Financial Sarcasm Roundup for 01/26/16

The Beatles once sang about having "A Hard Day's Night." That's unintentionally sarcastic. If your hard day continues into the night, you may have a lifestyle problem.

JP Morgan Chase wants to turn your smartphone into an ATM. People need to think hard about this very risky approach. Tapping a smartphone to an ATM means anyone who holds the phone can get your cash. It will be a boon for pickpockets and armed robbers. JP Morgan's IT people need to code some hard-core biometric identification tools into their ATM app before it goes live. I think a saliva sample would work nicely. Just lick your smartphone's screen before you tap for that cash.

Apple's iPhone sales are slipping. Here's the latest evidence that a long-term bet on endless China growth is the corporate strategy of five years ago, not today. The inevitable US sales peak will come when Apple's too-stupid early adopter segment finally realizes that they can do without spending $800 every eighteen months for an incremental improvement in camera resolution. Oh yeah, the Apple Watch looks like the company's first dud since the Newton scratchpad. I knew the Watch was useless as soon as I saw it. Watches cannot be scaled down versions of smartphones due to their display size but nobody at Apple was thinking about biometrics. Tech marketers fall for their own hype at the tops of market bubbles.

Oil producers that cut costs can survive earnings season. The ones who drilled $60/boe wells expecting to make $100/boe forever are toast. I was really getting sick of hearing from unproven junior E+P companies tout their shale wells. They can have their remaining employees take turns sucking the oil out through big straws if they can't afford fracking fluids anymore.

I usually have a great day's night, unlike the Beatles. I studiously avoid the Notre Dame Club of San Francisco because those people used to ruin both my days and nights when I met them. No one can ever ruin me now.

The Haiku of Finance for 12/26/14

Locate a context
Total customer tracking
Beacon to smartphone

The Haiku of Finance for 12/29/13

Safer cell phone use
Study effects on humans
Read the label first

Health Risks of Cell Phones and Wearable Devices

The mobile tech revolution has moved so fast that health and safety risks are playing catch-up.  I attended a public forum earlier this month at the Commonwealth Club that opened my eyes to unassessed risks in mobile devices.  The bottom line is that cellular devices operate on low-power microwave frequencies.  Extended exposure to low-power microwaves may have human health consequences, which suggests the precautionary principle for technology use while research develops more definitive conclusions.

The scientists and medical experts on that panel presented evidence that a cell phone's intermittent pulse and wavelength variation are the source potential hazards.  These hazards may persist even when the device is at low power.  I took special note of one statistic presented on "digital dementia" diagnosed in South Korean children.  South Korea is the most saturated mobile market on the planet, according to every tech conference I've attended in 2013.  Putting a mobile device into the hands of everyone in emerging markets may magnify health risks.

The panelists weren't the only ones doing their homework.  WHO's IARC published a monograph this year (Volume 102) on the possibility of carcinogenic risk from cell phones' radiofrequency (RF) electromagnetic fields.  The UC Berkeley Center for Family and Community Health published a meta-analysis in 2009 on the risk of tumors from cell phone use.

Early regulation of cell phone risks has mostly fallen on deaf ears (pun intended).  San Francisco's "Cell Phone Right to Know" ordinance lost a court challenge in 2012.  The FCC does mandate specific absorption rate (SAR) guidelines for cell phones, but it still mentions the further precautions of holding the phone away from the human body and using accessories.  The federal government does not at this time speak with a unified voice on RF radiation, although FCC guidelines on wireless exposure purport to include guidance from the EPA, FDA, and OSHA.  Those other agencies have slightly different approaches.  The FDA has wireless standards for medical devices that IMHO can be adapted for cell phones and other devices used outside the human body.  OSHA defers to the FCC by restating the absence of a federal RF exposure standard but nonetheless provides a good summary of scientific literature on RF exposure.  The trouble with implementing more stringent guidelines at this stage is the lack of independent research on dose-response relationships.  Industry-funded research tends to minimize the hazards while independent research has begun to confirm hazards.  More funding for research means better knowledge of how to manage risk.

The implications of these risks for IoT devices and wearables are huge.  Google Glass, FitBit, and wireless chargers are designed to be next to the human body all day long!  Where's the Consumer Product Safety Commission in this controversy?  If the telecom industry and phone makers don't voluntarily dial down the radiation from their products, they won't like it when the CPSC hammers them later.  It's better for industry to get out in front of this now before they face multi-billion dollar class action lawsuits from cancer victims.  Who holds the patents for low-radiation phones and antennas?  Those innovations may prove to be very valuable if carriers and makers bring them to market.  The evolution of mobile phone standards offers industry a way to reduce RF exposure.  GSM is the most widely adopted standard for 1G and 2G networks but it may generate higher RF exposures than CDMA for 3G and later networks.  I think GSMA and CDG should have a chat about public-interest solutions before lawyers start trolling through cancer cases.

Civilization needs mobile tech, so to keep it we need to manage its risks.  The Environmental Health Trust has developed a knowledge base on the safe use of cell phones.  The International Institute for Building Biology and Ecology wants us to read the instructions and labels on our wireless devices.  The National Cancer Institute has a fact sheet on the cancer risk from cell phones.  The National Consumer Advocacy Commission maintains a cell phone safety website that mostly covers accident prevention, although it does admit the need for further research on RF health hazards.

The experts at the CW Club also advocated some simple rules for minimizing exposure that I'll repeat here.  Use earpieces and speakerphones whenever possible.  Don't use a cell phone in areas with weak signals because it must work harder to generate more power.  Use the phone's "airplane mode" to turn off microwave signaling.  Don't keep a cell phone directly on your body.  That last one matters very much for women, because there is evidence showing that women who keep cell phones in their bras experience increased risk of breast cancer.  I keep my own powered off when it's in my jacket pocket.

Technology marches on and so must human health.  I believe there is a role for institutional investors to play in this debate by pushing publicly traded tech companies to raise the bar on safety.  Cell phone RF risk is a perfect test case for applying corporate social responsibility policies.  Risk demands regulation, but regulation needs data.  If government agencies can't or won't fund research on RF health hazards, there's an entrepreneurial opportunity for tech companies that market safer devices.  This has been your public health message for the day from Alfidi Capital.  

Financial Sarcasm Roundup for 09/21/13

Here comes a late Saturday night sarcastic blast.  I saw some fun headlines that I just can't ignore.

BlackBerry's new phone is a sales dud and the company's overall numbers are horrible.  Last decade's must-have device at places like my previous employers is now unwanted.  Forget the "Market Ticker" rave reviews of the Z10.  Most smartphone users aren't hard core tech heads.  They don't need an engineer's dream product because they really only care about texting LOLcat pics to friends.

Harvard plans to raise a record amount for its endowment.  These things are planned years in advance but I can't help wonder about ulterior financial motives.  The student loan bubble is bound to burst and upper-income parents will eventually tire of paying full tuition so low-income students can receive merit-based subsidies.  Yes, folks, snobbery really does rule at these types of schools.  The Ivys and other elite schools need to move fast to digitize their best courses and brand them for online distribution because the MOOC revolution is going to destroy most colleges' business models.  The top-rung schools can survive if they focus on STEM laboratory work that can't be executed online.

The local tech community lends a hand to civic life through the San Francisco Citizens Initiative for Technology and Innovation.  It's cool that techies want to reinvigorate education but redesigning K-12 curriculum needs to accommodate the MOOC revolution.  See my rant about Harvard just above.  Otherwise, we'll end up with a bunch of unionized teachers sitting around on their larded posteriors while their motivated students zip ahead through self-paced online courseware.  Students can learn most of what they need online at home and commute to a magnet school once or twice a week to do STEM lab work.  

Microsoft Losing Its Monopoly Power to Tablets and Smartphones

I don't follow the tech sector as closely as most business analysts in the Bay Area, but I do take note of obvious sea changes.  Slackening PC sales are hurting Microsoft and its hardware partners.  Microsoft shows no sign of learning the tablet market.  The 10.6 inch screen on its Surface tablet is almost as big as a laptop screen.  Mobile users don't want to lug around something that big.  The iPad display is 9.7 inches.  Google has a 10 inch Nexus but its operating system isn't as irritating as Windows 8.  An inch or so matters, and so does usability.

I'm noticing that the prices of smartphones and tablets are declining to points that make them desirable for late adopters.  You'd think the commodification of a new gizmo would work to Microsoft's advantage, but they haven't moved fast enough to win the operating system competition in this sector.  This will not be a repeat of Microsoft's desktop PC victory over Apple or its browser victory with Internet Explorer.  HP reads the handwriting on the wall, but appears to be reading it backwards.  It has combined the Chrome operating system with yesterday's laptop hardware and yet the solution presents the worst of both worlds, according to VentureBeat.

Microsoft has yet to learn that its cherished suite of Office applications must move to the cloud.  Outlook is already there, overlaid on what used to be Hotmail.  I am nowhere close to buying a tablet or smartphone, but if the prices keep coming down I'll have to reconsider.  My impression is that Google-compatible devices  have a much more expansive walled garden in Google's cloud than what's available from competing platforms.

Full disclosure:  No positions in any companies mentioned at this time.

The Haiku of Finance for 01/26/13

Make a cheap smartphone
World will beat path to your door
Drive down mobile cost