Features • 1) Amazon Plans to Disrupt Payments Industry (video), 2) China vs WeChat, 3) Be Thankful You Don't Work for GOOGLE, 4) Why Apple Devices Are Hard to Repair, 5) ICYMI Tech News.
1) Amazon's Plan to Disrupt the Payments Industry
Lisa Ellis, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. senior research analyst, discusses Amazon.com Inc.'s push into payments with Bloomberg's Emily Chang on "Bloomberg Technology" on August 1, 2017.
Amazon's digital payments ecosystem:
- An easy secure way for consumers to make online payments and merchants' to accept them with Amazon Pay (domain: pay.amazon.com).
- Consumers can also make payments in-store via Amazon Pay Places.
- Consumers can even add cash to their Amazon accounts and earn rewards, giving users essentially a banking account.
- Amazon also offers other banking services such as loans.
Source: Statista.com
Other Tech News:
2) China Probes Social Media Giants | Variety.com: "Chinese regulators have unveiled an investigation into the country’s top three social media sites. Tencent’s WeChat, Sina Weibo and Baidu’s Tieba are accused of not doing enough to halt the publication and spread of illegal content."
3) Google proved this week it is just as intolerant of free speech as Beijing, firing employee James Damore (no prior reprimand, no prior warning), for having the temerity to suggest there are biological differences between men and women--imagine that!--suggesting there are reasons beyond "discrimination" that might account for the male-female employment gap at Google.
Fired Google Engineer Says Company Execs Shamed and Smeared Him | Bloomberg.com: "When he initially circulated the memo [a month ago], “no one high up ever came to me and said, ‘No, don't do this,’ even though there were many people who looked at it,” Damore said. “It was only after it got viral that upper management started shaming me and eventually firing me.”"In the judgment of Big Brother, err, Big Sister, in Mountain View, his opinions were “incorrect” and violated Google’s “Code of Conduct.” The blowback was swift and persists: Google cancels employee meeting because of harassment fears | bizjournals.com: "Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, sent an email to staff members canceling the meeting a half-hour before it was to start on Thursday." Be thankful you don't work for Google. Google is just as Evil, if not more so, as all the rest in Silicon Valley. Read James Damore's memo below and decide for yourself--is this memo an offense justifying termination?--
As a Woman in Tech, I Realized: These Are Not My People | Bloomberg.com: "And yet, you still have to ask whether shamestorming Damore and getting him sacked was really the best way to convince him -- or anyone else -- that he’s mistaken. Did anyone’s understanding of the complex quandaries of gender diversity advance? If there were guys at Google wondering whether the women around them really deserved their jobs, did anyone wake up the morning after Damore's firing with the revelation: “Good God, how could I have been so blind?” No, I suspect those guys are now thinking: “You see? Women can’t handle math or logic.”"
4) Why Apple and other tech companies are fighting to keep devices hard to repair | TheVerge.com: "Apple incentivizes consumers to trade in or discard models that are just 18–24 months old for newer ones."--A new report details how Apple, HP, other manufacturers influence the Green Electronics Council (domain: GreenElectronicsCouncil.org) to undermine green tech standards of reusability and repair.
5) ICYMI Tech News:
- Facebook and Google Policing the Web Will Do More Harm Than Good | WIRED.com: "A recent law passed in Germany will require social media companies like Facebook and Twitter to remove illegal, racist, or slanderous content within 24 hours after it's flagged by a user, or face fines as large as $57 million."
- U.S. card firm Vantiv clinches $10 billion deal to buy Worldpay| Reuters.com
- Salesforce fires red team staffers who gave Defcon talk | ZDNet.com: "Schwartz and Cramb are now being represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The specific reason for the firing is unknown."
- How your smartphone is ruining your life | independent.co.uk: "We are giving children devices that have the potential to become addictive at a time when their impulse control and judgement isn't fully developed," explains Tanya Goodin, founder of Time To Log Off. "We expecting them to self-regulate their use: even though we are witnessing mounting mental health issues," the author of OFF told The Independent."
- Consumer Reports pulls recommendations of Microsoft Surface laptops: "... Microsoft’s laptops and tablets will experience breakage rates of 25% within two years of ownership, loosely defined as any issue that comes up that prevents the computer from working as the owner expects ..."Windows 10 after two years: Microsoft's mixed report card | ZDNet.com: "Windows 7 still remains the most popular Windows version."
- "Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google are hardly unbeatable. They're actually vulnerable."--Is 'FAANG' More Dangerous Than The '4 Horsemen' Of The Late 1990s And The 'Nifty Fifty' Of The Early 1970s? | SeekingAlpha.com
- Russia Hack? "The Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) have been investigating the now conventional wisdom that last year's leaks of Democratic National Committee files were the result of Russian hacks. What they found instead is evidence to the contrary."--Why Some U.S. Ex-Spies Don't Buy the Russia Story | Bloomberg.com.
-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo
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