Snap stock is at an all-time low after its lead underwriter said it’s not innovating fast enough - Recode

Does that count as an investor apology from the IPO's lead underwriter?

"The market has reacted to the downgrade, sending Snap stock down more than 7 percent Tuesday. The stock is currently below $16, which is an all-time low. Snap stock closed at $16.99 on Monday, its first time closing below its $17 IPO price.

Morgan Stanley’s note officially vocalized what many have feared about Snap since it went public, that competition from Instagram is a real concern, and the constant innovation needed to catch up to Facebook on the advertising side is tougher than expected."

Snap stock is at an all-time low after its lead underwriter said it’s not innovating fast enough - Recode

Apple to Build First China Data Center to Comply With Law - Bloomberg

Host different

"The new facility, which will be entirely driven by renewable energy, will be built and run in partnership with Guizhou on the Cloud Big Data, Apple said in a messaged statement. Apple aims to migrate Chinese users’ information, now stored elsewhere, to the new facility in coming months. The data center is part of a $1 billion investment by the iPhone maker in the province.

The data center was partly driven by new measures that bolster control over the collection and movement of Chinese users’ data, and can also grant the government unprecedented access to foreign companies’ technology. Forcing companies to store information within the country has already led some to tap cloud computing providers with more local server capacity."

Apple to Build First China Data Center to Comply With Law - Bloomberg

What We Lose When the World Moves On From Email - The New York Times

It's not about email; it's about people who are careless in their choice of apps/services

"Precisely because it’s inescapable, insecure and irresistibly convenient, email provides an almost uncomfortably intimate view into the historical record. It preserves time, location and state of mind, the what-when-where-and-who of every story we might want to dig up. The last two decades, email’s high-water era, have thus been a bounty for anyone wishing to understand exactly what was happening in the inner circles of powerful organizations — for journalists, historians and prosecutors of white-collar crime, among others. 

If common sense prevails, Mr. Trump’s email thread may serve as the final nail in the coffin of email as the universal office communicator. People in business and politics are already moving on to other methods, from cloud-based business tools like Slack to apps like Signal, which promise the discretion of a spymaster. These tools allow for auto-deletion and encryption; they’re not perfectly secret (nothing is), but they’re a fortress compared with email."

What We Lose When the World Moves On From Email - The New York Times

Trump voter fraud commission halts data collection amid lawsuits (Slate)

An EPIC win; in other Pence priorities, see Is Mike Pence betting it will all come crashing down on Trump? (The Washington Post)

"On Monday, Donald Trump’s election integrity commission paused its collection of voter data in response to the latest in a series of lawsuits and complaints alleging the controversial task force is breaking the law. The commission, which is led by Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, recently asked every state for an immense amount of sensitive voter information. In its rush to get the data, it seems, the commission has ignored any number of statutes and agency rules, an oversight that could ultimately prevent the group from getting its hands on any of the information it wants. 

Monday’s abrupt halt in data collection is a direct response to a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. EPIC alleges that the commission is violating the E-Government Act of 2002, which requires federal agencies to establish adequate data protections before collecting personal information using information technology. Specifically, an agency must prepare and publish a Privacy Impact Assessment that explains its methodology, outline how it would secure its data, and state whether the data would be disclosed to others. EPIC claims the Pence-Kobach commission has ignored this safeguard while storing voter records on an unsecure system that is not designed to protect personal data. By doing so, EPIC insists, the commission has run afoul of federal law."

Trump voter fraud commission halts data collection amid lawsuits.

Microsoft puts partners at the center of $4.5 trillion transformation opportunity - The Official Microsoft Blog

Bundles are back

"We are introducing two Microsoft 365 offerings today. Microsoft 365 Enterprise is the evolution of our highly successful Secure Productive Enterprise offering, and includes Office 365 Enterprise, Windows 10 Enterprise, and Enterprise Mobility + Security. It’s designed for large organizations and empowers employees to be creative and work together, securely.
Microsoft 365 Business, available in public preview starting August 2, is designed for small- to medium-sized businesses with up to 300 users and integrates Office 365 Business Premium with tailored security and management features from Windows 10 and Enterprise Mobility + Security. It also includes a centralized console for deploying and securing devices and users in one location.
Microsoft 365 represents a fundamental shift in how we will design, build and go to market to address our customers’ needs for a modern workplace.  It’s a more cohesive approach and reflects the shift our partners and our mutual customers are making — from viewing productivity, security and device management as individual workloads to seeking a comprehensive approach to secure productivity. Microsoft 365 is great for partners, too. It represents a significant opportunity to increase deal size, differentiate offerings, and grow their managed services revenue. According to a Forrester Total Economic Impact™ Study (Commissioned Studies conducted by Forrester Consulting), Microsoft 365 Enterprise increases partner revenue opportunity by more than 50 percent versus selling and deploying Office 365 alone."

Microsoft puts partners at the center of $4.5 trillion transformation opportunity - The Official Microsoft Blog

China Tells Carriers to Block Access to Personal VPNs by February - Bloomberg

Also see What China's VPN Ban Means for Internet Users: Quicktake Q&A (Bloomberg)

"Beijing has ordered state-run telecommunications firms, which include China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, to bar people from using VPNs, services that skirt censorship restrictions by routing web traffic abroad, the people said, asking not to be identified talking about private government directives.

The clampdown will shutter one of the main ways in which people both local and foreign still manage to access the global, unfiltered web on a daily basis. China has one of the world’s most restrictive internet regimes, tightly policed by a coterie of government regulators intent on suppressing dissent to preserve social stability. In keeping with President Xi Jinping’s “cyber sovereignty” campaign, the government now appears to be cracking down on loopholes around the Great Firewall, a system that blocks information sources from Twitter and Facebook to news websites such as the New York Times and others."

China Tells Carriers to Block Access to Personal VPNs by February - Bloomberg

Bored Traders on Tinder Are a Symptom of Wall Street Revenue Dip - Bloomberg

Trump era economic leading indicators

"One bond trader says he’s been slipping out early to watch his kids play sports. A fund manager says his office just staged a golf retreat. A trading supervisor at another bank confides he’s swiping through a lot of profiles on Tinder, the dating app.

Welcome back, Wall Street, to the doldrums.

After four straight quarters of rising income from trading, the biggest U.S. investment banks spent the past few months in a renewed slump. Shareholders will soon see how dull it’s been. Analysts estimate the five largest firms will say their combined revenue from trading dropped 11 percent from a year earlier to $18.4 billion -- the smallest haul for a second quarter since 2012. The banks start posting results July 14."

Bored Traders on Tinder Are a Symptom of Wall Street Revenue Dip - Bloomberg

Facebook village? Social media giant to build 'social housing' | Technology | The Guardian

For a preview, see The Circle...

"Facebook is to build its own “village” of 1,500 homes for workers struggling to pay soaring rents as the housing crisis in Silicon Valley deepens. 

The social networking company has submitted plans to the local council to create a new neighbourhood of homes, shops and a public plaza across the street from its global headquarters.

Mark Zuckerberg’s company said it was being forced to build the “mixed-use village” called Willow Campus in Menlo Park, about 30 miles south of San Francisco, because the regional government’s “failure” to invest in infrastructure has led to sky-high rents and hours-long commutes to work."

Facebook village? Social media giant to build 'social housing' | Technology | The Guardian

Amazon is quietly rolling out its own Geek Squad to set up gadgets in your home - Recode

Later in the article: "Preferred qualifications include past work as an Apple Genius or Geek Squad Double Agent."

"While Amazon has a marketplace for third parties to offer home services like TV mounting and plumbing, these new smart-home-related services seem important enough to Amazon that it is hiring its own in-house experts. And perhaps for good reason.

Smart-home gadgets make up one of the fastest-growing segments of the consumer electronics industry, but they can be difficult to set up and integrate with each other. That hurdle has led to higher-than-normal return rates, experts say, so Amazon is likely looking at the in-home services as one way to lower that number."

Amazon is quietly rolling out its own Geek Squad to set up gadgets in your home - Recode

When Will Electric Cars Go Mainstream? It May Be Sooner Than You Think - The New York Times

A transportation tipping point; also see Tesla sells the most electric cars in the U.S. Will it stay that way? (Recode)

"The conventional view holds that electric cars will remain a niche product for many years, plagued by high sticker prices and heavily dependent on government subsidies.

But a growing number of analysts now argue that this pessimism is becoming outdated. A new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a research group, suggests that the price of plug-in cars is falling much faster than expected, spurred by cheaper batteries and aggressive policies promoting zero-emission vehicles in China and Europe.

Between 2025 and 2030, the group predicts, plug-in vehicles will become cost competitive with traditional petroleum-powered cars, even without subsidies and even before taking fuel savings into account. Once that happens, mass adoption should quickly follow."

When Will Electric Cars Go Mainstream? It May Be Sooner Than You Think - The New York Times

China’s electric-vehicle market plugs in | McKinsey & Company

Just getting started

"China has emerged as a leader in both the supply of—and demand for—electric vehicles.

Approximately 375,000 electric vehicles (EVs) were manufactured by Chinese OEMs in 2016—an impressive 43 percent of EV production worldwide. That’s no fluke; Chinese OEMs achieved a 40 percent global share in 2015. OEMs from around the world (Chinese manufacturers among them) also produced approximately 332,000 EVs within China in 2016, and the country now has the largest number of EVs on the road—overtaking, for the first time, the number of EVs in the United States."

China’s electric-vehicle market plugs in | McKinsey & Company

Google’s parent company is letting its geothermal energy startup, Dandelion, become an independent company - Recode

Article subtitle: "Wait, Alphabet was working on geothermal energy?"

"Dandelion CEO Kathy Hannun told Recode the company decided to strike out on its own because there wasn’t enough overlap between its technology and that of other parts of Alphabet to justify remaining a part of Google’s parent company.

Dandelion’s purpose is to make it easier and more affordable to install geothermal energy systems for homes, and the company relies largely on drilling technology.

“But as you can imagine, drilling technology is not a core focus of Alphabet,” said Hannun, who started at Google seven years ago before joining X."

Google’s parent company is letting its geothermal energy startup, Dandelion, become an independent company - Recode

Tesla Loses No. 1 Spot in Market Value Among U.S. Automakers - The New York Times

In other Tesla news: South Australia announces Tesla as backer of world's largest battery (Sydney Morning Herald) and Why Tesla needs the Model 3 to thrive in a future it helped create (The Washington Post)

"But a spate of negative news this week has brought the electric-car maker’s many challenges into focus, especially its ambitious plans to ramp up production of its first mass-market offering, the Model 3, which begins rolling off the assembly line on Friday.

With investors shying away, Tesla has seen its shares fall by almost 17 percent since Monday’s intraday high, to $308.89, including a 5.6 percent drop on Thursday. That reduced the company’s market capitalization to $50.7 billion, according to Bloomberg, and put G.M. ahead once again, at $52.6 billion."

Tesla Loses No. 1 Spot in Market Value Among U.S. Automakers - The New York Times

Hackers Are Targeting Nuclear Facilities, Homeland Security Dept. and F.B.I. Say - The New York Times

Critical infrastructure security tip: only accept PDF résumés...

"The two people familiar with the investigation say that, while it is still in its early stages, the hackers’ techniques mimicked those of the organization known to cybersecurity specialists as “Energetic Bear,” the Russian hacking group that researchers have tied to attacks on the energy sector since at least 2012.

Hackers wrote highly targeted email messages containing fake résumés for control engineering jobs and sent them to the senior industrial control engineers who maintain broad access to critical industrial control systems, the government report said.

The fake résumés were Microsoft Word documents that were laced with malicious code. Once the recipients clicked on those documents, attackers could steal their credentials and proceed to other machines on a network."

Hackers Are Targeting Nuclear Facilities, Homeland Security Dept. and F.B.I. Say - The New York Times

Microsoft Workplace Analytics helps managers understand worker productivity | TechCrunch

For more details, see Transform your organization with Microsoft Workplace Analytics (Office blog); on a different workforce planning note, see Microsoft employees are bracing for layoffs to be announced Thursday (Business Insider)

"You may be thinking if it can look at positive behaviors and productive employees, it could also be used conversely to identify employees who are being less productive, but Rayani says throughout the private beta, not one company was using it to call out employees.

Instead he said it was about looking at output versus behaviors and finding ways to improve the outcomes. For example, managers could look at the activities of top performers and learn how those people spent their day, then use that data to teach other employees to use those techniques to improve productivity."

Microsoft Workplace Analytics helps managers understand worker productivity | TechCrunch

DeepMind Goes to Alberta For First International Lab - Bloomberg

Also see Why Google’s newest AI team is setting up in Canada (Recode)

"DeepMind, the London-based artificial intelligence company, is hiring three prominent computer scientists from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, to establish its first research facility outside the U.K.

The new lab will be headed by Rich Sutton, a leading expert in reinforcement learning, a form of machine learning in which software learns by trial and error to maximize a reward. The company is also hiring Michael Bowling, a professor who has used reinforcement learning to train software capable of playing poker better than many of the world’s top professionals, and Patrick Pilarski, who has studied the creation of AI-enabled artificial limbs."

DeepMind Goes to Alberta For First International Lab - Bloomberg

Daimler announces new $740 million battery factory in China for Mercedes-Benz’s EVs | Electrek

Perhaps a pattern emerging...

"Just a few weeks after unveiling its own new battery Gigafactory for electric vehicles in Germany, Daimler is now announcing a new $740 million battery factory project in China.

The new factory will support the production of batteries for electric vehicles under the Mercedes-Benz brand.


It’s the first major project as part of Daimler’s new investments in electric vehicles through its joint-venture with BAIC in China."

Daimler announces new $740 million battery factory in China for Mercedes-Benz’s EVs | Electrek

All Volvo cars will be electric or hybrid within two years (Engadget)

On a related note (Volvo was sold by Ford to a Chinese company, Geely, in 2010), see China Is About to Bury Elon Musk in Batteries (Bloomberg)

"Volvo is best known for building cars that are safe and beloved by flower children, but it now has a new distinction. Every car it unveils by 2019 will have an electric motor, either as an all-electric EV, plug-in hybrid or hybrid, making it the first major automaker to stop selling cars with only gas or diesel engines. "This announcement marks the end of the solely combustion engine-powered car," said Volvo Cars CEO Håkan Samuelsson in a statement.

Just last week, Volvo rededicated its Polestar performance division to electric cars, but the news that all of its vehicles will be electrified in some way comes out of the blue. Volvo has been behind the curve in that area -- so far, the it built a handful of hybrid cars, and not a single full-on EV. In 2015, it announced that its first series 40 electric cars would arrive in 2019."

All Volvo cars will be electric or hybrid within two years

Mark Pincus and Reid Hoffman are launching a new group to rethink the Democratic Party - Recode

See What is #WTF for more details

"Mark Pincus and Reid Hoffman want to hack the Democratic Party.

Not literally. Not the likes of what befell the team behind Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, resulting in scores of private emails being published online — and countless news stories that helped seal her defeat. No, Pincus, the co-founder of Zynga, and Hoffman, the brains behind LinkedIn, want to force Democrats to rewire their philosophical core, from their agenda to the way they choose candidates in elections — the stuff of politics, they said, that had been out of reach for most voters long before Donald Trump became president.

That’s the guiding principle behind Win the Future, a new project by the tech duo that’s launching in time for July 4. The effort — called, yes, WTF for short — aims to be “a new movement and force within the Democratic Party, which can act like its own virtual party,” said Pincus, its lead architect, during an interview."

Mark Pincus and Reid Hoffman are launching a new group to rethink the Democratic Party - Recode

Tesla’s Model 3, its mass-market car, expected to roll off factory floor Friday - The Washington Post

Tesla transition time

"Pulling off a successful launch of the Model 3, and sustaining high-volume production is crucial to Tesla’s broader goal of widespread adoption of electric cars, Caldwell said. “In order to promote electric vehicles, it has to go to the mainstream, and right now they are only selling expensive cars to a very limited, wealthy audience.”

In another sign of Tesla’s ambition, the company plans to unveil a working prototype of its semi-truck model at an event in September. Musk also hinted that the event would showcase a surprise announcement. Teasing the audience at the June shareholder meeting, Musk said: “I’d really recommend showing up for the semi-truck unveiling. Maybe there’s a little more than we are saying here.”"

Tesla’s Model 3, its mass-market car, expected to roll off factory floor Friday - The Washington Post