Ina Fried
To trace Big Tech competition, follow the money
How Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft make their revenue today shapes the battles they will fight tomorrow. For years, the largest tech companies each had their own fiefdom where they garnered the lion's share of revenue and profits. While tech companies competed at the edges, the market was big enough that each had plenty of green fields to expand into. They might step on each other's toes, but they took pains — and sometimes struck deals — to steer clear of the others' core businesses.
Another potential casualty of Ukraine war: global tech standards
Global standards ensure that things like smartphones and laptops — and even the internet itself — work across borders. "Standard bodies are essential to ensure interoperability which is critical to achieving 'economies of scale' and technology reach the masses," wireless consultant Chetan Sharma told Axios. "Geopolitical tensions have a real prospect of splintering the Internet and the wireless industry and the emergence of completely decoupled supply chains and ecosystems around the world," Sharma said.
Cassava Technologies works to bring better internet to African countries
Much of Africa has gotten a taste of the internet thanks to cellular technology, but high-speed access remains scarce on the continent thanks to a lack of consumer spending power and a fractured, unreliable power grid. Cassava Technologies, a spinout of an African telecommunications firm, aims to change that equation. Africa is home to 54 countries and 1.3 billion people and covers an area larger than India, China and Western Europe combined. That's too big a chunk of the planet to be stuck with spotty, expensive internet access. Much of the continent now has cellular access.
Coalition of nonprofits launch "How to Stop Facebook" campaign
A coalition of nonprofits debuted HowToStopFacebook.org, a fresh push to encourage greater government regulation of the social networking giant aimed at forcing the company to change its business model.
Facebook's social balance is in the red
Thanks to a multipart Wall Street Journal series this week, we have learned about a number of the company's challenges based on internal reports and documents written by Facebook employees sounding alarms. Facebook has argued that the Journal's information is ou
Lookalike tech policies in China, Europe and the US
Nations and regions with wildly differing political systems and cultures have converged on a shared set of responses to the power of big tech firms: rein in the companies, avoid dependencies and subsidize critical networks and technologies. China, which has long been accused of protecting domestic companies, has recently been
Your smartphone is breaking up
The smartphone became what it is by combining the functions of a host of other devices—telephone, camera, web browser, handheld games, music player—into one package. Now that process is moving in reverse.
Trump-era data grabs pose a threat to global negotiations
Recent revelations about Trump-era data grabs by federal authorities have put the US in a tricky spot as it competes with China to lead the digital age. As the Trump Justice Department pursued leaks and critics in Congress, the media and the White House itself, it obtained court orders to scoop up data from Apple, Microsoft and other tech providers. Then courts put the companies under gag orders that blocked them from warning their customers they'd been targeted, or even revealing the existence of the gag orders themselves.