What We're Reading

Alphabet's investment arm, Google Capital, has quietly made an investment in Snapchat parent company, Snap Inc. 

The investment was only revealed after Google Capital rebranded itself to CapitalG on Friday and added the Snapchat logo to its portfolio page. Business Insider confirmed that it is a portfolio company of the growth equity arm of Alphabet. Snap Inc did not immediately respond to comment. 

The two companies have had a cozy relationship. In 2013, it was rumored that Google once tried to buy Snapchat for $4 billion after it turned down a Facebook acquisition. To this day, Snapchat remains one of the largest users of Google's cloud infrastructure, although it's recently brought a data center specialist in house. 

Before it renamed itself to Snap Inc in September, Snapchat had most recently raised $1.81 billion in a May 2016 round of funding. That funding round valued the company around $20 billion. 

Courtesy of BusinessInsider

Robert Epstein, a senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology in California and the former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today, warns us of a insidious and pervasive new form of mind control: search results.

That’s right, search results. And not just any search results: Google search results. Since 2013 Epstein and colleagues have conducted a number of experiments in the US and India to determine whether search results can impact people’s political opinions.

Epstein points out that about 50 percent of our clicks go to the top two items on the first page of results, and more than 90 percent of our clicks go to the 10 items listed. And of course Google, which dominates the search business, decides which of the billions of web pages to include in our search results, and it decides how to rank them.

But surely, Epstein thought, a top search result would have only a small impact on a person’s political choices. Not so! To Epstein’s surpri

Google certainly looks to be dominating the mobile playing field.  Good for Google or does this just open the door to fresh startups and current disruptors to look to take market share?  (more below)

Some key questions to be answered in this area include:

• How fast has mobile app usage been growing?
• How often are people using apps on each device?
• What percentage of time are consumers spending on their top apps?
• How do iOS users differ from Android users demographically and behaviorally?
• Which mobile app content categories are we spending most of our time consuming?
• How do the top apps compare in different age segments?

Download the full report at Comscore

• Better than expected China PMI over the weekend and ECB meeting on Thursday with LTRO announcement being anticipated and a (speculative) rate cut to help boost their economy.
• $GOOG is planning on extending its customer base by offering internet usage to the un-wired regions of the world via satellite and boost revenue as well as earnings. The new project's estimated price ranges from $1B-$3B, and will start with 180 small, high-capacity satellites orbiting Earth at low altitude.  180 "low altitude"?  Just how many are up there anyway?  lol
• Cost-cutting in a digital age to continue.  Imagine the possibilities.  For example one bank digitized it's mortgage-application and decision process, cutting the cost per new mortgage by 70% and slashing time to preliminary approval from several days to just one minute. A telecom created a self-serve, prepaid service where customers could order and activate phones without back-office involvement. A shoe retailer built a system to manage its in-stor

• Saving down, lending up and tapering combine in a perfect storm.  One of our favorite bloggers CalifiaBeachPundit
• More tech companies are experiencing DDoS cyber attacks including SAY Media (Typepad), Meetup, Basecamp, Vimeo, Bit.ly and others.
• 51% of Americans are unsure of the validity of the Big Bang theory.  For many it's because it can't be seen or seems too far away  A look at the iron triangle of science, religion and politics,
• For the first time in history, the rich find themselves working longer than the poor.
• The Fed must choose:  more jobs or lower inflation.
• Shipments through the port of Los Angeles jumped 34% spurring a bit of (recovery) conversation today on Wall Street
• Google follows Facebook and Twitter with app-installed advertising.

• For all the worrying about weather impacting job creation, Trim Tabs say real time tax receipt data (allegedly more reliable than BLS data) suggests that the economy has been picking up steam.  24/7WallStreet
• A 8.2% magnitude earthquake overnight off the coast of Chile with a 2 meter tsunami.  Supposedly mining operations have not been affected buy you try to tell that to silver and gold this morning.  They're not buying it (so far)
• Interesting metrics from Flurry on mobile usage today.  GOOG accounts for 18% of time spent by consumers which includes YouTube, while FB is 17%.   Android web browsing is losing market share, going from 20% or usage down to 14%
• Facebook apps continue to hold strength ahead of Google according to Comscore data..  Twitter's app was only used by 22.8% of U.S. smartphone users in January. 77.6% used Facebook's core app, and 27.5% Instagram. Five different Google apps were used by over 40% of users.
• The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) met it's targ

As first reported by 9to5Mac, Apple has been bringing on board experts in sensors that monitor the human body. They’re from companies like AccuVein, C8 MediSensors and Senseonics.

The wearable technology market is expected to grow immensely in popularity in the next few years: one firm estimates the 500,000 smartwatches that have shipped so far this year will explode to 5 million units by the end of 2014. The optimism built into the numbers comes from the long-held assumption that Apple will do its own smartwatch. But lots of big consumer electronics companies will help bring the devices into the mainstream: that may include Microsoft, Motorola and Samsung, in addition to entries from smaller, niche companies like Pebble.

But wearable computing includes far more than watches. There’s Google Glass, of course, and simple fitness-tracking, wrist-worn devices like Nike’s, and products from Jawbone, Fitbit and others. Clothing with sensors in them will be part of the mix too, like Heapsyl

First let me state, It's not my deliberate intention to make supportive case for the rampantly growing
already, and bursting at the proverbial seams, laced with redundant, inadequate, and antiquated govt jobs,
Super Bureaucracy of today. That to include it becoming any overbearing, oppressive, Orwellian,
and Nanny State Day Care-ish, that's already now! Yet, I am understanding or of the mindset. That eventually technology will shrink the bureaucracy considerably fold. Thus yielding a correction to the parabolic growth rate it has been in and executing now. No parabolic growth is sustainable indefinitely. And the Masses will soon realize that alot can be done with less in today's real/live time interconnected world.

Second, I am going to try and demonstrate throughout, that the exponential advancements in technology made
thus far, will not only allow us to do this, but undeniably require it at some point. That being taking a
REAL/LIVE time, monthly micro economic management and observa