but not as much as they benefit from finding better deals and deciding if they are willing to trade a discount for non-Prime shipping. Expect Amazon to have to make some concessions to the Feds.

Man crosses English Channel on hover board

After failing a month ago by wiping out in the sea, inventor Franky Zapata successfully crossed the English Channel this weekend on a hover board, traveling from France to England in 20 minutes. TechCrunch

dis-rup-shun: As vehicle ownership decreases, giving way to transportation-as-a-service models, and as drone use increases, super fast travel such as hover boards may be an option for commuters.

Amazon delivery robots working sidewalks in Irvine

Amazon is now testing delivery via robotic carts to neighborhoods in Irvine, California. The Scout devices are autonomous, but are accompanied by a person who is there to make sure everything goes as planned and to test sentiment for the devices. One problem to be resolved is sharing sidewalks with pedestrians and Scouts. ZDNet

dis-rup-shun: Will people prefer delivery trucks running through the neighborhood, or robots buzzing along the sidewalk? In densely populated areas, robotic carts from multiple vendors dodging pedestrians won’t be tolerated, but reducing truck traffic on the streets will be favored. A drone lane between the sidewalk and the street could be easily painted, and supported by appropriate fees from Amazon, FedEx and UPS, cities may enjoy a new source of revenue.

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T-Mobile Sprint merger: do you approve?

July 30, 2019by sbsikesLeave a Comment

Sprint T-Mobile merger: good or bad?

T-Mobile has been cleared by the Justice Department to acquire Sprint. This is the third attempt by the carriers to combine forces. 13 states are suing, claiming the deal will reduce competition and increase prices. The carriers have promised to freeze prices for three years and will give away some of their services and spectrum to Dish Networks, already an owner of significant spectrum, so that it may launch a fourth wireless network service, thereby not reducing the number of competitors. CNET

dis-rup-shun: The best argument for approving the deal is that three big carriers will continue to be ‘cutthroat competitive’ to win market share. AT&T and Verizon are not likely to be less aggressive in the market given the merger, but will be more aggressive, given that the new T-Mobile will be a third giant. T-Mobile with Sprint will be financially stronger to accelerate the race to deliver 5G networks and Dish will be the weak ‘also ran’ that must introduce creative plans for niche customers but even so will likely not be profitable. Given that the merger will not reduce market competitiveness and will accelerate 5G, the DOJ made the right decision.

Capital One data breach exposes 140,000 SSNs

A data breach and subsequent posting of SSNs and Capital One bank account numbers was announced. One perpetrator, 33 year old Paige Thompson, was arrested and charged in Seattle. The breach will cost Capital One between $100 million and $150 million.

dis-rup-shun: Seems that Seattle is increasingly the epicenter of tech innovation, good and bad. It turns out that Thompson briefly worked for Amazon. This breach is another reminder that higher standards are required for storing personal information. Encryption and its keys must be stronger such that access to personal data must be limited to only a handful of traceable employees at even large corporations.

Banned Huawei reports 23% increase

The Chinese tech giant that has been banned by the U.S. and many Western partners, experienced strong growth, mostly by selling more smartphones in China. The gains come at the expense of Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, and Apple. The Verge

dis-rup-shun: What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, Huawei may be saying. On the other hand, Huawei’s challenge — selling 5G infrastructure gear across the planet, remains a challenge with increased sanctions. The power of the consumer — the power to make or break companies such as Apple and Motorola and Nokia (remember when the Razr and Nokia candy bar phones were “it”) — has floated Huawei. Could it be Chinese nationalism causing consumers to favor Huawei smartphones, or are they just that good?

Internet crosses oceans through 380 underwater cables

Today, Internet communications from continent to continent rely on not just a few submerged cables, but 380 which are owned and operated by telcos as well as by Google, Microsoft, Huawei and others. While cables are frequently disrupted by ship anchors, fishermen and seismic activity, the ability to re-route traffic means most outages are not noticed. CNN

dis-rup-shun: The space race, often covered by dis-rup-shun.com, seeks to provide a more economical means of covering the globe with network services through satellites in constant orbit, rather than vulnerable undersea fiber. Companies that control the physical Internet infrastructure are guaranteed a financial advantage for essentially now until the end of civilization.

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Walmart discovers $10 billion app

July 24, 2019by sbsikesLeave a Comment

Walmart misstep turns to $10 billion gain

Walmart, in an acquisition questioned by many, acquired, for $17 billion, an Indian e-tailing company, Flipkart. Last year’s acquisition was seen as a misstep given vast cultural differences between the companies and Walmart’s distance behind Amazon in e-commerce. Recently, however, Walmart discovered that the acquisition’s subsidiary, payment app PhonePe, has experienced 77% growth in the past year. The payments company is riding atop of rapid growth of Indian consumer use of payment apps. ZDNet

dis-rup-shun: Walmart needs a little luck as it struggles to catch Amazon in the online retailing race, but finding it has control of one of the fastest growing payment apps in India could open new lines of business for the company that has mostly struggled to gain traction outside of North America. As mobile payment apps quickly become preferred forms of commerce outside of the U.S., Walmart can build on its strong position in India.

Attorney General Barr decides to take on Big Tech

After a number of controversial testimonies, the U.S. Attorney General has decided to investigate if Big Tech has become anti-competitive. Stock prices of Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook and Apple fell 1% in extended trading. CNBC

dis-rup-shun: If the determination of anti-competitive is having a “dominant market position,” then Google search dominance will be a problem, as will Facebook’s dominance in social networking with not only its Flagship, but its owned subsidiaries of Instagram and WhatsApp. Amazon’s domination of ecommerce will be hard to dispute.

Honeywell T9 smart thermostat full on features, light on design

Resideo’s newest smart thermostat, branded Honeywell T9, has remote sensors that go beyond Nest and Ecobee by measuring both temperature, presence and humidity. Despite the strong feature set, the device lacks the sleek industrial design of leading competitors. The Verge

dis-rup-shun: Despite Honeywell being the best recognized brand in residential HVAC controls, it has struggled to grasp the importance of cutting edge design and to shake off its industrial heritage. As the smart home struggles to move from Early Adopter to Early Majority, engaging the young professional, tech savvy buyer who considers aesthetics as important as features, is critical and appears even more important than brand recognition.

Electric Ford F-150 pulls a train

Ford sold 1.1 million F-150 pickup trucks last year. The company released a video showing a prototype electric F-150 pulling a train load of F-150s (42 trucks). Ford believes that consumers perceive EVs to have less power, hence the towing demonstration. Ars Technica

dis-rup-shun: Global share of electric vehicles of all vehicles was up 54% in 2017, and is expected by Statista to make up 14% of all U.S. vehicles sold by 2025. Government policies, providing incentives for electric car buyers, has been critical to sales growth. Now car makers are offering some exciting electric options. Expect ride sharing apps to offer an electric vehicle option, as soon as there are enough on the road to enter the ride share pool.

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Amazon could fix one of corporations’ ugliest habits

July 12, 2019July 11, 2019by sbsikesLeave a Comment

Amazon to refurbish, rather than dispense employees

Amazon, ever resourceful, announced that it would begin a program of retraining existing employees as its business and personnel needs change. At the cost of $7,000 per worker, it will train up to 100,000 employees who elect to participate, between now and 2025. CNBC

dis-rup-shun: At a time when Big Tech is increasingly under fire for monopolistic practices and personal information mismanagement, Amazon creates the ultimate loyalty program — potentially leading a cultural shift among global corporations to stop the long held practice of quick termination of employees who don’t fit changing needs, at a high cost of severance, unemployment, and bad public relations. This is a cultural change with very powerful benefits.

Connected hair straightener with poor security

U.K.’s Glamorizer makes the world’s first Bluetooth hair straightener. The app can be easily hacked, giving nefarious beauticians the ability to take over someone’s straightener and sustain high temperatures over sustained periods.

dis-rup-shun: Get ready for it –a wave of connected appliances that gain little value from being connected other than differentiating them on the store shelves or Amazon.com pages. Makers of inexpensive household appliances that do little by being connected have little incentive to secure them. For this reason the appliance industry needs to implement a security standard that is displayed on a sticker on the device, just as UL certification assures consumers that electronic products have undergone some inspection.

Luminar raises $100 million for next generation lidar

Increasing total funding to $250 million, Luminar is racing to be a heavyweight in the autonomous car industry. TechCrunch

dis-rup-shun: What is lidar? It is the radar-like technology used by autonomous vehicles to see what’s in front of them. Without really good lidar sensors, driver-less cars will run over things they shouldn’t. 79 million cars were sold globally last year. Think of the market value of being a leading provider of a component that will be in almost every new car in 2025.

Automation replaces part of umpire’s jobs

Baseball’s Atlantic League is using computerized TrackMan radar to call balls and strikes, dumbing down umpire’s jobs to watching for checked swings and keeping an eye on the technology. TechCrunch

dis-rup-shun: Point and counter-point: replacing the judgement of umpires with technology removes some of the human-element charm of the sport, or, finally, costly errors by umpires won’t skew outcomes of games in the future. TrackMan took over for tennis lines persons years ago, yet they still sit and stare down each line for every match. Pilots sip coffee while watching computers land large jets, but well-trained pilots remain a part of every flight. Let us conclude that AI will eliminate some jobs and will certainly eliminate the human factor of many jobs.

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A roadmap to Amazon’s next conquests

July 9, 2019July 8, 2019by sbsikesLeave a Comment

The seven industries Amazon will disrupt next

According to analyst firm CBInsights, the next targets for Amazon include the following:

The four industries certain to be disrupted by the Seattle giant:

Pharmacies — Amazon has acquired Drugstore.com and PillPack. dis-rup-shun: Who is in trouble? Pharmacy middlemen (PBMs) and executives enjoying fat profits.
Small business lending — Amazon knows the financial performance of thousands of small merchants that sell on Amazon.com. dis-rup-shun: Who is in trouble? Commercial and local banks.
Online groceries — a notoriously difficult business, Amazon is now expert at both logistics and the retail grocery business from its Whole Foods acquisition. dis-rup-shun: Who is in trouble? Meal subscription services that charge a small premium for meal kits will find Amazon offering more choices for the same or less money.
Payments — the company already owns Amazon Cash, Amazon Reload, Amazon Pay, and Amazon Prime Visa and will work hard to keep more deposits in Amazon accounts. dis-rup-shun: Who is in trouble? Visa, Mastercard and Paypal.

And the industries that may be disrupted by Amazon:

Mortgages — getting approved for a mortgage is a cumbersome activity, therefore ripe for disruption, and Quicken Loans is the leader in fast, online mortgages. Amazon understands online selling. dis-rup-shun: Who is in trouble? Not only mortgage originators, but the archaic title companies.
Home and Garden — several companies are shipping plants and garden kits to new home owners, and this is a supply chain business. dis-rup-shun: Who is in trouble? Amazon needs volume and the mail order plant business may not be very reliable, so Home Depot and Lowe’s will continue to be the go-to companies for lawn and garden.
Insurance — Amazon has a great deal of information about its members, especially Prime members, and can use this data to determine who the better risks are. dis-rup-shun: Who is in trouble? Insurance providers who are not profiling subscribers based on available data and therefore are slow to target the best customers they wish to keep for many years

Ride hailing in China takes a step up

Alibaba (think Chinese Amazon) has created an aggregation service which enables ride hailers (330 million in China) to summon a ride from a single app, rather than compare ride availability across the four major rideshare providers’ apps. The aggregator takes a share of the fare and simplifies the process of both getting a ride and, if you are an emerging ride service, gaining scale. China is raising the required standards for accreditation of drivers and autos, creating a shortage of drivers. TechCrunch

dis-rup-shun: U.S. and European local governments will be wise to follow China with higher standards for drivers and autos, as the demand for more drivers has degraded the formerly consistently delightful Uber or Lyft experience. Taxis are now looking better than they have in five years as many yellow taxis are now cleaner and mechanically equal or better than the average ride share vehicle. Ride share vendors should offer a new class of premium ride, such as ‘Uber Certified,’ which ensures a clean, sound car and a preferred driver.

Waze data shortens emergence response time

It turns out that Waze users are so good about reporting accidents, that Waze learns about a crash 2 minutes and 41 seconds before emergency responders are notified. Wired

dis-rup-shun: Here is yet another example of crowd sourcing from private enterprise functioning better than a government entity’s best and most optimized emergency system. If a free app can provide more accurate emergency data than the tax-payer funded 911 emergency system, then should the public expect that Facebook’s proposed private currency, Libra, can provide better warnings of financial meltdown, fraud or theft than the Federal Reserve Bank? Makes you wonder.

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Is the magic gone at Apple?

July 2, 2019July 1, 2019by sbsikes2 Comments

Apple is losing its luster

Forbes says that Apple is going the way of IBM — the once great technology leader that peaked and has slowly lost its market power. The evidence provided includes Apple’s rock star lead designer, Jony Ive’s departure last week. This follows Q1’s revenue decline of 5%. Apple did report a 16% increase in service revenue last quarter but its iPhone revenue, over 50% of its total revenues, fell over 17%. The company’s last megahit was the iPad, launched in 2010.

dis-rup-shun: Tech watchers will agree that a definitive mark of a company’s peak is the moment when it builds a lavish headquarters building. The completion of Apple’s ring campus was an indicator that the company was overly impressed with its own aura to the detriment of customer focus. Apple is the symbol of the post PC tech economy, and it is critical that the company continue to lead innovation, design and sales, despite the loss of key people including Jobs and Ive.

40th anniversary of the Walkman

Sony’s Walkman, released on July 1, 1979, created the first personal, portable music experience — enabling people to take their favorite music with them and experience it privately (the boom box had been around for nearly a decade). While Sony enjoys only a small share of the personal music player market today, the Walkman set the stage for the Discman and for personal music players, eventually perfected by the iPod. The Verge

T-Mobile joins the 5G fray

T-Mobile has now switched on its 5G network in 6 cities, joining Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint with some form of offering. The service results in speeds of 250 Mbps, or 5 to 10x the speeds of 4G. The service, however is not ready for prime time as it rides on spectrum not compatible with many phones. Gizmodo

dis-rup-shun: The 5G race is a reminder that competition is a great thing. 5G does not make economic sense at the moment, as great amounts of infrastructure, both handsets and network, must be upgraded and carriers simply wouldn’t do it if their competition wasn’t.

Fireworks — one of the few things you cannot buy from Amazon

Few things are not available on Amazon.com, but fireworks and other explosive devices are prohibited from the online retail system. Amazon has constructed special warehouses for handling hazardous goods and is building its own delivery network, but so far fireworks are not in the plans. Wired

dis-rup-shun: Fireworks stands may be the only mom and pop enterprises not threatened by the Seattle behemoth. Happy 4th of July.

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A recipe to reverse tech decline

June 28, 2019by sbsikesLeave a Comment

Make America tech again (MATA)

Here are depressing stats on the U.S.A.; the country ranks 25th in the world in R&D tax credits, is no longer in the top 10 in global innovation, is behind in the race for AI development, is behind in creating scientists and computer scientists, and is ranked #11 in world technology readiness.

Forbes provides specific instructions for government policy to reverse these trends:

Implement a consistent data security and privacy policy similar to Europe’s GDPR standard. This provides a consistent standard for data protection and a guideline for enforcing violators.
Use satellite technology to provide broadband to all citizens, and restore net neutrality.
Increase the R&D tax credit to 25% to keep cutting edge tech development companies from setting up shot elsewhere.
Increase annual STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) funding by at least tenfold.
Healthcare must be pushed to adopt a standard for electronic health records (EHR) and must encourage the use of telemedicine and telecare technologies to lower costs and increase care across populations.
Encourage the funding of digital technology to measure and analyze climate change and better quantify changes from year to year.
Make it easy for knowledge workers to obtain H1-B visas (and their spouses).
Increase competition within the Internet economy by shrinking the tech oligarchies.
Spend generously on cyber security, increasing the budget by 25% per year until the problems diminish.
Outline specific and substantial spending initiatives to lead in the development of artificial intelligence. Forbes

dis-rup-shun: Perhaps the U.S. Federal government can accomplish all of these objectives by breaking up the tech oligopolies, but rewarding the new baby techs lucrative contracts to accomplish these tasks, and giving them large tax credits and visa allotments. Break-ups could be bitter sweet launches into new businesses with new partners and plenty of government assistance.

Trouble on the horizon with fake nudes

A new app imagines photos of women with no clothes. The AI-powered app uses its database of images of nude women to find a best replacement for the clothed portions of the image. It only works for pictures of women. The Verge

dis-rup-shun: While this app may be the X-Ray glasses dreamed by many a schoolboy, it will get a lot of people in trouble. Scandal, libel, lawsuits. This may boost the tattoo industry as women feel the need to wear a “unique stamp” to disprove the authenticity of fake nude photos.

Amazon using smart home as Prime Day feature

Amazon’s annual Prime Day campaign to pry open wallets which are generally funding other activities in July will include a number of smart home products from Nest, Ring, Echo, and others. The products will be offered at steep discounts.

dis-rup-shun: The smart home industry growth is currently attributed to the increasing availability of interesting ‘hero’ products like doorbells, IP cameras, and voice assistants. The big challenge, however, is converting the successful sales of end point products to systems that enable whole home functionality and a robust monthly service fee. A large number of companies including traditional home security players, as well as energy utilities, insurance companies, telcos, and retailers are determined to convert the 80% of the population without home security system, and the path to their wallets appear to be through cool, connected devices.

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How Amazon will wreck the pharmacy industry

June 21, 2019June 21, 2019by sbsikesLeave a Comment

How Amazon will wreck the pharmacy business

Amazon quietly entered the pharmacy business in 2017 and introduced PillPack, a direct to home prescription drug business that packages pills by daily dosage, with dates and times to take the medicine printed on the package. The retail pharmacy heavyweights currently play middle man by negotiating discounts from drug makers for large health insurers, creating special pricing for insurance networks. By selling directly to insurance companies, Amazon will cut out the retail pharmacy giants. CNBC

dis-rup-shun: Amazon’s disruptive move will benefit the consumer with lower drug prices and, possibly, lower health insurance premiums, but will destabilize the retail pharmacy industry by forcing it to rely more heavily on the sale of non-drug products, a battle it is already fighting against Amazon.com and Prime. One answer is for retail pharmacies to move more aggressively into care clinics, a trend well underway, putting further pressure on doctor and hospital chains to become more consumer-friendly as they are forced to compete with retail pharmacies for walk-in healthcare.

Direct share offerings will put a squeeze on bankers

Collaboration tool vendor Slack went public this week without assistance from investment banks, gaining 50% value in its first day. The capital raise puts valuation of the company at $23.1 billion. Compare this to Uber’s IPO last month which, by absolute dollar valuation, was the worst performing IPO in history. Both Lyft and Uber have recovered somewhat from a bad initial offering. Gizmodo

dis-rup-shun: Two large IPOs, Slack and Spotify in 2018, were direct (limited banker involvement) offerings. Both companies have enjoyed strong value growth since IPO. Uber and Lyft were heavily hyped by investment banks and crashed after offering. Before we conclude that bankers are bad, it is important to note that Uber and Lyft’s business models do not show profitability in the near term, and seem to be in multiple businesses. On the other hand, Slack is facing stiff competition from tech giants. If we assume that the market is sophisticated enough to understand the competitive landscape ahead of the IPO, then one conclusion is that bankers may be over-promoting offerings and that a more informed market later corrects. Expect direct offerings to become more commonplace, eventually forcing a correction in the fees charged by banking firms.

Zuckerberg outranks Tim Cook

Glassdoor’s anonymous survey of former employees’ views on their CEO has a number of tech CEOs ranking in the top 10. Ranking in the lower half of the 100 ranked are Facebook’s Zuckerberg at 59 (#1 is the best) and Apple’s Tim Cook at 69th place. ZDNet

dis-rup-shun: Interesting to see Cook at the bottom of the heap, especially after a brutal year for Facebook’s public image. Does the secrecy inherent in Apple’s culture create distrust inside the family? Despite Facebook’s missteps, Zuckerberg has been quite penitent in public, perhaps gaining employee’s respect. It is rare for a company as successful as Apple to not become an arrogant empire, and perhaps more transparency would engender more employee admiration.

Netflix will eventually include advertisements, says industry

Netflix, with its 150 million subscribers, faces significant costs from developing original content. Industry insiders predict that Netflix will break its vow of no advertisements as production costs increase and the value of its audience reach soars. CNBC

dis-rup-shun: Netflix continues to pursue a unique strategy — using debt to finance a very large catalog of original content that it can monetize over coming years. As other streaming services are launched from companies including Disney and AT&T’s WarnerMedia, Netflix subscriber growth will be challenged. The barriers to entry for streaming services have become original content — a very expensive barrier. As John Penney, CSO of 29th Century Fox has been telling the industry for years, there is simply not enough non-movie theater revenue in the TV distribution chain to support the costs of original content. The company’s stock price, however, continues to show confidence in the company’s ‘think different’ strategy.

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Over 25% of every day is spent viewing a screen

June 14, 2019by sbsikesLeave a Comment

Daily screen time up to 6.3 hours

Mary Meeker’s annual report on tech trends provides some statistics on screen usage. Americans consumer a whopping 6.3 hours of digital media per day, up 7% from the prior year. Last year was the first that Americans spent more time on mobile devices than on TVs. While watching TV, 88% of Americans simultaneously used a mobile device. 41% of those viewers were using the mobile device to discuss the content with friends and family while 71% were looking up information related to what they were watching. Quartz

dis-rup-shun: Conventional television content continues to be less important and watching on-demand or live content on a mobile device has become a priority. While TV advertising revenues are down as a result, the importance of word-of-mouth (word-of-keyboard, actually) is increasing the value of the content. Content that evokes discussion on social media has a longer shelf life as friends and family, armed with recommendations and familiarity, are more likely to select the discussed content from a dizzying array of choices. The task for producers, then, is to create content that creates a social media response.

Verizon Smart Locator helps you find anything

The Smart Locator is a tiny device used for finding anything you lose frequently. Using Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi and LTE, the $100 per year device will locate anything as long as it is within an LTE cell and the 5 day battery is still active. The Verge

dis-rup-shun: The Smart Locator is the essence of Internet of things, as it puts most anything on the Internet. For $100 per year, keeping up with something you value, like a pet, a purse, or a small child, this is a bargain. Most things, perhaps with the exception of small children, will have their own wireless radios in them in a year or two, but until then, the Smart Locator is a good option.

Smart Displays versus Tablets: which is better in the kitchen?

The new crop of smart displays from Google Nest, Lenovo, Amazon and JBL are optimized for the hands free and voice use in places like the kitchen, where ease of use and assistance with cooking and home controls is the objective. These devices run a version of Android called Android Things. Tablets, on the other hand, offer far more customizations, like running Netflix in the kitchen, while still responding to voice controls. These devices run a version of Android’s mobile OS. The difference in experience is significant and both offer trade-offs. CNET

dis-rup-shun: The question is, do our homes need a specialized screen, optimized for different rooms, like the kitchen, the shower, the bedside, or if a tablet located anywhere will do. Separate devices will be displaced by screens built into refrigerators, stoves, washing machines and wall switches, but at the rate of technological evolution, a 10-year-old smart refrigerator will become a dinosaur far more quickly than a dumb refrigerator. Expect built in screens in most new appliances to be as ubiquitous as their control knobs are today, while counter top screens will control and report on all of those smart appliances.