The Economist (January 23)
“Today about a trillion chips are made a year, or 128 for every person on the planet.” With uses burgeoning in applications from EVs to AI, “demand will soar further,” especially as IoT connects machines and other things. In contrast, the industry is experiencing profound consolidation. As chip generations become more challenging and costly, “the number of manufacturers at the industry’s cutting-edge has fallen from over 25 in 2000 to three.” The “grueling 60-year struggle for supremacy is nearing its end.”
Tags: AI, Applications, Burgeoning, Challenging, Chips, Consolidation, Costly, Cutting edge, Demand, EVs, Generations, Grueling, IoT, Manufacturers, Struggle, Supremacy
Reuters (October 4)
Though Ireland still expects negative impacts from Brexit, the country is busy making lemonade with what otherwise might just be lemons. “Ireland’s central bank has seen a surge in financial services firms seeking to set up or extend their operations in Ireland as a result of Brexit and is processing over 100 applications.” So far, Barclays, Legal & General Investment Management and Standard Life Aberdeen are among the companies who have chosen Dublin as a post-Brexit base.”
Tags: Applications, Barclays, Brexit, Central bank, Dublin, Financial services, Ireland, Legal & General, Negative impacts, Standard Life Aberdeen, Surge
Euromoney (April 4)
“After a record year for fund raising, large fintech companies are now emerging in marketplace lending and payments, with many more newcomers deploying venture capital money raised in $25 million to $50 million chunks to transform capital markets and traditional banking mainstays such as mortgage lending.” Fintech could prove highly disruptive. “Fintech start-ups are building revolutionary applications for blockchain, attacking every specialist niche in the financial world and keeping the image of fintech clean with business ventures aimed at inclusion.”
Tags: Applications, Banking mainstays, Blockchain, Fintech, Fund raising, Mortgage lending, Niche, Payments, Revolutionary, Venture-capital
Chicago Tribune (January 9)
“A fast-evolving yet underappreciated phenomenon in American life and politics” is being brought about by millennials who “are so smitten with mobile technology and its social and economic applications that they see tech as the solution to just about everything.” Their digital mindset is driving their politics to become increasingly libertarian. They are “very liberal on social issues such as gay marriage and legalized pot, yet very skeptical of government efforts to regulate the economy or levy taxes.”
Tags: Applications, Economy, Liberal, Libertarian, Life, Millennials, Mobile technology, Politics, Taxes, Tech, U.S.
New York Times (March 30)
“In recent years, the government has too often given patent protection to inventions that do not represent real scientific advances.” With patent applications more than tripling during the past 20 years, many of the patents granted “appear to be overly broad and vague.” In an upcoming case, the Supreme Court will have a chance to narrow the scope of what’s patentable. “The Supreme Court should make clear that nobody should be allowed to claim a monopoly over an abstract idea.”
Tags: Abstract idea, Applications, Government, Inventions, Monopoly, Overly broad, Patent, Protection, Scientific advances, Supreme Court, U.S., Vague
The New York Times (December 1, 2013)
Theoretically “patents provide an incentive for inventors to generate new products and services by giving them a temporary monopoly on their creations.” Over little more than a decade, however, patent applications have more than tripled to 576,000 in 2012 and “the Patent and Trademark Office appears to have granted many that are overly broad or vague.” The result has been frivolous lawsuits filed by patent trolls. Currently proposed legislation in Congress will help reduce the frivolous lawsuits, but it doesn’t “directly address the underlying problem of vague and overbroad patents.”
Tags: Applications, Congress, Frivolous, Inventors, Lawsuits, Legislation, Overbroad, Patent and Trademark Office, Patent trolls, Patents, Vague
