The highlights of last week were squarely Alphabet’s (GOOGL Quick QuoteGOOGL - Free Report) I/O event and Cisco’s (CSCO Quick QuoteCSCO - Free Report) earnings results. Alphabet had so much going on, it was really hard to summarize. So I’ve picked on just a few highlights I liked.

Here are the top stories-

Google I/O

AI-Based Products: The company launched an Echo-like device called Google Home to make or cancel dinner reservations, send emails, schedule appointments, check flight information or sports scores, play music by synchronizing with Chromecast and smart-connect with other things around the house such as lights, turning them on or off as required. It is also voice-activated like Amazon’s (AMZN Quick QuoteAMZN - Free Report) Echo but the assistant doesn’t have a sexy name like Alexa. Instead it’s simply called “Google Assistant”. Then there were the mobile messaging apps called Allo and Duo (video chat) for Android and iOS. 

The other thing it’s doing on the AI front is building a chatbot ecosystem along the lines that Microsoft (MSFT Quick QuoteMSFT - Free Report) described recently. The Windows maker is further along in this game although its American teen bot was tricked by users and had to be pulled soon after launch. Facebook also has a bot making platform that it launched this April. Bots will start off being fun companions on social networks while learning more about the audience they target and also enhance personal assistance when dealing with apps.

VR: Google announced a platform for VR called Daydream built on Android N. Google has created VR versions of its own apps like YouTube, Street View, the Google Play Store, Play Movies and Google Photos while The New York Times, HBO, Netflix (NFLX Quick QuoteNFLX - Free Report) , Ubisoft and Electronic Arts are outside companies developing for Daydream.

The company also announced two partnerships with IMAX and Yi Technology of China, both of which make movie cameras. The companies are collaborating to produce cameras that can capture 360 degree video (similar to the arrangement it has with GoPro that yielded the Odyssey camera selling for $15K). The cameras will work with Google’s video editing software called Jump.

Facebook’s VR approach has been slightly different: the company has prepared the hardware design and is planning to share it with hardware partners. The goal is the same: that there should be enough 3D content out there so the Cardboards and Rifts of this world can be put to use.

Devices:

OS: The Chrome and Android operating systems are finally being integrated closer so that the Play Store and 1.5 million odd Android apps can now run on Chrome. Also, Chromebooks with these capabilities will launch in the summer and fall of this year.

Firebase Revamp: Google bought Firebase in 2014 to provide app makers the analytics platform and software development kit to make mobile apps. At the event, the company announced some enhancements to the database service, user authentication features and hosting tools Firebase already provided. In effect, Google is combining some of the Google Analytics tools with Firebase, the most significant of which would be its Cloud Test Lab and Google Cloud Messaging, which is being renamed Firebase Cloud Messaging. The platform can be used to develop Android, iOS and web based apps and if need be, developers can very easily make use of the Google Cloud. The platform allows the making of better apps and therefore more income for app makers as they study audience data related to their apps.

Cisco Earnings Report

Cisco is a tech behemoth that continues to plod on no matter what comes in the way. With new age software defined networking, network function virtualization and cloud computing reshaping all that goes on in tech, many of us thought that this giant of a company could stumble. But we thought wrong as its third quarter results show, wherein Cisco met the Zacks Consensus Estimate on the bottom line while slightly exceeding on the top. That too, while transitioning its business model from hardware-centric (high-end routers and switches) to software/services-centric (which includes lower-end hardware).

So yes, its core routing and switching business continued to decline on a year-over-year basis. But what’s more important is the strong growth in service provider video, security and collaboration. What’s more, services revenue also grew double-digits. Another interesting number to track is the deferred revenue (since Cisco is selling more software on a subscription model), which increased for both products and services.

Apple In India

Apple’s (AAPL Quick QuoteAAPL - Free Report) Tim Cook visited India last week, inaugurating a development center in Hyderabad and an iOS design and development accelerator in Bengaluru. The company also has plans to open a number of stores in the country. It’s already been announced that Apple supplier Foxconn is opening a 1200-acre manufacturing facility in Maharashtra state to satisfy government employment goals. The Indian middle class is expected to be a big market for Apple, which will, according to Bloomberg quadruple to 200 million by 2020.

Unfortunately, the Indian rupee is still much weaker than the dollar, which makes the iPhone extremely expensive and beyond the reach of the middle class. The availability of cheaper alternatives also dampens iPhone sales. Apple is optimistic that faster Internet speeds, data demands, its cheaper models and refurbished phones will help it take share. The Indian smartphone market will grow 25% this year.    

Other stories you might have missed-

Corporate

Facebook’s Truce with Conservatives: Facebook’s leftist slant came to light recently with an anonymous former employee letting out that trending topics curators suppressed news from conservative media outlets. It got worse when Facebook’s internal documents showed that this curation was more human than algorithm-based although Facebook advertises otherwise.

YouGov’s BrandIndex indicates that Republicans’ perception of Facebook dropped 60% since the controversy emerged. So naturally Facebook is doing all it can to make amends. Including a meeting to pacify conservatives. To be fair, Facebook hasn’t broken the law, and conservatives have their share of control with their pet media houses. But if conservatives come to power, that means majority support and if Facebook doesn’t play ball, it would be bad for business.

Google Fiber Releases San Jose Construction Plan: San Jose leaders are ready to sign a deal this week for Google to start constructing its Fiber layout in the city. Fiber plans to launch in Los Angeles, Irvine and San Diego as well. It already launched in Austin, Nashville, Atlanta, Kansas City, Missouri; and Provo, Utah. Management has said that Fiber-related capex will increase this year, indicating that it expected to start some projects.

Amazon Investor Meeting Takeaways: In a nutshell, Bezos told shareholders that Amazon was planning an unspecified number of additional physical stores/bookstores and had plans of bulking up the Prime service in a way that it would be hard to refuse. All this while dodging questions about social responsibility to animals and things. Shareholders just aren’t in the mood to cross him too much given Amazon’s recent price appreciation. So proposals involving disclosing additional information about political contributions, its human rights record, and its environmental sustainability record that Amazon opposed were easily voted down. 

Dell Sells $20 Billion in Bonds: Dell is raising the cash for its EMC takeover. The company sold $20 billion in bonds last week. Investor offers were in excess of $80 billion, allowing Dell to increase the size of the offering from $16 to $20 billion. This shows tremendous appetite for corporate bonds, especially considering the fact that Moody’s Investors Service assigned a Baa3 rating to the bonds while S&P Global Ratings allotted an equivalent of BBB-). 

Legal/Regulatory

Google Appeals RTBF in France: France’s regulatory body CNIL is all out to enforce a French citizen’s so-called right to be forgotten across the world. Google has made several concessions over the past year including the blocking of the information from French citizens and even other Europeans in the EU, but the requirement has now been expanded. The French government doesn’t seem to be aware that the citizens of other countries may have the right to the information that it seeks to block.

The intention of the French government seems inexplicable, leading one to wonder about what the French are so desperate to hide. At any rate, given that the right to privacy and right to freedom of expression are both provided for in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Articles 12 and 19, respectively), Google is appealing to the French Supreme Court. 

Alibaba’s Anti-Counterfeiting Push: Alibaba had just about entered the Washington-based International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition (IACC) when it was forced out. The group consists of big brands, their lawyers and people investigating counterfeit cases that were divided on the inclusion of Alibaba in the group. Some brands like Tiffany withdrew from the group in protest of Alibaba’s entry despite the Chinese ecommerce company saying that it was uniquely positioned to fight counterfeiting and was taking steps to fight it. But it’s only fair to doubt it since this step-taking has been going on for some time with Alibaba having little to show for its efforts.    

New Technology/Products

Facebook Sells Video Ads, WhatsApp Tries Video Calls: Facebook is certainly getting more serious about video. Last week Facebook announced that it would start placing video ads for companies making use of the audience data at its disposal. The company may be expected to pick up a nice fee in the process (the display ad business fetches 30% of revenue thus generated).

At the same time, the messaging service it picked up is getting deeper into communications with a video call feature. This is direct competition for existing services like Skype but carriers too won’t be amused. Technology companies have been getting deeper into communications for some time and this is just the kind of thing that will continue to spur the trend.

Alphabet Carpooling App: Alphabet is beta-testing a car pooling app on a very limited basis with its own employees and a number of others located in the bay area. The app is based on technology from its Waze acquisition. Some people are of the opinion that this puts it in competition with Uber, which has a Google employee on its board and uses Google Maps. But this is likely not the case, not yet anyway. Instead it appears to be an attempt to collect data on possible customer routes for a self-driving vehicle it could be preparing to launch soon. The Waze app allows a person driving to work the option of sharing the fuel cost with fellow passengers he/she agrees to pick up on the way.

Note that Google is also paying $20 an hour to people with bachelor’s degrees and clean driving and criminal records if they are willing to sit inside a self driving car as “vehicle safety specialist.” They will have to pass a test before appointment. There will also be another person taking notes of the car’s operations to report to its engineering staff.

Amazon Increasing Private Labels: Nuts, spices, tea, coffee, baby food and vitamins are joining the linens, consumer electronic devices and other items that Amazon already sells under its store brands Basics and Fashion. Store brands or “private label” products have traditionally been cheaper alternatives to well-known brands sold at retailers, but their perception in consumer minds has been growing with the Private Label Manufacturers Association estimating that this category grew sales by about $2.2 billion in 2015 to $118.4 billion.

The Amazon private label brands are Happy Belly (nuts, spices, tea and cooking oil), Wickedly Prime (snacks) and Mama Bear (home goods). Needless to say they are all reserved for Prime members alone.

Twitter Character Limit: The social network that is struggling for user growth announced yet another tweak that users are likely to welcome. The company says that photos and links would not be counted as part of the 140-character limit. Twitter has added love signs and removed stars that were strongly objected to but the company has stuck to its 140-character limit, possibly in an attempt to retain some of its essential character, and much to the relief of fans.

Netflix Launches Fast.com: Netflix has launched an app called fast.com that subscribers can use to check Internet speeds. With this app, users can determine when poor transmission is attributable to the telecom. The move could increase pressure on the telecoms to provide better service, since they have been controlling speeds to force service providers like Netflix to enter into paid deals with them.

But Netflix has also been part of these “speed-fixing” schemes in the past. Earlier, Netflix, along with other content providers like Hulu and HBO Now had entered into a deal with T-Mobile, according to which the telecom agreed to not consider these streams in users’ data cap plans. T-Mobile also limited all data speed (even for video that was part of the data cap) to 480p. The service, which included an opt-out option was called Binge On. YouTube (not party to this agreement) objected to this, after which the FCC stepped in and made regulations preventing such arrangements.  

HP Shows Off 3D Printers: HP’s computing business may be totally shaken up by the PC market slump, but the company is proving that it’s not the end of the road. Last week, at the largest 3D additive manufacturing conference called RAPID, the company showcased a couple of 3D printer models for industrial manufacturers with the ability to print 340 million voxels per second. HP named Nike, BMW, Autodesk, Jabil, Johnson & Johnson, Materialise, Proto Labs, Shapeways and Siemens as manufacturers, co-development partners and strategic partners.

This is quite a big deal for the company, because the systems (one of which will ship for $130,000) will ship by year-end and judging from the collaborations, will have some immediate takers. HP has been the leader in the 2D printing space and these developments show that it has a good chance of leading in 3D printing as well.

IBM May Have Memory Breakthrough: IBM scientists have shown that they can create reliable devices storing 3 bits of data per cell using phase-change memory (PCM) technology. The company said that the device can endure 10 million write cycles compared to just 3K for an average USB stick. The announcement was made at the IEEE International Memory Workshop in Paris, where IBM scientists showcased the PCM devices in a 64k-cell array at elevated temperatures and after a million endurance cycles. The company may sell the standalone devices or a hybrid form along with flash storage to increase application speeds in the cloud or boot time in mobile devices.

M&A

Microsoft, SAP Have Deal: At its annual conference in Orlando, SAP announced yet another integration with Microsoft’s cloud. The latest deal allows even the largest of SAP’s HANA databases to run on Microsoft Azure cloud while also linking Office 365 to SAP’s business software. This is very good news for Microsoft, since SAP is used by many Fortune 500 companies.

Microsoft Sells Nokia Phone Business: Microsoft sold the entry-level feature-phone business to Foxconn subsidiary FIH Mobile and newly-formed Finnish company HMD, which was founded by an ex-Nokia employee. Foxconn will now make Nokia-branded phones in combination with HMD, which has licensed Nokia’s phone patents for the next 10 years. Nokia held on to this technology when it sold off the phone business to Microsoft. The company will now earn licensing revenue from the phone business while remaining a networking company. Microsoft got $350 million in the deal.

Amazon Ties with Tyson Foods: During its second-quarter earnings conference call, Tyson Foods CEO Donald Smith announced that the company had tied with Amazon Fresh to sell its new line of meal kits called Tyson Taste Makers (to be launched this fall). Amazon has a very small share of the online grocery market and it’s deals like this that will boost its service. For Tyson, it’s a way to gain from a market that is set to boom over the next few years.

Amazon Looking at Freight Management Tech: Companies that have been contacted by Amazon told the Wall Street Journal that the ecommerce giant is looking to license or buy freight management technology. Amazon’s increased interest in logistics is nothing surprising; the company has been involved in all aspects of the freight management business, whether its trucks, ocean cargo or air freight. In fact, its recent agreement to buy air planes started conversation about the retail giant’s interest in a logistics arm.

Whether this will develop into a separate business is still unknown, and even Amazon may not have planned it yet. But it’s already doing a lot of heavy-lifting for its sellers, so there’s no reason for not doing more.

Seagate Ties with Sugon: Seagate became the next U.S. company falling in line with the demands of the Chinese government. The company has announced a partnership with Sugon according to which, it will supply its cutting-edge data storage technology for incorporation in systems made by Sugon. The Chinese company isn’t a state-owned enterprise; instead, it was closely tied with the prestigious China Academy of Sciences before going public. If foreign companies want to do business in China, they are increasingly required to tie with a local company in order to keep the government happy. This is what Seagate too appears to be doing.

Samsung Partners Alibaba Affiliate: Samsung, which has dropped out of the top five smartphone vendor list in China, is trying to maintain share in the China market. The company announced last week that it was entering into an agreement with Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial so Chinese people with Samsung phones can make payments through AliPay. Samsung Pay users can pay with AliPay even without installing the AliPay app. Samsung Pay launched in China this March but hasn’t really taken off given the popularity of Ali Pay.

Some Numbers

IDC Wearables Estimates: IDC provided some insights into the wearables category last week. Overall wearables will grow 38.2% this year to 110 million units by year-end. Watch and wristband shipments will reach total shipments of 100 million in 2016, from 72.2 million in 2015. Clothing, eyewear, wearables, etc are expected to go from 9.8 million units in 2016 to more than double their share by 2020.

The research firm said that OS-based wearables like the ones coming from technology companies would grow from a quarter of total shipments this year to about a third by 2020. Significant innovation driving user experiences will drive this category. The top operating systems through the forecast period will be Watch OS (from 49.4% in 2016 to 37.6% in 2020), Android Wear (from 21.4% to 35.0%), RTOS (5.0% to 10.1%), Tizen (11.3% to 6.6%), Android (3.6% to 5.2%), Linux (2.3% to 2.8%) and Pebble OS (7.0% to 2.7%).

In another report IDC said that the top wearables vendors were Fitbit, Xiaomi, Apple, Garmin, Samsung and BBK with first-quarter market shares of 24.5%, 18.0%, 7.5%, 4.6%, 3.6% and 3.6%, respectively. Xiaomi grew the strongest, jumping 41.8% from last year, followed by Fitbit (up 25.4%) and then Garmin (up 27.8%).

Some Other Companies That Reported Last Week: Agilent, Analog Devices, Applied Materials, Take-Two, Autodesk, Salesforce, Synopsys

Some Companies Reporting This Week: NMBL, TECD, SPLK, CSC, INTU, HPE, HPQ, NTAP, PANW

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