Tech, Society + Business Daily #002
š® Business model, culture & perception: Why all the three matter
For all the technological progress made in the last several decades, we still havenāt solved some of our most pressing healthcare problems. Crunching data can help. But, there is a huge resistance to let tech meet data, especially in the healthcare sector. Health data is sensitive, and privacy matters. So, whenever thereās news about tech companies accessing health data, it triggers paranoia. It was Googleās turn to trigger it today. WSJ reports that Google is accessing a wide range of patient data, including names and diagnoses from Ascension, a non-profit hospital system that spans 2600 hospitals in 21 states in the US. Doctors and patients werenāt informed. Google has done nothing illegal. Nor is Google alone in doing this. (Googleās response.) Why are we worried? Googleās business model is about harvesting data and making money through ads. The companyās culture is Google-engineer friendly than user-friendly. And, tech companies have given enough reasons for people to be worried about their data.
Meanwhile, India is still struggling to pass a data protection law.
š° News
āBERT is one of many universal language models used in industry and academiaā¦ They learn the nuances of language by analyzing enormous amounts of textā¦ (and) pick up bias. (It) is more likely to associate the word āprogrammerā with men than with women.ā (NYTimes)
Apple is aiming to release an augmented-reality headset in 2022 and a sleeker pair of AR glasses by 2023 (Information)
Twitter will warn about deep fakes, but might not remove the posts. (Twitter)
Amazon spends a record $1.5 million to get pro-business candidates elected to Seattle City Council - and fails. (Reuters)
After Shopclues exit, the fight is now between Paytm Mall and Snapdeal for the third place in Indian e-commerce space. Snapdeal lost ā¹186 crore in FY19, while Paytm Mall lost ā¹1,171.44 crore. (Mint)
Indiaās telecom regulator TRAI is looking at set-top box/cable interoperability. Today, you canāt use a set-top box from a different service provider on your cable to watch TV. (BL)
š Numbers
Indiaās IT spend expected to reach $94 billion in 2020 (up 6.6%). Breakup: Devices: $35.5B, Communications services $29.8B, IT Services $17.9B, Software $7B & Data Center Systems $3.8B. (Gartner)
Smartphone companies ship 46.6 million units in 3Q19. Marketshare: Xiaomi 27.1%, Samsung 18.9%, vivo 15.2%, realme 14.3%, OPPO 11.8%, Others 12.7% (IDC)