Autonomous hype becomes more realistic. Planes, yachts & automobiles. CES 2019 is even more about vehicles than it ever has been before but to the industry’s credit, there is more reality and less hype than last year. The best example of this is to be found in autonomous driving where numerous players have reigned in their expectations stating that they...
2019 demands delivery not more hype. Automotive & infotainment CES 2019 is likely to be even more dominated by automotive than it was last year and, in that vein, the landscape is likely to become clearer this year. A shakeout (like in XR (see below)) in autonomous driving is still some way off, but I expect to see the infotainment...
An echo of Nokia between 2003 and 2006. Apple has ensured an exciting start to the year with its first profit warning for more than 10 years that I think indicates that there are limits to which one can increase prices in a mature market. Apple has downgraded its guidance for FQ1 19 with revenue now expected to be around...
A Christmas present from Germany. Qualcomm has struck another blow against Apple with a permanent injunction being granted against Apple which can only serve to further increase pressure on Apple to do a deal. The District Court of Munich has ruled that all iPhones up to and including iPhone X are infringing an envelope tracking patent belonging to Qualcomm and...
Better products, not ineffective regulation needed. The regulations being imposed upon Google by a seemingly hapless EU appear to be having the opposite effect to that intended in yet another sign that the bodies who make the rules for tech have no idea how the game is played. A small search engine based in France called Qwant is complaining that...
Not everyone at Tesla does cars. Apple is recruiting people from Tesla again which I think has nothing to do with cars and everything to do with augmented reality. Commentators are jumping on the recruitment of Andrew Kim from Tesla as a sign that Apple is once again trying to build an automobile as a way of growing its revenues...
The shake-out begins. Osterhout Design Group (ODG) looks to be in the process of being wound up in what I suspect is going to be a procession of small companies failing as Augmented Reality (AR) is turning out to be a ludicrously expensive technology to develop. ODG has long touted its technical prowess in bringing AR to small and light...
The injunction has teeth. In a surprising admission of weakness, Apple has admitted that if the injunction remains in force, it will be forced to settle with Qualcomm which I think substantially ratchets up the pressure on Apple to negotiate. Apple’s statement to the court says: “Apple will be forced to settle with the Respondent, causing all mobile phone manufacturers...
Ericsson is scraping the bottom of the barrel for a use case. Ericsson has had to use cloud-based virtual reality to demonstrate the benefits of 5G over 4G which clearly indicates that the use cases that are regularly touted to justify investing in 5G, such as digital and autonomous vehicles, make no sense at all. Ericsson’s video (see here) uses...
Richard is founder, owner of research company, Radio Free Mobile. He has 16 years of experience working in sell side equity research. During his 11 year tenure at Nomura Securities, he focused on the equity coverage of the Global Technology sector.
CES Day 1 – AI, assistants & 8K.
Artificial Intelligence: La-La Land. The most abused term award at CES 2019 goes to artificial intelligence where almost everyone is using it but almost no one seems to know what it means. Senior execs are looking rather foolish at their press conferences having been told by their PR and marketing departments to ensure that they claim to use AI when,...