Microsoft and Oracle recently said they reached an agreement to make their two cloud computing services work together with high-speed links between their data centers, targeting significant business users and uniting against cloud computing leader Amazon Web Services. 

The two companies said the high-speed link between their data centers would start with facilities in the eastern United States and spread to other regions. They will also work together to let joint users login to services from either company with a single user name and get tech support from either company. 

The move comes as both Oracle and Microsoft are courting large businesses and government customers considering moving computing tasks currently handled in their own data centers to cloud providers. 

“With Oracle’s enterprise expertise, this alliance is a natural choice for us as we help our joint customers accelerate the migration of enterprise applications and databases to the public cloud,” Microsoft’s cloud chief Scott Guthrie said in a statement. 

AWS, the largest cloud computing provider, is encroaching on many of those customers, including in Oracle’s historical stronghold in the database market. 

“With this alliance, our joint customers can migrate their entire set of existing applications to the cloud without having to re-architect anything, preserving the large investments they have already made,” Don Johnson, executive vice president of Oracle’s cloud infrastructure unit, said in a statement. 

Microsoft has previously inked a deal with German software maker SAP SE and Adobe to make their services work better together. 

Ed Anderson, a Gartner research analyst, said the move was a clear “jab” at AWS, especially for Oracle. “It’s no secret that Oracle views AWS as a major competitor in the database market,” he said. 

Anderson also said there remained some unanswered questions about the deal, such as whether customers would face data transfer fees for moving large amounts of information back and forth between services. 

But overall, Anderson said the move would likely benefit Microsoft and Oracle by helping their pitch to large businesses already using services from both. 
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“It’s a great way for both companies to be able to hitch their cloud offerings together,” Anderson said.

Regulators in the US have taken a big step toward bringing antitrust suits against American tech giants, but they face a long road ahead.

Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook are facing unprecedented scrutiny in their own backyard. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Federal Trade Commission are preparing antitrust investigations into the companies, and plan to divvy up the work. As the news emerged, the firm’s share prices were hammered, a clear signal that Wall Street believes the Feds mean business.

Congress also plans to put the companies under the microscope. The Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives said it's launching a wide-ranging investigation of the market power of the tech giants.

The obvious question is: why now? The European Union has been sounding the alarm about Big Tech’s super-sized influence for years – and imposing massive fines on Google in particular for anti-competitive behavior.

The most likely answer is American politics. Some prominent Democrats, including senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, have been calling loudly for tech giants to be broken up to stop them harming consumers’ interests. With a presidential election on the horizon, the Republicans likely want to be seen as tough on Big Tech, too. There’s also a widespread suspicion of Silicon Valley’s liberal tendencies. President Donald Trump has a history of trading barbs with Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s boss, and regularly rails against what he sees as social media and search companies’ anti-conservative bias.

Politics aside, there’s plenty for antitrust watchdogs to sink their teeth into. Amazon is accused of using data from its online platform to gain an unfair advantage over other sellers. The EU has already punishedGoogle's manipulation of search results to favor its businesses. Apple’s fighting a private lawsuit which alleges its 30% take on apps sold in its apps store is an abuse of monopoly power. And Facebook dominates the digital ad market together with Google.

Critics such as Warren have used sporting analogies to justify calls for breaking up the tech giants. “You can get to be the umpire in a baseball game, or you can have a team in the game, but you don’t get to be the umpire and have a team in the game,’ she tweeted earlier this year.

If any of the tech giants are found guilty of anti-competitive behavior, they’re likely to be hit with Hefty fines and other sanctions. That may not be enough to satisfy people like Warren, but trying to force through a breakup of one or more of the companies will be tough to do because:

1.Big tech firms have generally made their services available for free. US antitrust law focuses primarily on whether a monopolist has harmed consumers by driving up prices and restricting investment in a market. While firms like Facebook and Google certainly aren’t paragons when it comes to things like privacy, they’ve provided a cornucopia of free stuff to consumers and invest heavily in R&D. That doesn’t mean they can’t be sanctioned for abusing their market power to, say, manipulate search results in ways that drive up prices. But it would be hard to prove they have harmed consumers broadly in the eyes of the law.

2.They aren’t “natural monopolies” like those found in, say, the utility industry, where the cost to enter a market is so vast other companies are dissuaded from doing so, allowing incumbents to drive up prices. The challenge would-be rivals face is to overcome the “network effects” that underpin the big tech companies’ success. A service like Amazon has a magnetic attraction for buyers because they know they will find plenty of the sellers on its platform. And as more buyers roll up, even more sellers will want to join. This will undoubtedly deter competition, but it’s not illegal.

3.Big tech firms dominate data gathering and use insights to provide even more free services. The vast number of customers using their products mean Big Tech firms benefit from what’s helpful to think of as a data snowball. The more customers they attract, the more data they can harvest from them. That information is then used to tailor new services that attract even more users. This cycle is even more powerful in the era of AI, which relies on crunching vast amounts of data for its efficacy.
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The Microsoft precedent: None of this may deter US regulators, who can draw on Microsoft’s experience in the 1990s for inspiration. The DoJ tried to split Microsoft up to stop it bundling its Internet Explorer web browser with its dominant Windows operating system. The effort failed, but the bruising court battles harmed the company’s reputation and curbed its anti-competitive instincts. History could be about to repeat itself in the internet era.

On the heels of Google buying analytics startup Looker last week for $2.6 billion, Salesforce today announced a huge piece of news in a bid to step up its own work in data visualization and tools to help enterprises make sense of the sea of data that they use and amass: Salesforce is buying Tableau for $15.7 billion in an all-stock deal.

The latter is publicly traded, and this deal will involve shares of Tableau Class A and Class B common stock getting exchanged for 1.103 shares of Salesforce common stock, the company said, and so the $15.7 billion figure is the enterprise value of the transaction, based on the average price of Salesforce’s shares as of June 7, 2019.

This is a significant jump on Tableau’s last market cap ($10.79 billion two days earlier.)

This is a massive deal for Salesforce as it continues to diversify beyond CRM software and into deeper layers of analytics to offer a 360-degree view of the customer and become a de facto data stack for the enterprise.
The company reportedly worked hard to buy LinkedIn but lost out to Microsoft. While there isn’t a whole lot in common between LinkedIn and Tableau, this deal will also help Salesforce extend its engagement (and data intelligence) for the customers that Salesforce already has — something that LinkedIn would have also helped it to do.

Even with Google’s move to buy Looker, one could argue that analytics is a big enough area that all major tech companies are getting their ducks in a row with stronger data analytics strategies and products. It’s unclear whether the two deals were made in response to each other, although it seems that Salesforce has been eyeing Tableau for years.

 “We are bringing together the world’s #1 CRM with the #1 analytics platform. Tableau helps people see and understand data, and Salesforce helps people engage and understand customers. It’s truly the best of both worlds for our customers – bringing together two critical platforms that every customer needs to understand their world,” said Marc Benioff, chairman, and co-CEO of Salesforce. “I’m thrilled to welcome Adam and his team to Salesforce.”

Tableau has about 86,000 business customers, including Charles Schwab, Verizon, Schneider Electric, Southwest and Netflix. Salesforce said Tableau would operate independently and under its own brand post-acquisition. It will also remain headquartered in Seattle, Wash., headed by CEO Adam Selipsky along with others on the current leadership team.

Indeed, later during an analyst conference call, Benioff let it drop that Seattle would become Salesforce’s official second headquarters with the closing of this deal.

That’s not to say, though, that the two will not be working together.

On the contrary, Salesforce is already talking up the possibilities of expanding what the company is already doing with its Einstein platform (launched back in 2016, Einstein is the home of all of Salesforce’s AI-based initiatives.) 

“Joining forces with Salesforce will enhance our ability to help people everywhere see and understand data,” said Selipsky. “As part of the world’s #1 CRM company, Tableau’s intuitive and powerful analytics will enable millions of more people to discover actionable insights across their entire organizations. I’m delighted that our companies share very similar cultures and a relentless focus on customer success. I look forward to working together in support of our customers and communities.”

“Salesforce’s incredible success has always been based on anticipating the needs of our customers and providing them the solutions they need to grow their businesses,” said Keith Block, co-CEO, Salesforce. “Data is the foundation of every digital transformation, and the addition of Tableau will accelerate our ability to deliver customer success by enabling a truly unified and powerful view across all of a customer’s data.”

Following its release of a pocket-sized handheld camera late last year, DJI – the Shenzhen-based tech company best known for its drones – has recently launched its first action camera, the Osmo Action. While the new camera is a latecomer to the game, it should compete well with similar products, such as the GoPro.

Design and Hardware.The Osmo Action doesn’t stray too far from conventional action camera design – it is small, rectangular-shaped and made of rugged composite material that combines plastic and rubber.
It is waterproof, shockproof and, at 124g, can be easily mounted on top of helmets, skateboards or bicycle handlebars.

There’s a 12-megapixel fisheye lens with a wide 145-degree field of vision. All of this is standard fare for action cameras and is neither better nor worse than GoPro’s Hero 7 Black in any meaningful way.

There is, however, one stand-out feature: in addition to the main screen on the backside of the camera, there is a secondary front-facing display, which has never been offered before on an action camera.

Having a front-facing screen improves shooting selfie videos significantly as it allows the user to see precisely what they’re recording. It makes so much sense in today’s selfie-centric vlogger generation that, in hindsight, it’s baffling why GoPro has never thought of this before.

The camera has three hardware buttons – power, shutter, and mode switch – and a responsive main screen that supports swiping and tapping. The bright, 2.3-inch main screen is large enough to let the user easily tweak shooting modes and settings.

The camera runs on a relatively small 1,300mAh battery, which offers about 90 minutes of recording time, but it is removable, and thus, interchangeable. The footage is stored on a micro-SD card, which is not included with the camera.

Software.The Osmo Action can connect to DJI’s Mimo app, available on both iOS and Android, and once linked; the camera can be controlled remotely with a mobile device. However, the device’s touch screen interface is so intuitive that most reviewers found little need to sync up the app.

The camera can capture videos at a wide range of resolutions, from 720p up to 4K/60fps. Shooting in lower resolution, such as 1080p, allows the camera to bump the framerate up to 240fps, ideal for capturing fast-moving moments.

Performance.Electronic image stabilization (EIS) is crucial for action cameras as they’re meant to shoot on the move, so it’s just as well DJI has years of experience writing EIS algorithms for its high-flying drone cameras.

The camera’s EIS mode is called “Rock Steady,” and it can be activated with a couple of taps. The reason DJI gives the option to toggle EIS on or off is that there are trade-offs.

Footage with “Rock Steady” on have a slightly smaller field of vision (digital cropping is essential for EIS) and dynamic range suffers due to lack of HDR (high dynamic range). You should turn the mode off to get the best video quality and colors if you’re shooting with the device in a stationary position, but anytime you’re moving, turn it on as the difference in fluidity and stability is drastic.

Conclusion.
At $380, the Osmo Action initially seemed expensive for someone who might not participate in extreme sports and who has tested fully capable smartphones for around that same price range.
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Extreme sport participants who like to document their adventures used to have their options dominated by GoPros. At $349, DJI’s Osmo Action is offering a cheaper alternative to the GoPro’s Hero 7 Black at $420, and you get the front-facing second screen. Not surprisingly, GoPro has now reduced the price of the Hero 7 to $349! The Osmo Action may have just taken GoPro’s throne.

Cars will soon be able to recognize you by your eyes, skin, gait and even your heartbeat, enabling a host of personalized experiences but raising troubling privacy questions, as well.

Why it Matters. New biometric technologies being developed by automakers will authenticate your identity and help keep you safe by also monitoring your health and wellbeing. But unless carefully guarded, that personal data can also be easily exploited by cybercriminals.

What's Happening. Automakers and their suppliers are working on a variety of driver-identification technologies such as facial and iris scans, as well as voice and fingerprint tracking.

• They would enable a driver to start the engine without a key and the car would automatically adjust the seats, mirrors, climate and audio settings.
• The car could then also communicate with home automation systems, turning on lights or opening the garage, for example, and automatically pay for tolls, parking or gas.
• For autonomous vehicles and car-sharing apps, ID verification is important to ensure passengers get into the right vehicle and are who they say they are.

What's Next. Such ID features are coming in the next year or so, followed by a second wave of more advanced biometric technologies. Goode Intelligence says the market for automotive-related biometric content may reach nearly $1 billion by 2023.

• An alcohol detection system that could be available as early as next year would know whether a motorist is drunk by gathering a whiff of their ambient breath. The system is being developed by a public-private partnership.

• B-Secur is marketing its Heartkey technology that can identify a driver by the unique rhythm of their heartbeat, and measure their level of stress or fatigue or even detect early signs of a stroke or heart attack, CEO Alan Foreman tells Axios.

• Aerendir Mobile's sensors capture micro-vibrations – tiny muscle twitches from cells in the human nervous system – to identify individuals and monitor their well-being by creating a neurological signature that's akin to a million-character-long password, founder Martin Zizi tells Axios.

Yes, But. Just as facial recognition systems are sounding alarms about privacy and human rights, biometric technologies in vehicles raise privacy concerns, experts say.

• Biometric information can be particularly revealing and immutable, Lauren Smith, senior counsel for the Future of Privacy Forum, says. Unlike a password or account number, you can't change your biological makeup.
• Without federal laws on bioprivacy, carmakers need to abide by state data-protection laws, many of which require notice before biometric data is collected, and the ability to opt out.

• Carmakers that signed the Automotive Privacy Principles created a higher, opt-in threshold for biometric information, requiring consent before data can be used for marketing or shared with others.