politics

When the US imposed a trade ban on ZTE last year, it almost caused the Chinese company to go bankrupt. While Huawei may last longer than its compatriot, it might not take long before the company is also brought to its knees. Google has already been reported to stop licensing its proprietary Google Play components for future Huawei phones. Now silicon makers like Qualcomm and Intel are also temporarily cutting ties with China's biggest tech company and the world's second largest phone maker.

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There's no doubt that Elizabeth Warren raised a lot of eyebrows earlier this month when she revealed her plans to split up some of the US's biggest tech companies. The senator, in announcing her bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, specifically named Google, Amazon, and Facebook as having too much power, and operating like a monopoly. But for some people in San Francisco, her proposals go a bit too far.

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Elizabeth Warren wants to break up big tech, with the US 2020 presidential hopeful outlining how she would dismantle behemoths like Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google. The controversial proposal argues that the biggest names in technology today have used merges and proprietary marketplaces to clamp down on competition, and that it's time for the government to weigh in.

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Sammy Hagar must be proud right now. California state senator John Moorlach, a Republican from Orange County, has introduced a bill in the state legislature that could bring autobahn-style unlimited lanes to California highways. The bill seeks to add lanes to north and southbound Interstate 5 and State Route 99 that would have no speed limits.

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Today a bit more clarification of recent events at Facebook puts COO Sheryl Sandberg back in the limelight. Not that she was ever out - Zuckerberg, Sandberg, and Facebook head of communications and policy Elliot Schrage have been at the center of recent controversy since well before Thanksgiving. Todays news has to do with George Soros and a speech he made at Davos in January of 2018.

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Today we've run through a set of facts revealed by Facebook in an article published by outgoing Facebook Head of Communications and Policy Elliot Schrage. This is just the most recent piece of work published after the New York Times article published on November 14th, 2018. This NYT article went by the name "Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook's Leaders Fought Through Crisis."

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It may have not been able to deal Huawei the same almost fatal blow it gave ZTE but the US government is ramping up its efforts to make sure the Chinese company will have no place to run soon. It has already made it illegal to use Huawei and ZTE equipment in government and now reports are claiming that the US is doing what it can to urge other countries, particularly its allies, to also shun Huawei-made networking equipment in light of the upcoming 5G transition.

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Japan is famous for a lot of things, from sakura blossoms in Spring to its unique cuisine to, of course, anime and manga. There is also this perception of the country being a technological superpower, especially in the fields of manufacturing, robotics, and computing. Those perceptions, however, may have been based partly on fantasy and romanticized fiction as the country is slowly proving itself to be lagging behind its peers, especially in the computing industry where cybersecurity has not only become an important topic, it has sometimes become a matter of life or death for both businesses and governments.

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It seems that ZTE can finally put the nightmarish few months behind it. Somewhat. Although the company and US President Trump’s administration just recently signed a deal that lifted what would have been a fatal seven-year ban, senators from both sides of the political fence wanted to block that deal by sneaking it into an upcoming law. Now it seems that the deal will be left in place after Republican senators decided to withdraw that clause in exchange for some other stipulation that both political parties could agree on.

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Yesterday, the European Commission hit Google with a record-breaking $5 billion fine for antitrust violations. There are actually a few different angles to the Commission's complaint, but to boil it down, it essentially claimed that Google used Android to cement its search dominance. Google, obviously, argued against the fine and announced its intent to appeal the ruling, and today the company finds itself with an unlikely ally: President Trump.

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ZTE’s nightmares may finally be coming to an end. Of course, it will still have to recoup its losses from both paying the US’ penalties and months of stopping operations but at least it will have a chance to. That is, if it gets off the ground at all. The US government just announced that ZTE has signed an agreement to pay an escrow and install a monitor. Once that’s done, the company will finally be free, sort of.

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ZTE is a Chinese company but it has found itself in the unfortunate position to need the US government’s permission before it can start operating again. That authorization has just been provided, allowing ZTE to breathe just a little bit. It is, however, a very small reprieve that will run only until August 1 as ZTE awaits the ultimate fate of its compromise with the Trump administration that is being blocked even by the US presidents’ allies in Congress.

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