WE all know that mistakes cost money.
Sometimes it costs a lot of money, especially nowadays with internet security breaches.
In the case of Yahoo, it cost $350 million. Yahoo had agreed to sell itself to Verizon. After the deal was negotiated, and they were only working on the regulatory approval, Yahoo was hacked, compromising many accounts. As a result, Verizon was able to agree only to continue to buy Yahoo at a $350-million discount.
Now, news has come out that the Yahoo CEO will be denied a $14-million bonus for allowing it to happen. The report found that in 2014, they had prior knowledge of attempted security hacks, and did not sufficiently act to cover and strengthen the defenses. Ouch!
Meanwhile, IDC research came out with a forecast that sales of personal PCs and notebooks will most likely continue to flatline or even decline a little. The current worldwide sales for these items are about 430 million units, and they forecast that in 2022, it will be about 415 million, which suggest either flat growth or decline of one percent a year. In contrast, the sales of smartphones are hitting about 1.5 billion units a year. Not only are more people buying smartphones, but most smartphones last a year or two, while personal computers are now used for five years or more.
However, this is still big business, considering that is still over two billion machines over a five year period. The twin big players are Microsoft, which sells the Windows operating system, and Intel, which sells the processors.
For over 30 years, AMD, another manufacturer of microprocessors, has always played second fiddle to Intel. They are usually cheaper, and sometimes also faster, but in terms of branding and sales, was usually less than 10 or 20 percent of Intel.
But they do keep trying, and in this instance, AMD has released new processors called the Ryzen. They claim that these cheap processors can compete with Intel’s i7 line, and can even outperform them, but at almost half the cost. Of course, this is not the first time AMD has claimed better price or superior technology, and so far, they are still lagging behind. But that they keep trying is good for consumers – I would imagine without a credible competitor to keep Intel at its toes, then innovation or price performance will suffer.
Finally, Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, and now one of the leading spokespersons and visionaries of the tech industry, has claimed that very soon, we may want to start getting computer implants. This is necessary for humans to keep up with the intelligence, speed and accuracy of artificial robots. Wow. In the 1970s, I used to watch the movie the Six Million Dollar Man, where a person can become bionic and stronger. Maybe this piece of fiction will become reality sooner than we think.