What We're Reading

China’s moves to spur its slowing economy and restore investor confidence are having an important but less obvious effect on the tech sector: Strengthening Chinese companies that already were making life difficult for U.S. rivals, many of whom have staked their growth plans on the world’s second-largest market.

The government’s surprise decision in early August to devalue China’s currency, in particular, could make it harder for U.S. companies to sell into the country by making their products more expensive to local buyers.

At the same time, a cheaper yuan makes Chinese-produced goods less costly abroad—dovetailing with government policies that have been promoting foreign sales by Chinese technology vendors.

“We see the key driver [of government action] being exports,” said Handel Jones, a consultant at International Business Strategies Inc. who has written books on China’s high-tech sector. Chinese companies “will become more aggressive.”

Once known mainly for its low-cost manufacturi

If you've never watched the iPhone release, it's well worth the time.  Just six short years ago (January 2007) Apple's Steve Jobs unveiled their first iPhone to a enthusiastic crowd at the Mac World Convention in San Francisco and blew away the phone industry.  By June, hundreds stood in lines outside of stores across the nation to get their hands on the hot, new innovative product.  Remember them camping out?  *lol*  People scrambled to save their pennies and begged Mom/Dad to get a piece of the "magic".  Here's a quick visual of AAPL's innovation and I realize I'm missing much but bear with me:

• 1984 MacIntosh which changed and challenged the entire computer industry.
• 2001 iPod transformed the music industry.  My own kids had one iPod after another.   As soon as a new one was announced, I knew what to add to their birthday/Christmas list.
• 2010 The iPhone which transformed phones (in my opinion).  This was the biggie which took an ipod style phone without keyboard buttons o