Yandex – Yet another speaker.

Alice finds a home.  At its annual developer conference names Yet Another Conference, Yandex unveiled a series of features and upgrades that are aimed at cementing its grip on the Russian internet market. Yandex’s algorithms have been exclusively trained using Russian data which will protect Yandex from foreign competition but are also likely to prevent it from gaining any real...

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Baidu vs. Facebook – Chalk and cheese

Reply to this post           Baidu still No. 2 in AI.   Comparing how Baidu is using AI to manage user generated content to how Facebook is faring, is a further sign of just how far behind Facebook is and how shareholders will be paying the price for it. iQiyi is Baidu’s equivalent of YouTube and...

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Essential Products Inc. – An essential sale

Reply to this post           The wheels appear to have fallen off. Andy Rubin’s Essential Products Inc. is up for sale almost certainly because of a cash shortage triggered by the fact that its smartphone was simply not an essential purchase. Essential Products has now cancelled its second phone and is instead focusing on smart home...

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Samsung & Google – Engineering disease

Reply to this post           Intransigence helps Apple and the Chinese. Google and Samsung both have a bad case of engineering disease that prevents them from working together in a way that I think would greatly benefit both of them. Engineering disease relates to a condition where the desire to solve technical problems and do things...

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Baidu – Lower barriers

Reply to this post           Baidu removes barriers for Alibaba and Tencent. Hot on the heels of the spin off of iQiyi, Baidu has announced the spin off of Global DU as the next move in its quest to become a focused AI company. I suspect that other assets like Nuomi.com and its app stores are...

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Autonomous Autos – Double vision

Reply to this post           Humans can run red lights, machines can’t . Mobileye has a great excuse to why its autonomous system ran a red light but when lives are at stake, excuses are not good enough. Safety is a major driver of the automotive industry which is why components are tested to breaking point,...

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Sony – Old chestnut

Reply to this post           Old chestnut software problem is back. Sony is intending to change its stars by moving away from hardware towards content and services but the old software chestnut is likely to trip the company up again. Under Kazuo Hirai, Sony has had an excellent turnaround, but one that has been almost exclusively...

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Smart speakers – Pregnant pause

Reply to this post           Pause while products improve. Google is catching up with Amazon in the smart speaker race, but there are signs that growth may soon grind to halt until some of the shortcomings are fixed. Data from Strategy Analytics indicates that total smart speaker shipments were 9.2m units in Q1 18 up 278%...

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Tencent Q1 18 – Expectations management

Reply to this post           Bad guidance is worse than no guidance at all. Tencent reported Q1 18 results that beat expectations but increased my concern that Tencent has a problem with managing investor expectations which has arguably already cost the company $60bn. Q1 18 revenues / net profit were RMB73.5bn (up 43% YoY) / RMB23.4bn...

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Facebook – The thin ice

Reply to this post           Facebook security stats reveal flaws. Facebook disclosed Q1 enforcement data for the first time and while it is clear that Facebook is trying very hard, there are still massive problems that need to be overcome. During Q1 2018, Facebook deactivated (and I presume deleted) 583m fake accounts, took down 837m pieces...

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