For those not familiar with the term, Unicorn is used to describe a Venture Backed company that has achieved a pre-IPO valuation over a billion dollars. While this is something that was very rare in the past, it seems like there are unicorns everywhere now.
Apple’s first big event of 2019 will be held at the Steve Jobs Theater at the Apple Campus on March 25th. The rumors are that there will be a big announcements around Apple’s subscription services offerings. There have been talks in the works for a long time around Apple offering a streaming video subscriptions service in addition to magazine subscriptions. While there have been initial complaints about the oversized cut that Apple intends to take, it still remains to be seen wha the model will be.
Well, for those of you chasing the fountain of youth by getting transfusions of the blood of the young, the FDA has just shut you down. Ambrosia the clinic that has been topping up the elderly, was shut down by the FDA who labeled it a “dangerous scam.”
But don’t despair! If you are looking to find ways to satisfy your gruesome quest for youth, there is bone marrow. Hannah Osborne over at Newsweek is reporting:
Meet Xin Xiaomeng, Xinhua’s newest news anchor.
Xinhua, has just debuted their latest AI news reporter to complement the previous two they introduced in November.
Forced arbitration has been a sticking point with me for some time. It is an increasingly common practice in many companies to force their workers to sign binding arbitration agreements.
Companies say that this is to reduce the overwhelming costs of litigation (what the heck are you doing to get sued that much), but the real reason is that it tips things heavily in favor of the company who chooses the arbitrator and manages the process.
CRN is reporting that Palo Alto Networks is in the process of acquiring Cloud Security company RedLock for $173M.
Palo Alto has been making moves to expand its portfolio and this fits in with their desire to grow their Cloud based capabilities.
I just wanted to give a shoutout to Allstate for jumping in to help fight the good fight for the right to repair movement. Recently, Allstate purchased iCracked, one of the largest phone repair companies in the country.
Lacework is a company that has been on our radar since Mike Speiser at Sutter Hill Ventures introduced us to them. They have some very strong backing from the VCs community, and they offer some interesting insights into the flow of data across your environment. They have some handy tools to do forensic analysis on events.
OK, this one is from November, but better late than never. As you should be well aware, Re:Invent is one of the key shows to attend. This is a rapidly expanding market, and AWS is the leader. If you are missing the grandeur of the shows of the dot com era, this will bring back some fond memories.
SpaceX has been talking about their desire to build a space-based array of satellites to bring affordable broadband to the planet. This array of low-earth orbit satellites would orbit as low as 208 miles to provide for reduced latency (pesky physics y’all). Now their subsidiary company, SpaceX Services has reached out to the FCC to get approval to deploy up to a million of earth-based uplinks. Always working at break-neck pace, SpaceX says they could have this service up and running by 2020. Check out more at extremetech.com
Rubrik launched a new Open Source initiative today called Rubrik Build. The idea is to extend their API-First architecture to developers so they can create applications, automation, and integrations that don’t exist today. Rubrik has entrusted this effort to Rebecca Fitzhugh who has released a great blog post about it.
Trend Micro is reporting on a a Trojan that is disguised as a Windows executable. It is built with the Mono framework built into the file, so it can execute the EXE code. Normally Windows executable files will not run on a mac, so some of the built in safeguards are bypassed by this method of delivery, “This routine evades Gatekeeper because EXE is not checked by this software, bypassing the code signature check and verification since the technology only checks native Mac files.”
Intel has a really cool swarming drone technology that it is using for arial shows. They have several showcases of the technology on their site you should check out. This combines the excitement of a fireworks display with the functionality of a Jumbotron.
Image Source: Intel
Over the years, I have searched for good ways to optimize my time. I went down the path of Inbox Zero and OmniFocus. I have eliminated most social media from my diet, but there still seems to be constant interruptions from technology. I am always reminding my kids to limit their screen time, but when I use Apple’s handy new Screentime tool, I am far worse than my kids who seem to be immersed in their screens constantly.
Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels
