Remember when Strava, the fitness tracking app, gave away the location of secret U.S. army bases in Afghanistan and Syria? We wrote about it back in February. It was an embarrassing and dangerous leak of sensitive customer data. It also highlighted the intrusion and potential abuse of location-based cell phone data.
Well, good news for cell phone users in the United States – they got a couple of small wins:
Topics: International Equity, From the Desk of Harry Polishook
This old chestnut is variably attributed to Henry Ford, John Wanamaker, J.C. Penny, William Hesketh Lever, amongst others. Each one is a great symbol of consumerism, but we’ll never know which or if any of them really said it.
Topics: International Equity, From the Desk of Harry Polishook
“How Much Should We Trust the Dictator’s GDP Estimates?” Continuing our unhealthy obsession with satellite imagery, this question is the title to an intriguing academic paper written by Luis Martinez of the University of Chicago. In this working paper, he studies the manipulation of GDP statistics by the more authoritarian regimes around the world. Cleverly, he utilizes satellite imagery to measure the level of nighttime lighting as a means of validating the reported economic numbers. Shout out to the Washington Post for bringing this to our attention.
Topics: From the Desk of Harry Polishook
Continuing with our explorations of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies, we highlight a fascinating risk of supporting a cryptocurrency.
Topics: From the Desk of Harry Polishook
Today, we want to talk a bit about security and technology. The “Internet of Things (IOT)” is a favored buzz word right now in technology and technology investing. This term describes the now nearly ubiquitous internet connected devices, often GPS-enabled. Smart and connected devices today are cheap and readily available, but do people really think about the security implications inherent to them?
Topics: From the Desk of Harry Polishook, International Equity
In December 2017, the FCC voted to remove rules that regulated the companies that connect users to the internet. These Network Neutrality rules forced internet providers to treat all internet traffic equally. Whether video, email, instant message or website, a carrier would have to transport all bits (a bit is the smallest unit of information) the same.
Without regulation, it is possible for an Internet Services Provider (ISP - generally your cable or phone company) to block some services, degrade other services, or force services to pay for access. Imagine if your cable bill priced internet access to Facebook separate from access to Netflix. Imagine if the Fox News website wouldn’t load but the New York Times website did. Imagine if, to launch a new website, you had to negotiate a separate agreement with the ISP in each geography you wanted to serve. It isn’t likely that ISPs would do something so obvious or controversial, but they now have the power to do so.
Topics: From the Desk of Harry Polishook
We have long invested in the smartphone supply chain, but the pace of technological change has slowed in the last couple years. Where we once saw a fascinating evolution from the “brick phone” to the iPhone, we now observe a relatively dull progression of slightly improved devices.
Topics: From the Desk of Harry Polishook
It wasn’t very long ago—the last quarter of 2016—that we were reading reports that Brazil’s worst-ever recession had intensified its downward spiral. In March of this year, Reuters wrote about dismal numbers crushing the hopes of those searching for signs of a recovery in the country.
Topics: From the Desk of Harry Polishook
Bitcoin has been a controversial topic among investors and financial professionals for quite a while. However, recently, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, made his stance very clear. Dimon said that if he found out a JPMorgan trader began trading in bitcoin, he would “fire them in a second.” Why? “It’s against our rules, and they’re stupid.” He also suggested that central banks view bitcoin as a novelty.
Topics: From the Desk of Harry Polishook, China, Bitcoin
Back in May, the R Squared team launched a blog series about satellite technology and its impact on the investing world. If you missed Part I or Part II, you can read those blogs here:
For Part III, we’re going to take a look at more ways the small satellite (smallsat) industry could change how investors allocate funds.
Recently, the AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites took place in Logan, Utah. Attendance this year was around 2,550 participants—up from 900 in 2007. One of the conference presenters was Ursa Space Systems, a company that “delivers global economic insights to energy and financial enterprises, providing a reliable information source about areas of the world that are traditionally opaque.” More specifically, Ursa is able to offer estimates of oil inventories in China.
Topics: From the Desk of Harry Polishook, China, Satellite Series
