Tech Stock News: 7 Things You Missed This Week

Posted on August 23, 2019June 30, 2026 by io-fund

1. Amazon Calls on India to Reduce Ecommerce Restrictions

Amazon executive Amit Agarwal recently told Reuters that India needs to reduce red tape and encourage ecommerce if it is to overcome sluggish domestic growth. “There is so much opportunity to just let ecommerce thrive versus trying to define every single guard rail under which it should operate,” Agarwal said.

Agarwal’s comment was directed at India’s latest ecommerce laws which limits Amazon and Walmart’s ability to operate in the country. Pushing back on these new legislations, he emphasized Amazon’s role in helping small and medium enterprises in the country by enhancing their export capabilities. According to reports, Amazon has allowed India’s businesses to earn more than $1 billion in exports, with another $5 billion expected in the next three years if certain barriers are eliminated.

“The number of basic paper cut opportunities out there are so many,” Agarwal said. “I feel we’re getting lost in the high level debate around ecommerce and data localization.”

Despite these concerns, Amazon is actively expanding its presence in the subcontinent. Not only has the company launched a new campus in India, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also promises to invest $5 billion into India. Furthermore, Indian demand for the Amazon Prime loyalty program also doubled in the last 18 months, and the country remains one of the fastest growing markets for Prime Membership in the world.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-india/amazon-opens-its-biggest-global-campus-in-india-idUSKCN1VB1EZ

2. Splunk Expands Cloud Capabilities With $1 Billion Acquisition Of SignalFx

Splunk made news this Wednesday when it announced that it had acquired cloud monitoring SignalFx for $1.05 billion. This new acquisition will not only allow SignalFx to expand its cloud capabilities, it will also allow Splunk to expand its presence in the application performance monitoring market.

SignalFx offers real time cloud monitoring services for data anomalies, and it seems to be doing well. It managed to generate $25 million in revenue last year, and raise $179 million at a recent valuation of $500 million. It also managed to secure venture capital support from well-known firms like CRV and Andressen Horowitz.

Aside from its SignalFX deal, Splunk’s stock also rose to $141.25 shortly after it released its latest quarterly earnings and revenue report. According to the official data, the company’s revenues rose by $517 million, which represents a 33% year over year increase. This news, combined with the Signal Fx acquisition, helped to drive up sentiment for Splunk shares throughout most of the week.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2019/08/21/splunk-acquires-cloud-monitoring-company-signalfx/#469b8cc34b51

3. NVIDIA Jumps by 7% After RTX Ray-Tracing Technology Announcement

NVIDIA shares recently jumped by 7% after announcing that their RTX Ray-Tracing technology will be used for the PC version of Minecraft, the most widely sold video game in the world. NVIDIA shares closed at $170.78 this Monday, bringing the stock’s year to date 2019 return to 28%.

NVIDIA’s RTX Ray-Tracing technology promises to allow Minecraft fans to experience more realistic lightings, shadows and colors on the PC platform. Additionally, this new technology is also expected to increase exposure for NVIDIA’s latest graphic processing unit (GPU) technology, which happens to be the only GPU with real time ray tracing capabilities.

NVIDIA originally introduced RTX technology back in 2018, a huge achievement at that time. Today, NVIDIA’s leaders believe that by introducing RTX technology into Minecraft’s PC platform, it will be able to expose PC gamers to what the technology has to offer.

“Minecraft will expose ray tracing to millions of gamers of all ages and backgrounds that may not play more hardcore video games,” GeForce head of Marketing Matt Wuebbling said.

Aside from its Ray-Tracing announcement, NVIDIA’s stock also benefited from last week’s second quarter earnings report. Although adjusted earnings per share fell by 36% year over year to $1.24, they were still higher than expectations.

Finally, NVIDIA also benefitted from the overall strength in tech sector, which rallied due to investor expectations that the US-China trade war may be cooling or at least stabilizing.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-nvidia-stock-jumped-7-120100086.html

4. The Trade Desk Brings in New Talent to Speed Up China Strategy

The Trade Desk’s (TTD) recent appointment of Calvin Chan as their general manager for their China operations marked another key step in their growth strategy. The news comes at the heels of The Trade Desk’s announcement back in in spring that it will allow customers to purchase ads in the country.

Prior to joining The Trade Desk, Chan originally worked for AdMaster, a major data and digital company in China. He also briefly worked at Nielsen, which specializes in data, information and management. TTD Senior vice president of North Asia, Troy Yang said that, “Calvin’s appointment will help accelerate our growth with major Chinese partners and advertisers.”

Although TTD’s presence in China is relatively small, it is aggressive expanding under the assumption that it can tap into the country’s growing middle class. Chan was chosen because of his experiences and connections in China, and also because of his deep understanding of TTD’s long term strategy for the country.

The Trade Desk’s China strategy aims for a ‘long term approach,’ comparable to the one used to create a platform for the connected-TV market. Not only will the company need to adapt to serve China’s growing middle class, it will also need to cultivate deeper connections with the Chinese tech industry.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/08/20/the-trade-desk-makes-a-key-hire-to-accelerate-its.aspx

5. Are Lyft Options About to Get Cheaper?

Lyft’s shares took a big jump this Tuesday, climbing 3% in early trading. Investors have always been bullish on Lyft’s future prospects, but there was another reason why the stock jumped the way it did earlier this week: cheaper Lyft Options.

Many were betting that Lyft shares would soon bottom out, which in turn forced many investors to rethink their strategies, particularly with regards to the $50 support level. This all happened in conjunction with the lockup expiration, which failed to cause many major selloffs among shareholders.

According to Seymour Asset Management’s Tim Seymour, people who bought Lyft shares this week did so because they believe in its long term value. “If you’re buying this company today … I don’t think you’re buying it for a trade. I think you are truly going to be an investor,” Seymour said.

Additionally, there was also Lyft’s August 7 earnings report, which beat most expectations, further reinforcing the sentiment that ride-shares and Lyft’s business model as a whole have bright futures.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/20/lyft-options-may-soon-get-a-whole-lot-cheaperheres-how.html

6. Roku Adds New Child Streaming Service

Roku recently announced the creation of a “Kids and Family” section for its ad-supported channel this Monday. The announcement came at the heels of last week’s news which saw Roku shares reaching a new record high of 142.10 on August 13 based on strong second quarter data.

According to official reports, the new child streaming service will not only offer quality, child-friendly shows and content, it will also allow parents to control what their children can watch. Furthermore, there are also premium subscription offerings for children’s entertainment as well as other future services.

The new Kid’s and Family service promises to offer around 7000 free, ad-supported shows and movies from several Roku partners, including Lionsgate, Mattel, Hasbro, Pocket Watch and more. Lego has also willingly signed on as the first advertising sponsor for the new Roku service.

Roku Adds Free Children’s Channel To Its Streaming Video Platform

7. Salesforce Beats Revenue Forecasts; Shares Rise by 7%

Salesforce shares climbed by around 7% on Thursday after the software company announced that its quarterly revenue had beaten expectations. The company’s shares briefly touched $149 per share before closing at $148.24.

According to official data, Salesforce’s quarter revenue rose to around $4 billion this quarter, higher than the $3.95 billion estimate from earlier projections. A significant portion of the revenue was generated by the company’s largest product, Sales Cloud which grew by 13% while the second largest, Service Cloud grew by 22%. Due to the positive data, Salesforce is raising its revenue forecast for 2019 from $16.2 billion to between $16.7 billion and $16.9 billion.

However, even before the company released its latest report, Salesforce had already expected to beat its revenue target for the current fiscal year by several billions dollars. A major portion of this growth came from Tableau and Mulesoft, which were acquired for $15.3 billion and $6.5 billion respectively. The company plans to continue its rapid expansion all throughout the year.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/22/salesforce-earnings-q2-2020.html

August 12th: Broad Market Technical Update

Posted on August 13, 2019June 30, 2026 by io-fund

There’s reason for caution today. Right now, the chart above shows that the market is flashing yellow. We have closed below the 200-day EMA, broke through the bottom channel of the Bollinger band with force and turned down right at the midline. We’re seeing a noticeable elevation of volume, pushing stocks down. And, most telling, is the RSI of the broad market. Look at the last 2 times it dipped below 50 and couldn’t break that level. In short, in downturns, the RSI usually stays below 50 and does not break 60, and in bull markets, it usually stays above 50 and does not break 40.

I took the 3% down day last week to be a warning. When you consider SPY to be the ETF tracking the greatest 500 stocks in the United States, you come to realize just how diversified this index is, which should put into perspective how violent a 3% move in one day is. We are not recommending selling stocks, but we are recommending that you mind your trailing stops, and be patient with entry into other names. Some of our stocks tested support, and are currently right above their recommended support levels. Let’s see what the market decides to do before adding or initiating any positions.

August 12th Update

Posted on August 13, 2019June 30, 2026 by io-fund

This week, we have a blog analysis on Alibaba that will be published after earnings. This is my favorite growth stock from China and if/when the price is low enough, it’ll make a solid long term holding. You’ll get this on Thursday.

We will also be publishing a PDF report on the alt-coin that I’ve been preparing over the last two weeks. Of the 1500+ alt-coins, this one is my favorite. This long-form analysis will be published on Friday. Keep in mind, it’s very early days for this alt-coin as the blockchain stack hasn’t been fully developed yet. I truly believe you’ll be pleased in about two years from now.

I’m also writing an article for MarketWatch on Nvidia this week. They tapped me to write a more technical explanation of Nvidia’s market position especially compared to AMD. There is an interesting angle that I dug up after revisiting these semis that I’m saving only for my Premium subscribers. You’ll get this by next Tuesday. I haven’t seen anyone publish on this angle and we’ve seen some documented trading by company insiders that confirms it’s worth a second look.

Last week was a bit of a roller coaster ride. Lyft saw a 11% spike after earnings due to revised guidance of $850M in losses. It eventually settled when the company announced the lock-up period is being shortened to August 19th. The next day Uber confirmed that profitability in the ride-sharing business is still a moonshot. These are my least favorite IPOs and I went on record about that before they went public.

Regarding Roku, its fundamental story remains as strong as it was the day it went public. I like the leadership quite a bit at Roku, as well. One reader asked on the forum if I thought Roku might be an acquisition target. My understanding is this is Anthony Wood’s opus and I think he will take this all the way. For anyone who didn’t read the full report under the PDF tab on this website (I understand my analysis is quite long!), my best guess is Roku will be a $100 billion company due to global expansion. They have an excellent product and platform for global audiences – better than any OTT company on the market today.

The Trade Desk appears to be settling in price. Even after the earnings beat, the stock appeared to be overbought and is correcting. One reader had asked how to predict when The Trade Desk will face the inevitable competition that all third-party ad products face. It’s not easy as to track but I am going to an advertising event in September that should provide enough information to make a good assessment.

I had published a list of Huawei suppliers for hedging any long positions on August 1st. The 90-day exemption period ends this Monday, August 19th. You can watch that list closely and Apple and Google (Android), as well. Depending on how the story evolves, we may try to pick one or two trades from the list and cover them. I personally made decent money on hedging with Qualcomm and Skyworks in May but have not looked at the pricing since.

Website changes: There’s a new menu to help navigation on the site. You’ll see we nested the various research options. We are building a new forum and will be excited to see this launch in about 2 weeks. Content will be locked for new members dating back about 45 to 60 days starting in September. This means new members will not be able to sign up and access a long catalog of research for a lower price than our continuous and most loyal customers.

Gentle Reminder: Please do not share the PDFs or research via email or on other sites. However, it is okay to paraphrase on other sites and I appreciate the traffic that is sent to me – thank you! We want our paying members to have time to place their trades before the stock price changes. I do have a few institutions that follow me and I’ve locked them out of this site by requiring a commercial license.

August 5th Update – Seeing Red

Posted on August 6, 2019June 30, 2026 by io-fund

Information Technology led the losses today with XLK down -4.17% compared to other sector ETFs down 2-3%. Losses in the NASDAQ of 3.47% outpaced the Dow and S&P 500 at 2.90% and 2.97% respectively. Futures are trading at negative 2% on news that the U.S. declared China is a “currency manipulator.”

The market closed on its 200-day exponential moving average. After hours, it broke through and will likely gap down to open tomorrow, while futures are currently showing the market trading into the 2790 region. The market is over-sold based on the RSI index and we are approaching key supports. A bounce is likely. The RSI is currently (as of the close today) lower than the RSI low in the May/June correction of this year. Furthermore, we are approaching a major price cluster (red dotted lines). This has acted as major support and resistance in the past.

The list of Huawei suppliers provided on Research Services is a decent list to hedge your long positions. It’s unlikely there is a resolution with Huawei for some time. I had written this in the Apple update, as well. The damage done to Huawei suppliers over the current trade war news should exceed what we saw in May.

Most investors can agree that technology stocks are expensive right now. Our most likely scenario on the MongoDB report was an entry below the $141 support between $95 and $128. We will keep you posted on this.

Snap is likely to break the final support on our most recent trade at $16.20 and we will be releasing information on entry for this stock again for anyone who exited. I’ve chosen to keep some of my position as there is room for a bull run on Snap due to monetization through Audience Network.

We also have a lengthy 12-page report coming out tomorrow on one of my favorite trends for the next 2-3 years – Connected TV Advertising. We will be guiding premium subscribers on entry for TTD and Roku. The latter is a stronger pure play, but this trend is critical to have in your portfolio, and there is room for both stocks to perform well in the near term of 2-3 years. TTD and Roku report earnings this week.

Uber and Lyft also report earnings this week – my two least favorite IPOs this year.

Regards, Beth

July 29th– Google Update and Apple Earnings

Posted on July 29, 2019June 30, 2026 by io-fund

Website update: Check out the beta version of our forum for discussion with other members. We’ve got some great discussion going on there on Snap, MongoDB and more. our forum for discussion with other members. We’ve got some great discussion going on there on Snap, MongoDB and more.

Last week, Google had a strong earnings report with 19% growth from $32.6 billion in Q2 2018 to $38.9 billion in Q2 2019. Net income also rose from $12.6 billion to $16.6 billion compared to the year-ago quarter. The leading drivers, according to the earnings call, were mobile search and YouTube, followed by desktop search. Google Cloud Platform has an annual run rate of $8 billion.

As of now, the thesis published in “Google: 2019 Analysis” has not changed. From an industry perspective, Google is between the rock of privacy and the hard place of anti-trust. For Google to have uninterrupted returns, the ad environment will have to remain tilted in its favor. The headlines around these issues are causing fatigue – not to mention complacency (that is warranted) as Google continues to remain a strong stock in the face of these risks.

My next update on these companies will come in early October after I spend a week with advertising professionals at AdvertisingWeek in NYC – one of the biggest ad industry events of the year with a lot of industry intel. I’ll get the scoop on Apple’s ITP 2.2 and update you on anything else I come across.

Apple Earnings:

At risk of being overly contrarian, I am also not excited about Apple as a long-term buy and hold in 2019 and 2020. Mobile saturation is a risk, and secondly, the trade war could potentially compound the cycle of hardware saturation. I don’t see the United States officially lifting a Huawei ban and I wrote about this both before and after the G20 Summit.

On a separate note, watch your Huawei suppliers carefully (QCOM, AVGO, SWKS, XLNX, etc).

Smartphone Saturation:

The smartphone market contracted in 2017 to 1.462 billion units and in 2018 to 1.42 billion units, and is expected to return to minimal yet positive growth percentages at a CAGR of 2.5%. While 1.5 billion smartphones per year is substantial, the law of saturation is likely to drive prices down, with Android owning 85% of the market today, and we see decreasing iPhone penetration in China where lower-priced competitors gain market share.

IDC estimated Apple will sell 242 million smartphones by 2022 up from 221 million in 2018. The issue with these estimates is that IDC does not break down the percentage of potential decline between 2018 to 2022. The most up to date number available from IDC is an anticipated decline of 0.8% in worldwide smartphone sales in 2019, published on March 6th.

We saw China decline 10% last year in global shipments of smartphones. Taiwanese company, TSMC, is the sole supplier of iPhone core processor chips and told Nikkei Asian Review that the company is cautious about demand for high-end smart phones, which is a nod toward Apple from a main supplier. Samsung Electronic’s Vice President Lee Myung-jin told investors in late January that “demand for memory chips has declined in the fourth quarter as external circumstances worsened and customers adjusted their orders” and he believes the decline “will continue in the first quarter, as key customers keep adjusting their orders.” This was before Samsung’s operating profit fell off a 60% cliff.

Conclusions: I do not believe Apple’s operating profit will fall off a cliff like Samsung but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see the stock trading sub-190 this year. With that said, the cash pile and buybacks keep a lot of investors in the stock.

Status: Hold with potential of downside risk over next two quarters.

MWC 2019: A Dose of Reality on 5G, Those Foldable Phones and Bitcoin Has a Serious Competitor

Posted on March 7, 2019June 30, 2026 by io-fund

The GSMA Mobile World Congress (MWC) is the world’s largest exhibition for the mobile industry and combines influential companies from Asia, Europe and North America in the central location of Barcelona. The grandiose 20,000 square foot booths come with the largest names in mobile, like Samsung, Ericsson, Huawei, Google, Docomo, Telefonica, Orange, Verizon, AT&T, Qualcomm, Xiaomi, and other big names with big marketing budgets.

MCW 2019 Event

5G Loud and Clear

5G, 5G, and more 5G is basically the best way to sum up the news from the event. Every operator, network and manufacturer had some angle on the 5G rollout. However, hold your investment pennies for now on 5G stocks. The capex bill that comes with it may be one of the biggest the tech industry has ever faced. The GSMA trade group, a trade body that counts over 800 telecom and mobile corporate companies as members, stated that carriers will be spending $160 billion on an annual basis to roll out 5G networks. In addition to network costs, trillions will be required to install the infrastructure needed for the content, applications and emerging tech that will rely on the 5G networks (i.e. smart cities, autonomous vehicles, virtual reality, etc). Think 5G makes for a good long trade? Again, don’t count on it for now as the GSMA also stated only 15 percent of all mobile connections will be on 5G by 2025. (As I mentioned, the GSMA is a fairly reliable source as it counts 800 of the world’s top mobile companies as members).

Qualcomm 5G

According to VentureBeat, the financing firm Greensill puts the total cost for 5G at $2.7 trillion through the end of 2020. The issue is that it’ll take a few years to see any returns, which will put networks in the red until applications catch up. This, of course, is the fine print to 5G that the lights, camera and action of the booths at MWC didn’t portray (view my Instagram posts here). In fact, there was a panel where Mike Fries, the CEO of Liberty Global, pointed out that carriers in Europe have not recouped costs on 4G yet. “You’ve had 10 straight years of declining mobile revenues in Europe with the biggest issue being price,’ he said.

Will Foldable Phones Drive Sales?

Foldable phones were the most talked about product at the event. Huawei’s Mate X and Samsung’s Galaxy Fold were both on display behind glass cases. The use-cases for the foldable phone include more productivity while on-the-go and new applications for cameras, such as seeing the photo before you take it due to the second screen. The price tag is high – over $2,000 is the anticipated number when the phone is released later this year. Following MWC, on February 28th, Apple Insider reported that Apple has filed a patent application for “Electronic Devices with Flexible Displays” with sensor and micro-heater technology to keep a foldable screens from becoming too brittle in cold temperatures. No doubt, mobile handsets have stagnated recently with iPhone revenue dropping in Apple’s earnings reports. Will foldable phones deliver enough ingenuity to revive sales? Time will tell, but it does seem like early adopters are taking a risk on the durability of the manufacturing as Samsung’s foldable phone is already reporting issues after being folded 10,000 times. According to Wired and ArsTechnica, the foldable phones from Samsung and Huawei are made of plastic polymers, which can scratch easily and cause the previously mentioned wear from folding the device. In the meantime, glass-maker Corning is “working on an ultrathin, bendable glass that’s 0.1 millimeters thick and can bend to a 5-millimeter radius” that may hit the market in about two years. (Wired’s article is less than obscure and is entitled “Want a Foldable Phone? Hold Out for Real Glass).

SoftBank Becomes Bitcoin Competitor

Blockchain was a more muted theme at MWC, one that was mainly talked about in sessions for Silver, Gold and Platinum pass holders. In one session, SoftBank had an interesting angle on how to transfer payments electronically in order to avoid the drawbacks of bitcoin. Their proposal is cross-carrier identification systems (CCIS) and payment systems (CCPS) technology that runs through telecom carriers. CCIS focuses on enabling identification and authentication, which reduces the need to have different usernames and passwords by using Zero Knowledge Proof cryptography and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to issue, store and authorize for identification purposes without requiring detailed information. The goal is to prevent identify thefts while minimizing the current requirements needed to verify passwords by creating encrypted digital identities.

Presentation on MWC 2019

The second part to SoftBank’s partnership with TBCASoft is a blockchain-based platform for global or cross-border payments. For instance, a user can make purchases in Japan with U.S. dollars through mobile-based Rich Communications Services (RCS). The official press release was in September of 2018. Here is some more information on how it works:

“The PoC enables users to make a variety of in-store, mobile and digital purchases directly from their device. For example, a mobile customer based in Japan can travel to the U.S. and make a purchase supported by SoftBank and Synchronoss via RCS. In addition, the RCS global messaging standard can be used to send a payment, while the CCPS blockchain API enables the recipient to use an RCS-based messaging app or legacy messaging service to receive person-to-person (P2P) money transfers through the RCS wallet app.”

Autonomous Vehicles: Fact vs. Fiction at CES 2019

Posted on January 17, 2019June 30, 2026 by io-fund

Robot dogs from Continental prove that autonomous vehicle hype has gone too far. At CES 2019, Continental announced a way to automate last mile-delivery without requiring a human. This is where the robot dogs come in. The company’s official statement was, “With the help of robot delivery, Continental’s vision for seamless mobility can extend right to your doorstep. Our vision of cascaded robot delivery leverages a driverless vehicle to carry delivery robots, creating an efficient transport team.”

Virtual Representation of Autonomous Vehicles with AI Robots. Source: Continental

The problem with robot dogs, and many other AV gimmicks, is that the industry is not talking truthfully about what where we are with AV and what it will take to put an advanced AVs on the road. This is harmful to consumers who mistakenly believe autonomous vehicles are available for purchase and already on the road today. In fact, 71% of respondents around the world believe they can buy an AV – yet there is not one AV on the market. The top three brands that consumers mistakenly believe distribute self-driving cars include Tesla (40%), BMW (27%), and Audi (21%). It’s also harmful to investors who expect AV technologies to be profitable in the near term of two to three years.

CES is one of the world’s major marketing events where autonomous vehicles were first hyped. The main stage, the keynotes, the sessions, the booths, the competition between rival companies – all of it pushed for bigger and better car demos. Which is why CES is the perfect platform for the announcement of PAVE, which stands for The Partners for Automated Vehicle Education. PAVE is a new coalition that will help educate the public and policymakers about the potential of automated vehicles. Audi, Aurora, Cruise, GM, Mobileye, Nvidia, Toyota, Waymo and Zoox have joined the coalition, which has a central focus on education and safety – and also a focus on more credible information. As stated by Mark Del Rosso, President of Audi America, “Traditional automakers and newcomers are investing billions of dollars in the technology that will make automated vehicles possible. PAVE recognizes the need to invest in public information – in making sure consumers and policymakers understand what’s real, what’s possible, and what is rumor or speculation.”

Just the Facts: Level 2 Automation at CES 2019

Level 2 automation is a reference to the six levels of autonomous vehicles published by SAE International, and adopted as the industry standard for discussing the various stages and evolution of autonomous vehicles. Level 0 is no automation and Level 5 is full automation without a human driver and does not have brakes or a steering wheel. We are at Level 2 right now and the industry is experiencing notable delays in deploying Level 3.

(NOTE:NOTE: I’ve published extensively on an autonomous vehicle bubble due to investors pouring money into AV technologies that won’t commercially deploy for many years. You can access the analysis on GM here, the analysis on Tesla here and the analysis on how autonomous vehicles are creating a bubble here).

Below are a couple of the more important (and realistic) announcements from CES that will deploy in the very near future.

Nvidia

Nvidia placed emphasis on gaming this year at its Sunday CES press conference with the announcement of the RTX 2060, whereas it has been Nvidia’s tradition to focus on autonomous vehicles (and data center technologies) at the CES press conference. One day later, on Monday at CES, Nvidia launched DRIVE AutoPilot, which will improve advanced driver assistance features, such as enabling lane changes, pedestrian and cyclist detection, parking assist, and personal mapping. This improved automation strengthens the Level 2 vehicles we see on the road today.

Intel

Intel had a showy display that included a Gotham City themed BMW X5 equipped with large screen TVs, projectors, sensors and haptic feedback. Visual distractions aside, the real news from Intel at CES is the company’s ongoing focus on China. Intel did not officially state they are redirecting their efforts from the United States to China, however, the announcements speak for themselves:

Mobileye, Beijing Public Transport Corp. and Beijing Beytai Collaborate to Bring Autonomy to China’s Public Transportation
2019 CES: Great Wall Motors, Mobileye Join Forces to Deliver ADAS and Autonomous Driving Solutions in China and Beyond
Intel and Alibaba Team on New AI-Powered 3D Athlete Tracking Technology Aimed at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020

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This is in addition to a hard-to-miss announcement back in July that Baidu was partnering with Mobileye on their Apollo vehicle. At CES 2019, Baidu had on display the successful implementation of Mobileye’s Responsibility Sensitivity Safety (RSS) in the simulation engine of Apollo (I personally tried out the simulator).

Baidu Spokesperson at CES discussing Data-Centric Innovation

It’s important to note that China is not immune to the issues the industry faces in advancing from Level 2 automation to Level 3 automation. China, too, is idling at Level 2 (apologies for the pun). For instance, Great Wall Motors released a statement at CES 2019 that “GWM hope to integrate Mobileye’s solutions into its vehicles. Starting with L0-L2+ within the next three to five years, the companies are also exploring opportunities for Mobileye’s Level 3 products.”

Baidu and Mobileye have both made promises to deliver Level 3 by 2019 and Level 4 autonomy by 2021. These dates were announced in 2017 but there has been no recent updates as to the estimated delivery for L3 – including at CES this year.

Mercedes Benz

The best AV investments over the next three to five years will come from companies who are taking baby steps towards a better and safer driving experience. Mercedes-Benz is one company making the most of Level 2 partial automation by announcing a new CLA class. The CLA class is a more tech-driven option with augmented reality for navigation, and an Interior Assistant that understands indirect voice commands and operational gestures. (Read my analysis on how we have reached a tipping point for AI-powered assistants here). An example of this is when a driver reaches over in the seat, and lights automatically illuminate the area. You can also set a command such as “navigate me home” or ask the voice assistant something complicated like “find child-friendly Asian restaurants nearby with 4-star rating which are neither Chinese nor Japanese,” which was one example given in the demo.

New Autonomous Vehicle Mercedes Benz CLA class. Source: TechCrunch

Takeaway:

Nvidia and Intel had a different tone at CES this year in regards to autonomous vehicles. Nvidia’s launch of DRIVE AutoPilot is a smart strategy to boost sales in the short term while the AV future of Level 3 or Level 4 sorts itself out. The Mercedes CLA class is another great example of a strong Level 2 automation strategy. Intel is clearly betting on China, especially Baidu, although China is not immune to the difficulties of how to get a machine to react like a human. Notably, there was no Level 3 follow up from Baidu at this year’s CES despite promises for arrival in 2019 (although the year is young).

Regardless of make or model, AVs are stuck at Level 2, and there are too high of expectations as to when advanced AV will turn a profit. Therefore, the AV market will struggle as the delivery of reliable and safe automation continues to see delays. Nvidia, Intel and Mercedes are a few companies preparing for the slow down, and I’m betting we will see others do the same this year.

CES 2019 – AI Assistants Are Multiplying, Are We Privacy-Ready?

Posted on January 14, 2019June 30, 2026 by io-fund

To experience CES this year was to experience the sensation of exiting a large football stadium. You essentially walk in a continuous herd of over 180,000 people. There were many noteworthy displays and freebies, as long as you don’t mind standing in line for two hours or having hundreds of people blocking your view. (The only line I stood in was for Starbucks).

I’m also not one for flying taxis or the never-ending release of new television screens. At this point, if you buy an 8K television, it will take years for content producers to catch up to 8K content (which is why you won’t see me covering this as a trend). Although, standing under these curved OLED TVs from LG complete with a dramatic presentation was one of my favorite, personal highlights.

I’ve organized the stampede into a couple of important trends that will impact you as a consumer of technology and will also help to inform your tech stock portfolio. I’ll be covering the notable CES trends in a three-part series. These trends include the tipping point for AI-powered assistants, Level 2 vehicle automation and 5G (yes, it’s a big deal).

Note: I’m launching a podcast. Sign up for my newsletter for more information.

CES 2019 Becomes Tipping Point for AI-Assistants

You may have heard the shocking statistics regarding daily mobile phone usage. For instance, the average person spends over 4 hours per day looking at their phone. The idea of touching your mobile phone to an obsessive level, especially while driving, will become a long-forgotten concept as we transition to AI-powered voice assistants. Google was clear with CES attendees – AI-powered assistants are the next frontier in technology and Google wants to win.

One of the bigger attractions at CES was a theme park ride that took riders through a Disney-like experience designed to highlight Google Assistant. The characters and landscapes prompted daily tasks through Google Assistant, such as turning off lights, taking selfies, and ordering birthday cakes. It was a costly display that got a lot of media attention.

Man Taking A Picture at CES 2019

source: Mashable

Here is a brief overview of the Google assistant-powered announcements from last week.

Google expects Google Assistant to be on 1 billion devices by the end of the month, up from 400 million devices a year ago.
Google Assistant will be on Google Maps for both iOS and Android
Google Assistant will be integrated with Android lock screens, Sonos Speakers, Samsung TVs, Dish set-top-boxes, Lenovo alarm clocks, IKEA blinds (yes, you read that right), Anker and JBL to retrofit your car, and has partnered with United to check you in on flights with more airlines on the way.

Amazon Alexa had 80% of the market in early 2018. When new numbers are released, you can expect market share to decrease as Google was growing at 483% growth compared to Amazon’s 8% growth. Here are a few of Amazon’s announcements from CES:

Alexa, in a partnership with JLB speakers, can be installed into your ceiling through a LED downlight.
Razer plans to integrate Alexa into its gaming platform
Amazon announced partnerships with Telenav and HERE technologies, which are both big players in the connected car space. Telenav is a connected car and location-based services provider and HERE sells and licenses mapping and location data, and works with companies such as BMW, Oracle, Facebook and Yahoo! Maps.
Echo Auto now has over 1 million pre-orders, which is a dongle that plugs into a car’s infotainment system to provide hands-free driving.

Home is Where the Privacy Is

Apple should have an answer for this at WWDC in June, if not sooner. Siri was the original AI powered assistant released four years before Alexa. The only news we got from Apple during the show came from partnership announcements with HomeKit and AirPlay 2 arriving on non-apple devices such as Samsung, LG, Vizio and Sony TVs. (Apple does not make announcements at CES, rather Apple makes announcements at its own, proprietary conferences).

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However, Apple did make one very bold statement at CES. The statement was in the form of a large ad that stated, “What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone.” Apple is correct to bring up privacy at a time when tech companies will have more data and information than ever before from AI-powered speakers.

Apple Statement at CES 2019

Takeaway:

The time we spend touching our mobile phones will define this past decade as a “thing of the past.” The practice of typing everything we are thinking onto a small screen will slowly be replaced by voice activated technology. CES 2019 was a turning point with tech giants revealing AI assistants are the central focus in their strategy moving forward. However, there are serious privacy implications to having a speaker in every room of the house. Google’s Android operating system leaks more data than Facebook, even on Facebook’s worst day. The bottom line is that there are still a lot of questions to be answered before these assistants are in your ceilings, on your blinds and in your bedroom via the alarm clock. I’ll be looking forward to Apple’s privacy-driven answer at WWDC in June.

Hot Startups in IoT

Posted on January 19, 2018June 30, 2026 by io-fund

The Internet of Things (IoT) has enjoyed a lot of attention from analysts and researchers who expect the number of IoT connections to surpass the human population this year. It’s no surprise there are quite a few startups in IoT. But how many of these products will actually be used? And does IoT simplify life or only add more gadgets in an already gadget-frenzied world?

An open-source analysis of IoT user behavior conducted by Harvard Business Review collected from 1,000 IoT technology platforms and 279,000 early adopters found that the most heavily used IoT programs made home life easier. The top 3 most preferred systems extended security, quantified the self, such as measuring body mass index (BMI) or sleeping patterns), and optimized machines to automate functions such as turning off lights when someone leaves the house.

A few months back, Santa Clara hosted the IoT World conference, which is known as the largest IoT conference in the world with 400 speakers, 250 sponsors and exhibitors, and an attendance of over 11,000 people. I attended this conference and found the following startups in IoT to be on the mark for both innovation and also answering demand for consumer needs:

Hot Startups in IoT:

1. Owlet:

In 2015, there were about 3,700 sudden unexpected infant deaths (SUID) in the United States with 1,600 confirmed from SIDS. These deaths occur in infants less than 1-year-old and have no immediate obvious cause, creating stress for parents of newborn babies. Owlet has created a smart sock to track a baby’s heart rate and oxygen levels while they sleep. The gadget features a sensor within the sock that connects to a smartphone to log and track the data collected. The technology is called “pulse oximetry” that works like the red light used in hospitals placed on the index finger to measure heart rate and oxygen. If the baby’s oxygen levels or heart rate exceeds the acceptable range, the monitor sounds the alarm. Owlet is still in the process of FDA approval and cannot yet claim to prevent SIDS, however, some parents already claim to be sleeping better.

2. Swarm Technology

Swarm Intelligence was introduced in 1989 by Jing Wang as a collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems and was employed for artificial intelligence, especially in regards to cellular robotic systems. The inspiration for “intelligent” global behavior comes from nature, such as ant colonies, bird flocks, animal herding and bacterial growth. The company, Swarm Technology, takes this concept and applies it to distributed processing, heterogeneous processing, machine learning and multi-agent artificial intelligence. Alfonso Inguez, the electrical engineer who developed the idea, explains the CPU broadcasts ‘this is what I need’ and the other computers or hardware that are interconnected and part of the internet of things lends to the fulfillment of what is being broadcast. Iniquz explains the key concept is “that the co-processors are not sitting idle waiting to be told what to do; they’re actively looking for work.”

3. Grid Connect

The smart home market continues to be plagued by high device prices, limited value and hard to install devices as pointed out in my article in VentureBeat. Centralization may be necessary for the connected home to work, but where should we limit this? If the benefits we’re looking for are interoperability and efficiency, then the connected home should limit centralization to only this, allowing the rest of the appliances and electronics to be decentralized. GridConnect helps facilitate this balance with the Connect Sense Smart Outlet. Released in 2015, the company announced the addition of power monitoring to the Smart Outlet and ConnectSense app in late 2016. With the ConnectSense app, users can integrate scenes and rules for the Smart Outlet and other home automation devices regardless of manufacturer. The power monitoring also helps to give insight into the power consumption of the devices plugged into the Smart Outlet. The ConnectSense app also gives the ability to create rules based on power usage.

4. Mynt

Smart trackers are becoming increasingly sophisticated and Mynt is not only reasonably priced but offers a full set of features such as accurate position tracking, playing music, taking a picture, recording video and sharing location, to name a few. By attaching Mynt to your valuables, your smartphone will alert you if you leave your keys or wallet behind, or if your pet is lost. Mynt is also a bi-directional tracker that has a built-in buzzer if you leave your phone. You can also locate your car by saving your parking location or take a selfie with Mynt by using it as a remote control for your cell phone camera. Although not the only Bluetooth tracker on the market, Mynt is extremely thin and reasonably priced at $19.99.

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