H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (7 March 2019) – AI can detect distracted drivers on the road

H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (7 March 2019) – AI can detect distracted drivers on the road

Companies

• Food delivered to the doorstep is not so cheap in China anymore (TC)
• Nintendo Adjusting Smartphone Games So Players Don’t Spend Too Much Money (SR)
• Getac to scale up production for automotive components (Digitimes)
• Machvision posts revenue growth in February (Digitimes)
• IRESS partners with Beneficial Life for mortgage and protection sourcing (MI, FTA)

BATTSS – Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, TSMC, Samsung, Softbank

• ByteDance starts commercialising its search business to challenge Baidu’s core revenue source (KRA)
• Alibaba bears are losing billions on short bets (MW)
• Can China’s superstar tech companies connect with US customers? WeChat and Alipay are growing fast but the trade war and a tech backlash may hold them back (FT)

FAANNMG – Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Nvidia, Netflix, Microsoft, Google

• Zuckerberg says Facebook’s future is going big on private chats (Reuters)
• Apple makes over $3 every time someone subscribes to Netflix from an iPhone app (MW)
• Waymo to start selling standalone LiDAR sensors (TC); Waymo Starts Selling Sensors to Lower Cost of Self-Driving Cars; The move puts Alphabet’s autonomous-vehicle unit into competition with Velodyne for the growing lidar business. (Bloomberg)
• Google brings its Duplex AI restaurant booking assistant to 43 states (TC)
• Alexa’s new Song ID feature can announce what music is playing next (TC)
• Amazon will dominate the smart-home market next, according to this analyst (MW)
• Netflix & Plex: A Story About Understanding Disruption in Business (LinkedIn)

Asia Tech & Innovation Trends

• Edtech firm Hujiang lays off unknown number of employees (Technode)
• Sogou hints at going public in China, but offers no timetable (KRA)
• Xpeng CEO He Xiaopeng finds lessons in ping pong challenge for his upcoming battle with Tesla (SCMP)
• Chinese Millennials Are Clicking Up a Storm Buying Asian Property Online (Bloomberg)
• State-backed rivals muscle in on China tech start-ups; Introduction of fresh competition is part of efforts to curb ride-hailing and P2P sectors (FT)
• The Largest Index in Asia Has a Unique Quality: Taking Stock (Bloomberg)
• China Government Advisers Worry About AI Taking Over Jobs (Bloomberg)
• Smartisan-backed Chinese messaging app that aimed to dethrone WeChat bites the bullet; While the app enjoyed a meteoric rise in its early days, Liaotianbao has struggled to keep users on its platform (SCMP)

Global Tech & Innovation Trends

• Fictiv raises $33M to be the ‘AWS of hardware manufacturing’ (TC)
• Music services company Kobalt is raising a big round that could exceed $100 million (TC)
• Clari platform aims to unify go-to-market operations data (TC)
• Fitbit CEO James Park talks lessons learned from the company’s struggles; The exec discusses past pitfalls and the future of wearables (TC); Fitbit Stock Is Rising as It Announces Its Cheapest Smartwatch Yet (Barron’s)
• Can Uber Ever Deliver? Part Eighteen: Lyft’s IPO Prospectus Tells Investors That It Has No Idea How Ridesharing Could Ever Be Profitable (NC); Why Uber may buy its big rival in the Middle East (CNN); Uber’s Flash quickly loses lustre in Hong Kong (KRA); A Favorite Lyft Metric Is Messy; The company stresses revenue as a share of the total value of rides, but it has problems. (Bloomberg)
• Dialog Semi eyes opportunities in connected health, gaming: CEO (Reuters); Dialog Semi, smaller after Apple deal, targets new growth areas (Reuters)
• Mobile Ads Do More Work in One Second Than You Might Think; Industry standards for ‘ad viewability’ overshadow what happens in the blink of an eye (WSJ)
• SurveyMonkey parent acquires Usabilla in bid to better compete against Qualtrics (MW)
• Sell VMware Stock on Rising Risk From New Technology, Goldman Says (Barron’s)
• How Many Streaming Subscribers Can Disney+ Get? More Than Netflix Has, Analyst Says (Barron’s)
• More New Streaming Services Should Lift Roku, Analyst Writes (Barron’s)
• Just Eat to ramp up expansion of delivery business to fend off rivals; Food marketplace under increasing pressure from competitors outside the US; Just Eat has come under mounting pressure from Uber Eats and Deliveroo (FT)
• Beige Book Shocker: “Semiconductor Orders From China Plunged The Most Since The Collapse Of Lehman” (ZH)
• Edge Intelligence Grabs the Spotlight at Embedded World (EET)
• Why podcast fans will always reject a “Netflix for podcasts”; The golden age of podcasting may end behind a paywall. (FastCo)
• AI can detect distracted drivers on the road (ZH)

Life

• Pure Downside, No Silver Lining (MH)