Pizza Data, Amazon Takes on Auto Parts, and How Global Warming Impacts Your Food Prices.
How Pizza Night Can Cost More in Data Than Dollars
Even a low-key evening at home can mean handing over a trove of personal info to tech companies. The WSJ reviewed privacy statements to assess just how much data you could be unknowingly sharing with that pizza order.
From texting your friends on your phone, to using Alexa to place a Domino pizza order, to getting in your car and using the Google Maps app for navigation, to posting a photo of your “hangout” on Facebook; a simple and innocent pizza night with your friends can result in sharing roughly 53 data points to tech companies and their advertisers.
Companies in this story: $FB, $GOOG, $AAPL, $AMZN, $DPZ
Amazon Wants To Fix Your Car, With Augmented Reality
Amazon was recently granted an AR patent, titled “Vehicle Component Installation Preview Image Generation,” described as a system that uses augmented reality to let users preview the image of an auto part as if it’s connected to their car. The patent first identifies the make, model, and year of a customer’s vehicle, typically using an image from the user’s camera. Then the user can shop for right auto parts on Amazon’s search engine. After the desired auto part is chosen, the platform integrates an image of the selected auto part with the image of the vehicle, allowing the user to make a judgment on whether or not the auto part will fit the vehicle.
There is no doubt that once this technology is made available to consumers, the auto parts industry will be shaken up by the Amazon Effect.
Companies in this story: $AMZN, $AZO
How Climate Change Impacts The Economics of Food
As temperatures rise, the best growing conditions for many crops are moving away from the tropics, fish and other underwater catches, too, are migrating to colder seas as their habitats warm. An evolving climate means big changes for people who grow, catch and rear for a living, and everyone else who buys and eats what they produce.
The primary agricultural markets for wine, wheat, coffee, lobster, and more crops are all being affected by this shift in changing climate, and regions like Russia, Canada, U.K., once not known for agriculture are ramping up higher outputs. Nations reliant on food imports, many also in the Middle East and Africa, are vulnerable to supply upsets thousands of miles away that ripple through global markets to push up the cost of household staples.
Commodities in this story: Coffee, Wheat, Corn
China Dominates in Renewable Energy Race
For every $1 the US put into renewable energy last year, China puts in $3. China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is determined to rebalance its energy mix, and incorporate more clean energy. That determination is reflected in the money it put into renewable energy last year, dwarfing spending by the next biggest investor, the US. Last year nearly half of the world’s new renewable energy investment of came from China.
Big U.S. Companies Reveal How Much They Rely on Overseas Workers
www.wsj.com
Many U.S. multinationals are now disclosing their proportion of overseas workers under new SEC rules, which shows how jobs in low-cost countries are growing faster than in US. The regulation, which requires publicly traded U.S. companies to disclose the gap between what they pay their CEO and what they pay their median worker, and the ratio between the two, has led most of the companies to also disclose where their median worker resides.
Companies in this story: $K, $FDP, $HBI,
Other Interesting Weekend Reads
John Boehner joins the advisory board of Marijuana company
As lawmakers drill down on Facebook’s data and privacy concerns, Instagram looks to be Facebook’s best hope.
China built a smart highway to charge your car as you drive
The future of Walmart is Robots and Freelancers
Uber redesigns its driver app for a “business management” feel
MIT Sloan writes about how technology is undercutting traditional businesses through efficient scaling.
The Evolution of James Harden’s NBA Fashion
USDA recalls 206 million eggs due to salmonella contamination
Resource of the week: How to Calculate Intrinsic Value
The intrinsic value is the actual value of a company, not to be confused by the “market value” which is what you can buy or sell the company for on the stock market.
April 11th Afrobeats Mix by PECO — soundcloud.com
Grab a beer or bottomless mimosas and enjoy this newsletter brought to you by this epic Afrobeats mix, as you kickstart your Funday!
Thank you for reading through this weekend round-up! Hope you found a couple interesting articles to spark your next conversation.
Cheers,
Valentine.
