Virtual Skinny: (Almost) Festival Season …

Posted by The Virtual Skinny on March 10, 2016 in Internet & Tech, Newsletter

3.10.2016

Good to Know: It’s almost festival season … Super cool tech and music festival South by Southwest kicks off this weekend. Even, U.S. President Barack Obama is making a cameo. #Jelly

THE SKINNY

When You’re Trying to Get Your House in Order …

These days, we’re used to hearing about the Googles and the Facebooks of the world trying to bring Internet access to emerging and underrepresented areas. But, this week, President Obama is keeping things closer to home. The Administration announced new broadband plan for the U.S. called ConnectALL.

When Things Aren’t As They Seem …

Over the past 15 years, Internet access has been growing like gangbusters in America but is still very much out of reach for some households. ConnectALL intends to bring broadband access to underserved communities.

When You Need to Move, NOW …

The Administration is wasting no time and plans to kick off an immediate effort – a new digital literacy pilot project. Calling all, Americorps volunteers to help people step up their computer skills at libraries, museums, and other community centers located in these areas.

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?

When You Haven’t Over-Stayed Your Welcome …

The Obama Administration is coming out strong this week with yet another announcement. This time, it’s talking immigration policy for highly-skilled, foreign-born workers – always a hot topic in tech sector. Good news for foreign students studying science, technology, math, or engineering (STEM). After snatching up their diplomas, they’re now welcome to stay in the country for 3 years to get jobs and get their hands on those sometimes elusive H-1B visas aka work visas to stay state-side legally. But of course, not everyone’s happy on account of the counter-argument that this will take jobs away from Americans and all.

Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda …

Billionaire media mogul and former New York City Michael Bloomberg bowed out of getting into the U.S. presidential election as an independent. It’s unfortunate for some, including sharing economy companies like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, AirBnB, etc. The word is Bradley Tusk, who led Bloomberg’s NYC campaign, would’ve incorporated these services into Bloomberg’s would’ve-been campaign. Tusk figured since there’s no blue print to run as an independent, the sharing economy would’ve been the perfect match to get things going for field operations (e.g., hiring Ubers to get people to the polls). Oh, what would’ve been!

Real Quick …

While we’re on the election, former HP CEO and former Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina has officially backed Senator Ted Cruz in his bid … In case you didn’t get that. That’s Fiorina telling Cruz: Hello? It’s me. I was wondering if after all the months, I could be your potential VP.

QUICK POLL – RUN THOSE NUMBERS …

About 47% of Americans surveyed are #TeamApple, and we’re not talking Apple Martin aka the daughter of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and rocker Chris Martin. Most Americans in a recent Pew survey are siding with the smartphone manufacturer in its beef with the U.S. government over encryption.

THE STREETS ARE TALKIN’

Not an astronaut? No worries, Amazon CEO and owner of space startup Blue Origins Jeff Bezos is working on test flights for regular folks beginning in 2017. The goal is to make things offisch by selling tix for short suborbital flights to us in 2018. Your move, Elon Tusk & SpaceX …

Anonymous messaging app Yik Yak is probably getting tired of always being in the middle of controversy. User names are now a thing for the app.

Facebook and Google want to share their data center designs with you via the Open Compute Project. It’s a win-win … People get to give these companies a hand in advancing Internet hardware and the companies get to keep their hardware costs low, low, low, low …

BTW, Facebook isn’t back down from competitor Snapchat. The OG social media platform (relatively speaking) just bought video filter app Msqrd.

It’s getting’ hot out there … You know what that means? Let the trip planning begin. Not sure where to go? Google it, duh! The search engine’s got a new feature called Destinations to help with your planning needs.

Instagram just pulled the kill-switch on “Being,” its app intended to give users an inside look into another user’s Insta for discovery purposes. Probably for the best on account of all its technical problems.

The Virtual Skinny: Surprise, Surprise

Posted by The Virtual Skinny on November 12, 2015 in Internet & Tech, Newsletter

11.12.2015

Good to Know: We all know what it’s like to have the case of the Mondays but turns out that people actually hate Thursdays more according to posts on the Whisper app.

THE SKINNY

Yikkity Yak, Don’t Post That …

Using anonymous messaging app Yik Yak to post racial threats is a pretty terrible idea. Just ask 19-year-old, Missouri University of Science and Technology student Hunter Park.

What Went Down?

Park took the app and allegedly posted a message threatening black students and faculty at the University of Missouri (Mizzou), the sister campus to Missouri University of Science and Technology. The actual words used were “I’m going to shoot any black people tomorrow, so be ready.” Umm… terrifying … Black students fled campus before police arrested Park on suspicion of making terrorist threats.

Posters Beware …

College kids are very into Yik Yak, but most of them probably didn’t read the fine print. The app says it can hand over users’ information (e.g. Internet protocol address, GPS coordinates, date and time of message, etc.) to police if there’s a subpoena, court order, or search warrant involved. But, all that paper work isn’t needed in the event of an emergency like death threats.

Not the First Time …

Park’s threats along with some others surfaced on Yik Yak after Mizzou’s President and another senior university official were forced to step down. Their departure came after weeks of protests calling out the university’s handling of students’ concerns over racial incidents on campus. The app has a history of users’ posting these types of messages. In recent weeks, a few arrests have been made on college campuses across the U.S. for similar threats by other students. Yik Yak founder Brooks Buffington says the app is not meant for this type of behavior.

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?

Paying Your Fair Share …

AirBnB was fired up when it scored its major “W” by shutting down San Francisco’s Proposition F, which would have been bad news bears for short-term rentals. But now, the home-sharing service is taking things down a notch. This week, the company’s out with what it’s calling the “AirBnB Community Compact” to mend relations with local governments. AirBnB is willing to pay taxes, share unidentified data on its hosts and guests, and banning illegal hotels for participating on the platform.

When Someone Tries To Put You in a Box …

“Don’t do it,” says Chinese Internet company Alibaba. The company thinks it can do better and is looking to expand its empire. Alibaba is getting into U.S. territory by throwing money at high-tech U.S. startups. The company also wants to export goods from U.S. small and medium-sized businesses over to China. Btw, the company’s setting the record straight … It’s no e-commerce company. Instead, it wants to help other businesses compete with the Amazons of the world.

We Still Need Confirmation …

The U.S. and EU are working hard to figure out a deal that will allow American companies to transfer Europeans’ data back to the States. The EU may have some new stipulations. EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova says it may want American companies to turn over reports detailing just how many times U.S. intelligence agencies are reaching out to them and inquiring about EU residents. You know, just to double-check that things aren’t getting out of hand.

THE STREETS ARE TALKIN’

Social media company Facebook’s out with its new “breaking news” feature called Notify. You get your pick of what type of news you want to see from over 70 publishers.

Apple wants you to be able to make instant payments to your friends. It’s rumored to be working with banks to figure out a mobile peer-to-peer payment service.

Ride hailing app Uber wanted to get Nokia Maps in its corner to improve its navigation service, but things didn’t work out. Uber has moved onto navigation company TomTom and worked out partnership deal.

Online music streaming service Spotify’s trying to get you to the next big show with concert recommendations curated just for you.

IAC/Interactive Corp, owner of brands like OkCupid and CollegeHumor.com, wants to add Angie’s List, reviewer of local businesses, to its collection via a merger. Angie’s List is thinking things over.

LinkedIn knows it sends way too many emails and is working on a tool to fix that. Internally, the tool is known as Air Traffic Controller.

The Virtual Skinny: Time to Give Thanks.

Posted by The Virtual Skinny on November 25, 2014 in Internet & Tech, Newsletter

11.25.2014

Good to Know: Thursday, November 27 is American Thanksgiving. Of course, there will be a lot of turkey eating that day, but the question is – conventional (factory farmed) or heritage (free-range turkeys – which is popular amongst the foodies type)? It pays to eat well as heritage turkeys are pricier than their conventional counters. This year, Americans will eat an estimated 234,000 conventional turkeys compared to 30K-40K heritage. If you want to know more about what you’ll likely be eating this week, check out Bloomberg’s infographic.

THE SKINNY.

Breaking Point?

Google’s legal battles in Europe have reached an all time high. In the midst of the European Union’s 4-year antitrust investigation into whether the Internet company favors its own services over competitors, the European Parliament announced last Friday that it is considering legislation to split up the company.

Wait… For Real?

Well, technically the European Parliament isn’t authorized to tell antitrust regulators what to do in terms setting policy or influencing their investigations. However, it still plans to move ahead with a vote on a resolution to break up Google. The vote is set to go down on Thursday, November 27.

In A Nutshell …

If the Parliament’s resolution turns out the be popular with European politicians, there’s a chance this could put pressure on Margrethe Vestager, Europe’s competition commissioner, to file formal charges against Google. This would further derail efforts to settle the issue. Like most things, we’ll have to wait and see. But in the meantime, Pope Francis spoke to Parliament this week and said that Europe is seen by the world as “somewhat elderly and haggard.” He said it, we didn’t.

What Else is Going On This Week?

And, the Drama Continues…

Uber’s been having a tough time lately. First, one of its executives made a highly controversial comment about “digging up dirt” on reporters who aren’t their #1 fans. Then came allegations of its “God View” internal tool to track a journalist without her permission. This prompted the company to hire an expert privacy attorney to conduct an internal review of its privacy policies. Now, Brussels is gearing up to put together a new law to regulate the app. No word on the details of this legislation, but services like Uber often finds themselves at odds with traditional taxi firms. Traditional taxis are subject to all sorts of safety requirements, insurance rules, and taxes. Regulators say that Uber currently doesn’t pay taxes in Brussels so the legislation may aim to address that. But, Uber says that it follows all applicable tax laws and pays taxes where it plays. #TheStruggleIsReal

Somethin’ Is Better Than Nothin’…

Last week, President Obama talked about his plans for an executive order on immigration. For a while now, technology companies have been asking for changes to the immigration system that would allow more H1-B visas for foreign-born high-skilled workers and making the green card process more efficient, streamlined, and generally faster. While Obama can’t make that happen without Congress, his plan includes efforts such as giving special founder’s visas to foreign entrepreneurs and extend the amount of time someone with a U.S. technical degree has to temporarily work under an “optional training program.” Some in the technology industry are pleased, but there’s still more work to be done – looking at you, U.S. Congress.

Speaking Of …

In 2013, Spain passed a law to help local businesses attract talented, foreign entrepreneurs. The visa application is pretty straightforward merely requiring a government-approved business plan, health insurance, and enough funds to live in the country. In addition to entrepreneurs, the government is also offering to investors who at least $625k in real estate, high skilled workers, and researchers, scientists, teachers, etc. The new law isn’t without its challenges, especially if you’re a non-Spanish speaker; however, it’s said to be a fast track process with decisions made within 10 and 20 working days depending on the type of application.

The Streets Are Talkin’

The new thing for teens and investors is a new anonymous messaging app called Yik Yak. It recently raised $62 million. Unfamiliar with Yik Yak? Here are some “gems” to get familiar how it’s being used.

Rakuten, the Japanese e-commerce company, is looking to expand its reach, and it’s investing into a Singapore-based mobile ad tech company called PocketMatch.

Sony is not into its TV and mobile products. The company will be cutting these product lines to cut costs and is re-focusing on its PlayStation 4 and image sensor portfolio over the next three years.