Google’s owner Alphabet has ambitions to match, yet apart from dreams that often come come true when it comes to the American behemoth’s strategy, what was truly shocking in recent days was the announcement that it had managed to strike a deal in Cuba that could carry great significance.
While it’s too early to speculate that it could also signal a political U-turn, we ought to pay attention to latest news from CNN: “When someone in Cuba watches a YouTube video for the first time, that content has to travel through undersea cables from servers in another country. But once it gets to Cuba, it will now be stored on local servers, and the next person who wants to watch it will have a noticeably faster load time.”
“Internet access in Cuba is limited and expensive, and some estimates say as little as 5% of people have Internet at home. In order to surf the web, Cubans often congregate at cafes, hotels, and other public areas that have Wi-Fi,” it added.
Underneath the surface, Google — a $633bn-market-cap firm — is also investing more time and resources to adjust the algorithm that identifies and solves all problems related to fake news.
But Cuba ain’t fake news.
It deserves a mention as being a deal that perhaps is a sign of the changing times as well as the start of a new era for border control, which is something tech-land must gauge, among other obvious risks, in terms of capital investment risk.
In its quest for glory, Google has a formidable rival, apparently — “Uber targets 2020 for on-demand VTOL demo flights in Dallas and Dubai” was the headline from Tech Crunch last week, when Bloomberg noted that “we just got our first glimpse of Elon Musk’s new tunnel company.”
Quarterly earnings anybody?
If you missed any latest trading update, here is what you need to know about Twitter, PayPal, Samsung, LG, Alphabet, GoPro, Amazon, Microsoft, Yandex, Comcast, and Intel.
- Flying Ambition (Bloomberg, 26/4/2017)
- Global Cache Finally Lands In Cuba (Miami Herald, 26/4/2017)
- Waymo Starts Self-Driving, Public Test In Arizona (Tech Crunch, 25/4/2017)
- Google‘s New Algorithm Detects, Reviews Fake News (The Telegraph, 25/4/2017)
Key highlight of the week:
Digital: Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft…
- There Are Problems, But FB’s Instagram Hit 700m Users (Tech Crunch, 24/4/2017; Tech Crunch, 24/4/2017, Tech Crunch, 26/4/2017)
- FB‘ s Messenger Lite Grows Worldwide (FB, 27/4/2017)
- UK Government Vs. Twitter Over Data Disclosure (The Telegraph, 25/4/2017)
- Microsoft Exploits LinkedIn’s Data (Tech Crunch, 24/4/2017; LinkedIn, 24/4/2017)
Key highlight of the week:
Trending Finance: Softbank, Apple, Didi, Netflix…
- Paytm Set To Raise $1.9bn From Softbank (The Economic Times, 28/4/2017)
- Apple‘s App Store Makes A Strong Cut To Affiliate Commissions, Hits Record Sales In Q1 (MacStories, 24/4/2017; Tech Crunch, 27/4/2017)
- Didi‘s Funding Nears $6bn? (Bloomberg, 26/4/2017)
- About Netflix’s $1bn Funding Round (Netflix, 24/4/2017; Hollywood Reporter, 24/4/2017 )
Key highlight of the week:
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