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The Morning Download: AT&T Joins IBM Cloud; D.C. Talks Tech
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Good day, CIOs. International Business Machines Corp. said Tuesday that AT&T Inc. is shifting its business service applications to IBM ’s cloud.
As CIO Journal's Agam Shah reports, the partnership builds on IBM’s $34 billion acquisition of open-source software firm Red Hat, whose technology makes it easier to manage software and other systems across different cloud services and their own data centers.
Moving its core business applications to the IBM cloud will help AT&T deploy new services to existing enterprise customers faster, IBM tells Mr. Shah.
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Matt Perault, Facebook’s director of public policy, testifies before the House Antitrust Subcommittee on Tuesday. PHOTO: PATRICK SEMANSKY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Tech giants draw fire. The nation's capital was talking tech Tuesday, with politicians in both parties demanding more regulatory scrutiny of the tech giants’ reach and plans for expansion in three separate hearings Facebook Inc.’s cryptocurrency plans; alleged Google censorship, and an antitrust examination of Facebook, Google, its owner Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. (WSJ)
Tech and taxes. Tax experts say there now is a growing risk that governments making their own unilateral tax moves could trigger a fresh run of trade disputes if the U.S. or other governments sense their companies are being treated unfairly. French lawmakers last week gave final approval to a new tax on large tech companies. Other countries such as the U.K. are on a similar path, and the U.S. is already pushing back. (WSJ)
Trump signals scrutiny of Google’s ties With China. A Trump tweet came after billionaire investor Peter Thiel, in a keynote speech Sunday at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C., called for the FBI and CIA to investigate Alphabet Inc.’s Google unit for its work in China. Mr. Thiel is on Facebook Inc.'s board. (WSJ)
Amazon faces probe in Europe over third-party selling. The European Commission, the EU’s top antitrust enforcer, said Wednesday that it will look into whether Amazon.com Inc. is abusing its dual role as both the provider of a marketplace where independent sellers can offer products and a retailer of products in its own right. (WSJ)
NYC developers lobby to legalize drones. Drone-friendly deal-estate developers in New York City are facing off against a 1948 law requires that all aircraft take off and land in a location designated for flight by the Port Authority—namely airports. (WSJ)
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Tether is designed to operate digitally like bitcoin but is pegged to the U.S. dollar so the price doesn’t fluctuate wildly. PHOTO: ANDREW HARRER/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Fat finger skews crypto market. On Saturday, the company behind Tether mistakenly created more than $5 billion worth of the digital coins in an instant—more than doubling the amount in circulation. (WSJ)
Bitcoin plummets. The price of bitcoin recently slid to $9,300, according to research site CoinDesk. It has lost almost a third of its value after trading above $13,000 a week ago, which was near its high for the year. (WSJ)
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“Like a toddler who has gotten his hands on a book of matches, Facebook has burned down the house over and over, and called every arson a learning experience”
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— Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) speaking Tuesday at a committee hearing on Facebook’s crypto effort
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Many large companies use enterprise resource planning systems applications developed by SAP and Oracle, according to a 2018 survey. PHOTO: ALEX KRAUS/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Hackers target ERPs. The move by businesses over the years to build links between their enterprise resource planning systems and the internet, in part to make employee access easier, have made them more vulnerable. In May, the Department of Homeland Security alerted companies about a set of publicly available exploit tools that can be used to compromise SAP SE ERP systems. Oracle Corp. on Tuesday issued a critical update containing 322 new security fixes, several of which apply to ERP systems. (WSJ)
Don't forget to patch. “In many cases, [companies] overcustomize their ERP systems and are afraid to touch it,” said Tim McKnight, chief security officer at cyber firm Onapsis Inc. “Any downtime is dangerous, and they may forgo the security changes we recommend.”
Bulgarian records hacked. The country's finance minister said tax records belonging to millions of citizens as well as companies were compromised in a cyberattack. (Reuters)
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A sewing machine-like robot that inserts electrodes into the brain, under development by Neuralink. PHOTO: NEURALINK
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Elon Musk’s Neuralink shows off advances to brain-computer interface. Elon Musk and scientists from his neuroscience startup Neuralink Corp. unveiled a therapeutic device designed to treat neurological conditions like movement disorders, spinal-cord injury and blindness. Neuralink is putting together a submission to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to start testing the technology in humans. (WSJ)
The BCI market. Neuralink is one of several companies trying to build neural interfaces for clinical and nonclinical applications. The goal of many of these projects is to access as many neurons as possible because that would give scientists more precise reads on activity that underpins walking, speech and mood, among other brain functions.
Google archive of political ads is missing content. Google set up a searchable database of political ads last summer, following calls for greater transparency in the wake of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. Nearly a year later, the database is fraught with errors and delays, according to campaigns’ digital staffers and political consultants. (WSJ)
Intel shows off new AI chips. The company says a system powered by new chips modeled off how the human brain works can run AI algorithms up to 1,000 faster than regular CPUs. (Engadget)
German schools drop Office 365. In a press release, the German state of Hesse said Microsoft Corp.'s cloud—and Apple Inc.'s and Google's—"have so far not been transparent and comprehensibly set out." (Ars Technica)
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Everything Else You Need to Know
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United Airlines said it is trimming extra flying this year because of the grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX, though the nation’s second-largest carrier by traffic still expects profit to climb. (WSJ)
Asian stocks mostly weakened after President Trump’s comments in a White House cabinet meeting signaled enduring tensions with China over trade and technology. (WSJ)
The House passed a resolution condemning as racist President Trump’s tweets calling for four U.S. congresswomen to “go back” to unspecified countries. (WSJ)
President Trump said the U.S. would withhold an order of F-35 stealth jet fighters to Turkey after Ankara received a new air-defense missile system from Russia, calling it a “very tough situation.” (WSJ)
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