NEWSWORTHY
Back from the drawing board. The Fold is back–the Samsung Galaxy Fold, that is. The company says it worked out the problems that forced a delay in the sale of the Fold back in April and now expects to offer the high-tech, high-priced device in September.
Working my way back to you. On Wall Street, Facebook faced the music and Tesla flat out bombed. After news of the $5 billion hit from the Federal Trade Commission, Facebook said its second quarter revenue rose 28% to $16.9 billion and average daily users increased 8% to 1.6 billion. Shares of the social network, already up 56% in 2019, climbed 2% in premarket trading on Thursday. At Tesla, revenue rose 59% to $6.3 billion but an adjusted net loss per share of $1.12, while down 63%, was far worse than analysts expected. Shares of Tesla, already down 20%, lost another 12% on Thursday morning. PayPal's revenue was up 12% to $4.3 billion as total payment volume grew 24% to $172 billion. But the company said it would only grow 14% to 15% this year instead of 16% to 17% and PayPal's stock, previously up 44%, lost 4%. Phew, that's a lot of numbers.
The bon mot network. The Trump administration has some more puts and takes for the tech industry after announcing its big Justice Department antitrust probe. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin went on CNBC on Wednesday to blast Amazon because it "destroyed the retail industry across the United States." He declined to blast Google over its work for China, however, saying he'd found nothing that "raises concerns."
We are the dreamers of dreams. Chinese ride service Didi Chuxing created a new joint venture with Toyota that will use the automaker's "Mobility Services Platform" connected car offering for maintenance, insurance, financing, and other features. Toyota is also investing $600 million in Didi. Meanwhile, U.S. ride service Uber lost two board members. Arianna Huffington and Matt Cohler are stepping down, the company said on Wednesday.
That's not what's supposed to happen. A planned, short test of SpaceX's big, silver rocket, the Starhopper, had to be aborted on Wednesday when the craft failed to lift off its pad in Boca Chica Beach, Texas. Flames were seen shooting out of the top of the rocket, which is a prototype of a craft to eventually carry humans to Mars.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
The explosion of machine learning advances in recent years has led to all manner of artificial intelligence apps, like the image recognition software that powers photo programs to identify kids at different ages. But as Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain points out in an essay in The New Yorker, we often have no idea how and why the machine learning-fueled apps work. The mystery, which he calls an intellectual debt, could lead to major problems, Zittrain warns:
As knowledge generated by machine-learning systems is put to use, these kinds of gaps may prove consequential. Health-care A.I.s have been successfully trained to classify skin lesions as benign or malignant. And yet—as a team of researchers from Harvard Medical School and M.I.T. showed, in a paper published this year—they can also be tricked into making inaccurate judgments using the same techniques that turn cats into guacamole. (Among other things, attackers might use these vulnerabilities to commit insurance fraud.) Seduced by the predictive power of such systems, we may stand down the human judges whom they promise to replace. But they will remain susceptible to hijacking—and we will have no easy process for validating the answers they continue to produce.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Tinder's New Safety Feature Helps LGBTQ Travelers Stay Safe in Unfriendly Countries By Alyssa Newcomb
Smartphone Maker Xiaomi Celebrates Its Global 500 Debut By Awarding Employees $24 Million In Shares By Eamon Barrett
HBO Max Will Offer Live News and Sports—Eventually By Chris Morris
How OpenAI, Founded to Keep Powerful A.I. Out of Corporate Hands, Got Into Bed With Microsoft By Jeremy Kahn
Apple Has New MacBooks Planned for the Fall. Here Are 5 Things They Should Have By Don Reisinger
Exclusive: Comcast-Championed Home Insurer Hippo Hits $1 Billion 'Unicorn' Valuation By Robert Hackett
BEFORE YOU GO
The annual Tour de France bike race has been particularly unpredictable and fun to watch this year. With just a few stages left, albeit mostly in the high Alps, Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe remains in the lead. No home country hero has won the race since Bernard Hinault captured the maillot jaune in 1985. After writing up Data Sheet, I'll be tuning in to today's competition, which includes three big peaks, to see if Alaphilippe can hang on.
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman. Find past issues, and sign up for other Fortune newsletters.
No comments:
Post a Comment