US runs into opposition from Russia, China on North Korea sanctions - CNN
Better Buy: Netflix Inc. vs. Alphabet - Motley Fool
It's been a challenging summer for some of the market's tech leaders, but it's not as if one can say that shareholders of Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) are smarting. Both stocks are trading less than 10% below their all-time highs, and there's no reason why coming through strong quarterly results next month won't lift both stocks back to their recent peaks.
What if you only had enough money to buy one of the two dot-com darlings? Netflix and Alphabet don't have a lot in common. One relies on advertising for 86% of its revenue. The other prides itself on being an ad-free streaming platform. One has proven to be recession-resistant, as Netflix offers a compelling stay-at-home value proposition when economies stumble. Alphabet's Google needs a thriving marketplace for lead-hungry advertisers to come knocking on its door. Sometimes it seems as if the only thing that Netflix and Google have in common is that they rub elbows at the end of the FANG stocks acronym. Let's size up the two very different tech giants to see which one is a better fit for your portfolio.
"Orange Is the New Black," a Netflix flagship. Image source: Netflix.
Growth or valuation?
Let's start at the top line, where a surprising trait investors will find at both companies is accelerating revenue growth. Large growth stocks tend to decelerate over time as their markets mature, but we're not seeing that at Netflix or Alphabet. They are both working on their third consecutive year of accelerating top-line gains after bottoming out in 2015.
| Netflix Revenue Growth | Alphabet Revenue Growth | |
| 2015 | 23.2% | 13.6% |
| 2016 | 30.3% | 20.4% |
| 2017 | 32.4% | 22.8% |
| 2018 YTD | 40.3% | 25.7% |
Data source: S&P Capital IQ.
Just the fact that revenue growth is gaining momentum at both companies makes them both winners on that front, though it bears pointing out that analysts see the streaks ending for both bellwethers in 2019. Don't worry: They will still be growing a lot faster than they did two years earlier.
However, in terms of sheer top-line growth spurts, it's clear that Netflix takes the crown. It has taken the world by storm with its streaming service, backed by more than 130 million subscribers as of the end of June. Alphabet naturally throws out an even wider global net, but when it comes to growth, this is Netflix's battle to lose.
The flip side here is valuation. Alphabet comes out ahead when butting heads with Netflix across every popular valuation metric. Alphabet trades at a reasonable 5.9 times trailing revenue, less than half of Netflix, with its multiple of 12.2. Head down to the bottom line, and it doesn't get prettier for Netflix, which trades for more than three times Alphabet's trailing P/E. Looking out to 2019, we find Alphabet at a palatable 25 times earnings, with Netflix several flights higher at an 87 multiple. Netflix is growing faster. It rightfully deserves a valuation premium to both Alphabet and the market. But Alphabet is still the winner of this round.
It's a photo finish
If there's a personal bias here, it would be that I own Netflix, and have owned the disruptive video service since 2002. It's my biggest winner -- by far -- and the only regret is that I sold most of my stake along the way.
However, if I can distance myself from the financially rewarding nostalgia, there is a lot to like about Alphabet here. It dominates search, just as Netflix is running away with the premium streaming-video market. Netflix and Google have vanquished strong challengers. Netflix is still on top despite the presence of Hulu with its TV-rich catalog, and Amazon Prime Video being made available to what is now more than 100 million Prime members at no additional cost. Google has survived the rise of social networking sites that were once a threat to siphon off search queries.
I'm going against my portfolio. I'm giving Alphabet the edge here. The valuation is right, and the prospects are bright. I believe that both stocks will beat the market in the next couple of years, but I'm giving Alphabet the better shot at delivering better returns in that time.
Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Rick Munarriz owns shares of Netflix. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), and Netflix. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Apple Watch Series 4: When Will The Brilliant ECG Feature Arrive In The States And Worldwide? - Forbes
When Apple launched its beautiful Apple Watch Series 4 earlier this month (and reviewed in detail here), there was one feature which leapt out. The new Watch will be able to measure heart rate in a way usually restricted to medical devices: ECG (also known as EKG).
Apple Watch Series 4 with its ECG capabilities...Apple
It does this, and I've seen it demonstrated so I believe it does work, when you create a circuit. The back of the Watch measures your heart rate on your wrist and then you touch the Digital Crown with the finger on your opposite hand and the circuit is complete. Then it starts its monitoring.
But, although the whole thing has been cleared by the FDA in the U.S., the ECG app isn't on the Watch yet as Apple is still finishing the software.
I will say, though, that when I saw it in action it looked pretty finished to me, indeed it was slick and effective, so I would think that Apple's assertion that it will arrive this year will prove accurate.
Until then, there's no whisper of it on the Watch. You can't find it. The app won't appear, it can't be activated and it won't do its monitoring until a software update arrives.
And outside the U.S., there's also no sign of the app and there won't be until it's approved in individual countries.
So, when will that be, exactly, or is this vaporware, like the as-yet-undelivered charging mat, AirPower?
Ben Lovejoy at 9to5Mac has been investigating and reported that it may be some time.
It could be years, in fact.
Apple Watch Infographic face, including Heart Rate complication (but not ECG).David Phelan
Vaporware?
Let's clear this up. Apparently, the FDA clearance arrived just hours before the Apple event, according to Fast Company.
So, no wonder the software needs a bit of spit and polish before it's ready, and Apple has said it's going to be out this year.
By the way, I personally believe there'll be a proper announcement about AirPower soon, maybe in the next few weeks. It seems it's almost there, just not quite. But I'm convinced it's going to happen.
Anyway, back to Apple Watch and its ECG reading. Ben Lovejoy has spoken to the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to find out exactly what the procedure is for it to be cleared for use in the U.K.
Apparently the process isn't in itself complicated, but may be time-consuming if the MHRA, assuming it's satisfied that the technology works well enough, asks Apple to carry out a medical study to test its effectiveness. This could take months and could, the MHRA told Lovejoy, "add years" to the CE marking process.
Apple Watch Series 4Apple
So, British Watch users, you may have a long wait.
There is one glimmer of hope for Brits waiting to use the feature (I'm one of them). Apple could obtain permission from the equivalent agency in another E.U. country and a German cardiologist has hinted this might be the case in an interview for the website Heise.
In the interview, the cardiologist explains that the Apple Watch could accurately diagnose 95% of cases of atrial fibrillation (afib) even though it's not suitable for other heart diseases such as myocarditis, infarction or circulatory disorders, he says.
The cardiologist, Thomas Meinertz, also says, "In my experience, a CE certification in Germany will come relatively quickly. But that just means that the procedure is safe and workable, it says nothing about the clinical benefit."
In which case, if it's approved in Germany, it will be approved in all EU countries. Given that the U.K. is currently supposed to leave the E.U. on March 29 2019, it had better be before then…
_______
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Donald Trump delays meeting with Rod Rosenstein until next week - USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump postponed a Thursday meeting to discuss the tenure of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to avoid interference with a Senate hearing where Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is set to confront allegations of sexual assault.
"The president spoke with Rod Rosenstein a few minutes ago and they plan to meet next week," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said. "They do not want to do anything to interfere with the hearing."
The urgency for a meeting appeared to abate after Trump signaled his support Wednesday for the deputy attorney general to remain in his post despite reports that Rosenstein discussed invoking the 25th Amendment last year to seek the president's removal from office.
"My preference would be to keep (Rosenstein), and let him finish out," Trump told reporters following a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, apparently referring to Rosenstein's oversight of the ongoing investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election.
Trump said that Rosenstein has denied making any reference to invoking the 25th Amendment first reported last week in The New York Times.
"He said he did not say it; he said he does not believe that. Nobody in this room believes it," Trump said.
In his capacity at the Justice Department, Rosenstein has managed the Russia investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, who also is reviewing whether Trump sought to obstruct the inquiry last year by firing FBI Director James Comey.
Some Democratic lawmakers have accused Trump of seeking Rosenstein's removal as part of a plan to shut down the Russia investigation.
"You know, I've called it a witch-hunt," Trump said Wednesday, referring to the Mueller probe. "And it is a witch-hunt."
Trump and his allies have criticized Rosenstein's performance in office, though some supporters have also warned the president not to fire the deputy attorney general because of the potential political fallout.
Allies such as Fox News host Sean Hannity have accused FBI of leaking the damaging information on Rosenstein in the hope that Trump would fire him, setting off another firestorm just weeks before elections that will determine political control of Congress.
House Speaker Paul Ryan reacts as Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein prepares for a face-to-face showdown Thursday with President Donald Trump, there are indications he won't be fired, but a voluntary resignation isn't out of the question. (Sept. 26) AP
Rosenstein's meeting with Trump was to come just days after his hold on the job appeared to be slipping away. On Monday, the deputy attorney general was summoned to a meeting at the White House where he expected to be dismissed.
Questions have swirled around Rosenstein since the Times published its report, which also indicated that that Rosenstein suggested wearing a wire to gather evidence of the president's erratic behavior following the dismissal of Comey.
Rosenstein, who has repeatedly denied the reports, recounting the tumultuous period when the White House was plunged into chaos following Comey's firing.
As part of his oversight role, Rosenstein has authority to dismiss Mueller. But he has consistently voiced strong support for his work.
"The special counsel is not an unguided missile," Rosenstein said in a March interview with USA TODAY. "I don't believe there is any justification at this point for terminating the special counsel."
During television interviews this week, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders declined to speculate on what Trump might do, saying she did not want to get ahead of the meeting with Rosenstein.
More: Rosenstein: Departure statement had been prepared as he huddled at White House
More: Democrats urge Congress to protect Russia probe amid reports that Rod Rosenstein may go
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Don't believe the hype over the Kavanaugh hearing – Donald Trump won't abandon his man at the 11th hour - The Independent
Everybody knows the American government is based on a system of checks and balances – and to be honest, it's worked pretty well so far. Congress makes the laws, the president enforces them and the courts keep everybody on a tight constitutional leash.
But as the American political establishment continues its rapid devolution into a drooling, partisan monster, we need the power of the Supreme Court more than ever. We need rational, intelligent and politically neutral minds to keep selfish career politicians in check and protect us from our own collective, short-sighted stupidity.
Then again, what use is the highest court in the land if it's been morally compromised just like our feckless politicians and masochist of a leader?
We're talking, of course, about the embarrassing sideshow act going on in Washington this week. You've probably caught bits and pieces of this already: a couple months ago, Donald Trump got his chance to redefine the political balance of the Supreme Court and give it a sharp conservative twist by nominating judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace outgoing Anthony Kennedy. The Democrats were justifiably irritated by the decision, and have been giving Kavanaugh a hard time, before lawmakers vote on whether they'll let him have the job.
Yet, in true 2018 fashion, Kavanaugh's "nothing but net" confirmation has been tossed about off-course after three defiant women came out with allegations of sexual assault. One accuser alleged that Kavanaugh regularly drugged girls and was present while she was getting gang-raped. Another says Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at Yale. A third, Dr Christine Blasey Ford, will stand before lawmakers today to share an explicit testimony regarding the time that she believed he was going to rape her. Kavanaugh denies all allegations.
If any of these allegations were proven to be true, this of course raises the prospect that a presidential nominee is a criminal with flagrant disregard for the law, an obvious disrespect for women and a total lack of human empathy. In which case, Kavanaugh would not deserve to sit on the US Supreme Court. But just because a powerful white man doesn't deserve something, doesn't mean he won't get it.
Tomorrow, Senators will sit down and vote on Kavanaugh's future. Under ordinary circumstances, lawmakers would look beyond party lines, cast the nominee aside and demand that Trump pick someone whose candidacy could not be so significantly called into question.
But these not ordinary circumstances: majority leader Mitch McConnell has already called the vote in Kavanaugh's favour, and Donald Trump said yesterday he's sticking by his man.
Why? Because our commander-in-chief knows exactly what it's like to be accused of sex crimes. He thinks the #MeToo movement is bogus.
Let's not mince words, here: if Kavanaugh is appointed to the US Supreme Court with these allegations still untested, the moral compass of the American system of governance will be smashed beyond repair. It could take generations to unpick the damage he could inflict upon the United States and its global reputation as a system based on political and legal checks and balances.
Unless there's some sort of miracle in the next 24 hours, and a few brave Republican Senators manage to grow a fully functioning conscience by Friday morning, that's exactly what's going to happen.
The Independent has launched its #FinalSay campaign to demand that voters are given a voice on the final Brexit deal.
Sign our petition here
Crutchfield Shows The Way To Beat Amazon - Forbes
Amazon can be beat. Here's how Crutchfield is doing it. Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg
With Amazon stock up 67% this year, many investors are wondering if they missed the boat. To move up from here, Amazon has to beat some pretty high expectations. At the same time, because Amazon's price-to-earnings ratio is 156, any disappointments can cause a steep drop. Is Amazon's core business rock solid enough to justify the price? I started out thinking Amazon was unbeatable in online retail sales. But then, serendipity struck and I've changed my mind.
For me, the lightbulb turned on when I wanted to upgrade the car stereo in our 2005 Mazda MPV so my wife could talk on her iPhone handsfree.
Amazon Sales Experience
I first went to Amazon's Automotive Parts & Accessories store, entered my car's make and model and typed "car stereo" in the search box. The first thing I noticed was that the results page was "sponsored by Boss Audio Systems" and Boss products were prominently featured in the recommendations.
What happened to the brands that I remember from my youth such as JVC, Kenwood, Alpine and Pioneer? You can find them if you search for them. But if you don't know what you are looking for, Amazon is not the best place to go for a recommendation.
Crutchfield Sales Experience
After a quick google search, Crutchfield was the next place I checked. After entering my car's make and model, Crutchfield gave me a list of car stereos of various brands, prices and features. Clicking on any of the items gets you details about the product, and also all the things you need to install the stereo into your car which in most cases, are included in the price.
This turned out to be the key to making me comfortable that I would be able to install the stereo myself. The last thing I want is to open up the dashboard only to find that I don't have the right bracket, screw or cable to complete the installation. Since you don't want to drive the car with the dashboard opened up, you want to be sure you have everything you need before you start.
I selected a JVC KD-X255BT and placed an order with Crutchfield.
After Sales Support
After I installed the stereo, I found that it would not play music files encoded with Apple's AAC codec. Crutchfield's product information page says AAC files are supported, and so does JVC's website. This was an important feature because I use iTunes to manage my music and everything is encoded with this codec.
With Crutchfield's help I've concluded that files encoded with Apple's AAC codec are not supported unless they are compressed. Lossless AAC files are not supported. Crutchfield offered a full refund. But after installing the stereo, I was not about to open the dashboard again to take the stereo out so I could return it.
The best answer for me was to use an old iPhone as a bluetooth enabled flash drive. The JVC unit will link to up to five bluetooth music sources and two bluetooth phones. Using an old iPhone as a bluetooth music source means the iPhone decodes the music file instead of the JVC stereo. I may even use an old Samsung Galaxy Lite instead of the old iPhone because the Samsung has a slot for a micro SD card. This is a great solution and a good use for an older deactivated phone.
My past experience with Amazon's customer service tells me they would only have been able to offer a refund.
My Take
If price is the last factor in your buying decision, Amazon is hard to beat. Amazon's price for the same JVC stereo was actually $2 lower than Crutchfield's price.
However, if you are not sure exactly what you want to buy, Amazon is not a good place to get recommendations. The fact that Boss Audio Systems sponsors the results page made me wonder whether Amazon was showing me the best choices overall, or just the best choices from Boss.
What Crutchfield does better than Amazon is provide deep knowledge of their products both before and after the sale. Two other companies that have not succeeded against Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart/Jet, also don't provide this kind of product knowledge.
Crutchfield shows that you don't need brick and mortar stores to beat Amazon.
Crutchfield is a private company so you can't invest in them. It is also not large enough to be an immediate threat to Amazon. However, when we see online retailers apply Crutchfields' formula to more product categories, that will be a signal that it's time to sell Amazon.
Wayne Himelsein, one of my managers, said he was willing to nibble at Amazon last week. If you would like to know when Wayne updates his views, click here.
If you would like to be notified when I write about Amazon or other stocks you are following, click here.
Who's really to thank for booming economy: Donald Trump or Barack Obama? - USA TODAY
Economic growth is up, unemployment is down, and President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama are fighting over who should get the credit. Both are offering a certain amount of truth on behalf of their claim, along with a healthy dose of hyperbole and more than a little statistical cherry-picking.
Trump, for instance, inherited an economy that was in the process of bouncing back after a long recessionary trough. This makes it hard to disentangle the results of his policies from the broader trend.
It is fair, for instance, for Obama to suggest that the recession ended and the economy started growing again on his watch. In fact, if you were to chart various economic indicators on a graph, you would be hard pressed to find exactly where the Obama presidency ended and Trump's began. To cite just one example, the U.S. economy created nearly 4 million jobs in the last 18 months of Obama's term, virtually indistinguishable of the first 18 months of Trump's.
More on Obama: Obama's return just reminds us how he fueled the distrust that led to Trump
Related column: Obamamania is a burst of optimism in an era of Trump dread
Of course, Obama was starting from the nadir of the Great Recession, so economic and job growth should have been expected. And many economists suggest that the increased taxes, onerous regulations enacted in bills such as Dodd-Frank and the Affordable Care Act, as well as the perception that Obama was anti-business, slowed the economic recovery. In terms of economic output, this was the slowest economic recovery since World War II.
Moreover, it is noteworthy that growth had slowed during Obama's last year in office, dropping from 2.3 percent in the second quarter of 2016 to just 1.8 percent in the final quarter.
Donald Trump's economy
Meanwhile, economic growth under Trump has averaged 2.9 percent, and will likely top 3 percent this year. That's considerably more than the 1.5-1.75 percent growth rate predicted by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco when Trump took office.
The economy has also added 3.6 million jobs since the start of Trump's presidency, and unemployment has declined from 4.8 percent to 3.9 percent. Unemployment rates for women, African-Americans and Latinos are all at multi-decade lows. Real disposable income — which barely rose during Obama's tenure — is now growing about .3 percent. And small-business optimism has reached its highest level ever recorded.
On the other hand, it is far too soon for many of the president's initiatives, such as tax and regulatory cuts, to have fundamentally altered business incentives. Besides, those cuts have been much smaller than the president likes to trumpet. For instance, according to the American Action Forum, net deregulation this year under Trump will save businesses roughly $1.6 billion. This is a step in the right direction but a drop in the bucket of an $18.6 trillion economy. And those savings will easily be offset by the economic damage from the tariffs that the Trump administration has been imposing on imported goods.
Is this sustainable growth?
Rather than a fundamental shift in the economy, we may simply be seeing a "sugar high," the stimulative effect of tax cuts combined with massive increases in deficit spending. Government spending is up 7 percent since last year, and that is reflected in gross domestic product numbers. There is good reason, therefore, to question whether the growth we are seeing is sustainable.
Deficits are expected to hit $1 trillion soon, and the national debt will top $30 trillion by 2025. That level of debt will act as a substantial drag on the economy, not to mention Trump's aforementioned trade policies and new immigration restrictions.
Both Trump and Obama are offering rival versions of: "You didn't build that." Both are suggesting that it is the president — and government more generally — that drives America's economic engine. They are both wrong.
It is the American people — workers, entrepreneurs and investors — who make the American economy hum.
Obviously, government policy matters. Good policies can encourage investment and innovation; bad policies can slow it. But no president can manage the individual choices of 325 million producers and consumers. Imbuing the president with mystical powers to manage the economy is to invite the sort of meddling that can only get in the way of American dynamism.
The best thing that a president — any president — can do for the economy is to get out of the way and let Americans innovate and produce.
The president who did that could really claim credit.
Michael D. Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. You can follow him on Twitter: @MTannerCato.
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Will there be an October Apple event? Signs point to yes - ZDNet
For about a week before the September 12 Apple announcement event, our editorial team prepared. The rumor mills had been spinning predictions at warp speed, so we had to be ready for whatever Tim & Company announced.
Some of us were to write about the iPhones, others about the Watch. Because of my moderately unhealthy obsession with the Mac mini, I was assigned coverage of it should a new model be announced (it wasn't). Expectations were high for new iPads, the AirPower charger, and a second generation of EarPods.
Also: iPhone XS Max teardown: Here's what $1,249 flagship costs Apple in parts
Alas, September 12 came and went. We heard about the amazing new features of the Apple Watch Series 4 (even if they're not available yet) and the trifurcation of the iPhone X into XR, XS, and the unfortunately named XS Max.
But no new iPads. No new Mac mini. No new MacBook or MacBook Air. No new EarPods. And where the heck is the AirPower?
For those looking forward to new releases of anything other than phones and the Watch, September was a disappointment. The big question going forward is simple: is this all there is? Are we destined to continue through the rest of 2018 without updates to some very key kit?
Probably not.
A second fall event
I've shown you a variation of this table before. It's derived from ten years of data posted by AAPL Investors. This time, I've diced up my master spreadsheet to show just fall events. As the table shows, Apple has held a second fall event 60 percent of the time.
Fall Apple event history
Furthermore, that second event has NEVER included new iPhone announcements, has always included a Mac announcement, and in four of the six second fall events, has also included an iPad announcement.
Speaking of iPad announcements, there is some evidence that a 2018 iPad is on its way. According to a piece reported by 9to5Mac, an iOS 12.1 beta release includes an identifier (a data stub) mentioning a "2018 fall" iPad. While placeholders sometimes do show up in products before they're fully baked in, this sort of indicator is a moderately good sign that a fall iPad will be released.
Also: Here's the next iPad Pro Apple should build: Specs and speculation
Given that two thirds of previous second fall events include iPad announcements, this is some good supporting fodder for there being a second Apple event this season.
If it happens, when?
Looking back at our event data, we can see that when Apple holds a second fall event, it's always in October. Based on historical practice, Apple actually holds more events in October than it does in any other month other than September.
Most events happen in the fall
As for when, it's definitely not going to be in the next few weeks. When Apple holds an Apple event, it usually holds it during the third week of the month. The only exception has been in 2008, when it held a Mac event on the 14th and in 2014, when it held an iPad and Mac event on the 16th.
Additionally, don't expect to have a definitive date for the event until mid-month. Invites for the October event are generally less than eight days from the event itself. Don't expect to hear anything from Apple until sometime between October 12 and October 19.
In terms of day of the week, Apple has held their October event on two Thursdays, three Tuesdays, and one Wednesday (back in 2010). Its most recent October events (2016 and 2014) have both been on Thursdays.
Also: macOS Mojave: A look at the new features TechRepublic
Therefore, with a statistical base of information far too small to be statistically valid, it's time for some predictions:
- There will probably be an October event
- It will almost definitely discuss a new iPad and possibly a Mac
- It will probably occur the week of October 22
- Go ahead and tentatively mark your calendars for either Tuesday, October 23 or Thursday October 25.
So there you go. As always, remember there are lies, damned lies, statistics, and whatever the heck my Excel chart is. That said, there's a pretty good chance you'll see some Apple event action in just about four weeks.
You can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Be sure to follow me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz, on Facebook at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz, on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV.
The gladiator's edgeIn the struggle for AI supremacy, China will prevail - The Economist
AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order. By Kai-Fu Lee. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 272 pages; $28.
CHINA'S "Sputnik moment" came on May 27th 2017. On that day an algorithm thrashed Ke Jie, the world's best player of Go, an ancient and demanding Chinese board game. Mr Ke's defeat by AlphaGo, an artificial intelligence (AI) system developed by DeepMind, a British firm that had been bought by Google, was as much a blow to China's psyche as the Soviet satellite was to America's self-esteem in 1957. Within months, China announced ambitious plans to dominate AI by 2030.
Kai-Fu Lee thinks it will succeed. He is well placed to judge. He moved from Taiwan to America at 11, earned a PhD in AI in the 1980s and has been a senior manager at America's mightiest tech firms, including Apple, Microsoft and Google. Now he runs a Chinese venture-capital fund, which gives him a ringside seat for the contest between what he calls the two "AI superpowers", China and America.
He thinks China will win because it has the edge in the four determinants of AI success: brains, capital, regulation and data. His verdict on the last three criteria is largely persuasive. For example, China's internet economy generates vastly more data than any other, particularly in the area of payments—many Chinese merchants eschew coins and currency in favour of digital money. Meanwhile, whereas American cities are restricting self-driving cars, the district of Xiong'an, 60 miles south of Beijing, is being built from scratch to accommodate them (along with 2.5m people). The mayors of Chinese cities are splashing cash on AI startups.
Mr Lee's analysis of brainpower is more nuanced. The West has the best researchers, he acknowledges, and they still offer benefits. But, he argues, they are no longer paramount. The era of AI breakthroughs has been superseded by an age of implementation—getting the algorithms to work on everyday problems. Now the main advantage lies in having millions of "tinkerers". And China does.
His observations will unsettle his erstwhile colleagues in Silicon Valley. Compared with Chinese entrepreneurs—who are street-smart, hungry and ruthless—"the valley's companies look lethargic and its engineers lazy." One group grew up amid poverty and upheaval, Mr Lee notes; the other are children of suburban accountants and dentists. In his view, Chinese entrepreneurs are "gladiators", who have assimilated "the lessons learned in the coliseum", namely "kill or be killed". He recounts dirty tricks and anticompetitive ruses. "The only recourse when an opponent strikes a low blow is to launch a more damaging counterattack, one that can take the form of copying products, smearing opponents, or even legal detention"—that is, getting the police to arrest a rival.
By contrast, American firms are complacent, sticking comfortably to their distinct corners of the web—Facebook in social media, Amazon in e-commerce, and so on—with little real rivalry among them. He mocks them for their "mission statements" and "core values" that blind them to market opportunities.
Values are the missing character in Mr Lee's narrative; or rather, he thinks they are a distraction. The West is enamoured of the idea that innovation and creativity require free speech, Mr Lee says. Yet China's growth debunks that platitude. Though the free-flow of ideas may be necessary in the social sciences, in apolitical technologies the Chinese system has already proved to be innovative.
As for the troves of data that make AI systems work, Mr Lee believes that Chinese consumers' willingness to give up privacy for convenience is a huge boon to its companies in the AI race. "It's up to each country to make its own decisions on how to balance personal privacy and public data," he writes. "There's no right answer."
The ghost in the machine
These are controversial claims. For example, Mr Lee fails to consider how consumer interests may change, especially as people become wealthier and more demanding of government. He ducks the urgent question of state surveillance, which (for instance) is being used in Xinjiang province to repress individual freedom. The reticence is understandable; there is a lot of money at stake, after all.
His long-term vision is stark. By his reckoning, as many as half of all jobs in America will be vulnerable to automation within 20 years; he expects something similar to happen in China eventually. Again, he predicts China will cope better, since its economy is at an earlier stage of evolution and its workers will adjust more flexibly. At the same time the existing economic model of developing countries, based on low-cost labour, will collapse, with no obvious alternative. The world will devolve into a neo-imperial order, in which, if they are to tap into vital applications, other countries will have to become vassal states of one of the AI superpowers.
Is he right? For the most part, probably not. True, AI represents the new space race, and China and America are set to lead it. But Mr Lee's comparative analysis of Chinese and Western capitalism suffers (ironically) from a lack of data. China has had only 30 years' experience of capitalism since Deng Xiaoping's reforms took hold: not enough to discover whether its no-holds-barred approach is indeed more efficient than a rules-based system of competition. It took several nasty financial disasters in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for the West to constrain its own worst business practices, the better to let its animal spirits flourish. A financial crash may yet temper Chinese hubris.
Despite its futuristic theme, Mr Lee's book fits into a familiar genre of business scare stories. In the 1960s the French were aflutter about "Le Défi Américain" by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber; in the 1980s Americans were paralysed by Ezra Vogel's "Japan as Number One". "AI Superpowers" should be taken seriously. But it is not the final word.
Russia's Brief Taste Of Political Liberalization Drowns In Pig's Blood - RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty
MOSCOW -- On the morning of September 25, 34-year-old Nadezhda Zagordan, a member of the municipal council of Moscow's Izmailovo district, opened her apartment door to find a bloody, severed pig's head on her doorstep with a knife sticking out of its skull.
The previous morning, the same surprise was waiting outside the apartment door of Zagordan's mother.
Police, so far, have not opened a criminal investigation.
"They left not one pig's head, but two," Zagordan, who was elected as an independent candidate, told RFE/RL's Russian Service. "And not only outside my apartment, but outside the apartment where my parents live. This happened practically at once. Of course, I see this as a threat of physical violence."
WATCH: Zagordan speaks to RFE/RL's Russian Service about the incident
Zagordan is one member of a unique class of local officials in Moscow who came to office during the surprising elections of September 2017. At that time, truly independent and opposition-minded figures won about 20 percent of the 1,502 local council seats up for grabs in the capital, compared to 77 percent for the ruling United Russia party.
Those modest results were hailed as a small but significant signal that the Kremlin was ready to tolerate genuine political pluralism for the first time since Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000 -- hopes that the Kremlin itself helped to fan.
"This is excellent," Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at the time. "They will take part in the life of the city and demonstrate their effectiveness. This is pluralism. This is political competition."
"I always thought the region had to have independent representatives," Zagordan said when asked why she ran for office in 2017, "in order to inform people about upcoming changes, dangerous situations, and budget decisions. Because of all this, I decided to become a deputy and won in 2017 with a majority of voter support."
Former Duma Deputy and opposition figure Dmitry Gudkov said at the time that the 2017 vote sent "a very important signal."
One year later, the political signals in Moscow are coming in the form of severed pig heads and vandalized cars.
"I have had other threats as well," Zagordan said. "In June, my car was vandalized, and they threw acid into it. I had to sell the car for parts…. And that wasn't the first such case. Other deputies have also been threatened."
In June, fellow Izmailovo district council member Anastasia Muralova, 29, was attacked on the street by someone who poured motor oil on her. That attack came shortly after Muralova successfully halted street repairs in the district that were being carried out illegally without a contract.
On September 11, Vitaly Tretyukhin, a council member from the Pechatniki district, found the rear window of his car smashed with a brick. A severed pig's head had been left in the vehicle.
In Tretyukhin's case, his supporters believe the incident was connected with the council member's work to halt illegal trash dumping at Moscow Oblast landfills, although they also suspect it could be over his exposure of corruption in local revitalization projects.
Zagordan is also convinced the threats against her are politically motivated.
"I have been involved in rather a lot of matters," she said. "And each matter has participants who are not interested in certain things becoming public or attracting the attention of the police. Absolutely any case could lead to actions like this…. But I can't concretely point to any specific one."
Over the last year, the new opposition council members, many of whom are associated with the liberal Yabloko party or ran as independents with the support of unregistered movements, have made their presence known even though they remain in the minority everywhere.
A significant development in Moscow regional politics over the last year has been a wave of vocal and angry protests against illegal trash dumping and the expansion of landfills. The independent council members have played important roles in these actions, which have brushed up against the interests of companies controlled by the son of Russian Prosecutor-General Yury Chaika.
The once optimistic independent local council deputies are on the cutting edge of Russia's shifting political climate. In the spring, Putin ran for and secured a fourth term as president without allowing opposition leader Aleksei Navalny or any other significant opposition figure to run against him.
In the summer, the government sparked a national wave of anger with a plan to raise retirement ages that United Russia is now pushing through the legislature.
Meanwhile, the newly created National Guard and the Interior Ministry's Antiextremism Center have stepped up efforts to contain political activism and dissent. Hundreds of cases have been opened against citizens for liking or posting political items on social media, while youths who have participated in demonstrations or unsanctioned campaigns have been interrogated and harassed.
The United Russia-dominated status quo is mounting a defense, Zagordan believes.
"The controlling organs, in my experience, don't properly respond to our complaints about illegal budget expenditures, illegal construction projects, illegally confiscated property, or the illegal transfer of property from one purpose to another," she told RFE/RL. "Unfortunately, I cannot say that I ever saw an appropriate reaction -- in general, we just get rejections. And I think this is due to the fact that the government organs are intertwined with the control agencies and law enforcement."
Written by RFE/RL senior correspondent Robert Coalson, based on reporting by RFE/RL Russian Service correspondent Lyubov Chizhova
How Captain Marvel Brings Agents of SHIELD Closer To The MCU Movies - Screen Rant
Captain Marvel looks set to bring Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series closer to the movies than ever before. When Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. launched back in 2013, it was essentially Marvel's flagship tie-in TV show, with a massive number of links to movies like Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Connections between Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Marvel movies have grown a little more distant in recent years, though, much to the dissatisfaction of viewers and actors alike.
Captain Marvel will be the ultimate test in just how continuity works in the MCU. The movie has more potential to contradict established Marvel TV canon than any other film Marvel Studios has ever made. It features a never-before-seen adventure in the history of Phil Coulson, whose backstory has been explored in detail in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. It also features an alien race known as the Kree, who have also seen significant development on the small screen.
Related: Every MCU Character Confirmed To Be Returning for Captain Marvel
Fortunately, the first signs are that Marvel Studios is actually working with continuity established by Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The movie shouldn't be expected to overtly reference anything from the series, but the first trailer does hint that the aesthetics established by Marvel Television will be reproduced on the big screen.
Phil Coulson's Role In Captain Marvel
Let's start with the biggest tie-in aspect of Captain Marvel; the role that will be played by Clark Gregg's Phil Coulson. The film will be set in the '90s, and Coulson is a relatively new recruit to S.H.I.E.L.D. Hilariously, according to Gregg the movie will include Coulson and Fury's "meet-cute moment" - although he doubts Fury would view it that way. By the sound of it, Fury is initially irritated at the fresh-faced S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who's a fan of MC Hammer.
Surprisingly, it looks as though the movie will carefully avoid contradicting this aspect of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. While that series is set in the present day of the MCU, it's starred Gregg as a resurrected Phil Coulson, and as such has liberally explored the character's backstory. It's been confirmed that Coulson studied history at college, and focused on the importance of S.H.I.E.L.D. to world history. He attended S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Communications School, and his first mission was a minor op where he worked alongside Specialist Melinda May. Although it's possible dialogue in Captain Marvel will contradict this, at first glance this early Coulson adventure looks to fit perfectly with the canon. In fact, Gregg has suggested that Captain Marvel isn't "his first rodeo," but it is "one of the first." That distinction carefully avoids any issues.
The real challenge to continuity, however, will come if Coulson meets the Kree in Captain Marvel. In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 1, Coulson discovered that he'd been resurrected using a formula derived from a Kree body, an alien race he didn't recognize. Of course, his memory erasure of Project T.A.H.I.T.I. could easily explain that without any real difficulty.
Related: Captain Marvel is Guaranteed to Mess Up MCU Continuity
Kree Architecture In Captain Marvel
The Captain Marvel trailer also included a shot of the Kree homeworld, the planet Hala. This comes from Carol's time in Starforce, the Kree taskforce she begins the movie a part of, so we can expect a closer look at the planet in the release film. Even from just this clip, Captain Marvel clearly presents the planet as a highly industrialized world with designs that match what we've seen in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
In season 2, the S.H.I.E.L.D. team stumbled upon an ancient Kree city hidden beneath Puerto Rico. They found their way there when Coulson realized he, and others affected by the drug GH325, were scrawling parts of a map. Crucially, in one scene Coulson and his team generated a 3D image of the map, creating a fantastical cityscape - one with a markedly similar architectural style to the one seen in the image above. Notice that the image of Hala includes several broad buildings, with large flat roofs; the 3D hologram in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. actually included one of those as well. They could easily be landing pads for small spacecraft, of the type we see Carol piloting in the Captain Marvel trailer.
Related: Marvel Movies: The Alien Races You Need To Know About
Meanwhile, the strange hexagonal styles on the windows are similar to those seen in both Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Marvel's Inhumans. That series revealed that a group of ancient Inhumans live in an ancient Kree outpost on the Moon. While the overall architectural style there was very different - it was similarly blocky, but lacked the sense of elegance you can see in Captain Marvel - that can be explained away by pointing out that a Lunar base was presumably much more functional, designed for clinical efficiency rather than as a home.
Page 2 of 2: What Does This Mean for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 6?
Key Release Dates
- Captain Marvel (2019) release date: Mar 08, 2019
- The Avengers 4 / Untitled Avengers Movie (2019) release date: May 03, 2019
- Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) release date: Jul 05, 2019
Jurassic World 2: Every Reveal From The Fallen Kingdom Blu-ray
Apple's iPhone XS Has A Serious New Problem - Forbes
What
Perhaps predictably (given existing complaints), the problem concerns both new iPhone's wired charging with CNBC and PhoneArena describing their findings as "insanely slow" and "borderline criminal" respectively.
Apple's iPhone XS (middle) and iPhone XS Max (left) have new battery problemsApple
PhoneArena breaks down the numbers in detail, revealing that charging from flat to full with the bundled charger takes the iPhone XS a whopping 3 hours 5 minutes, while the iPhone XS takes 3 hours 29 minutes - almost half a working day.
"This is borderline criminal compared to most Androids whose fast chargers come in the box and don't require you shell out $68 extra for the privilege," concludes PhoneArena reviewer Daniel Petrov.
He is right. Apple prices its USB-C fast charger at $49 and the required USB-C one metre cable costs $19. Moreover, even with its fast charger Tom's Guide has shown charging speeds still lag behind cheaper rivals from OnePlus and LG.
CNBC agrees with PhoneArena's conclusion, describing standard wired charging on both the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max as "insanely slow":
"With most Android phones, I can plug in my phone, take a shower and know that I have enough battery to get me several more hours of battery life," says CNBC's Todd Haselton. "With the iPhone XS and iPhone XS, unless I use a bigger charger like the one included with the iPad, I don't get that same experience."
iPhone XS and XS Max charge times are not competitive with Android rivals out the boxPhoneArena
Defending its decision, Apple told Haselton that lots of customers "actually prefer the tiny charger to larger ones, since it's so compact and can be carried anywhere" which is about as bad as excuses get.
Furthermore, while Apple spent some time promoting the faster wireless charging in its new iPhones, this also isn't without problems.
For starters, it is slower than most premium Android rivals since its Qi-compatible charging doesn't use even half of the standard's 18W specification and, secondly, regular wireless charging has been shown to wear out batteries. Coincidentally, last week Apple confirmed it will charge more to replace batteries in the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max.
All of which means the iPhone XR (details) looks even more appealing. It may have the same charging limitations as the XSes, but it is a lot cheaper, has much better battery life, retains their best features and comes in better colours.
Minor display concerns aside, it's a no-brainer…
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Amazon Prime Reading Launches In India - Forbes
Boxes are dispatched along a conveyor at the Amazon Inc. fulfillment center in Bengaluru, India, on Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2018. Photographer: Ruhani Kaur/Bloomberg
Two years after the US launch of Amazon Prime Reading, the company has launched Prime Reading in India.
The program, which allows Prime members to read unlimited e-books from a Kindle or any device with the Kindle app installed, adds to other well-known Prime features also recently made available from Amazon India: Amazon Video and Amazon Music. The company also began offering Kindle Unlimited subscriptions (which are not part of Amazon Prime memberships) in the country in late 2015, a little over a year after the service launched in the US.
In India, Amazon Prime currently retails for 129 rupees per month (approximately $1.78) or 999 rupees per year (approximately $13.76). As the membership plan has released access to other additional services, pricing has increased. But the expansion of offerings indicates an increasing interest in the country.
Based on the continued increase of services and products available to Amazon India customers, it's likely we'll continue to see US offerings brought to the country.
Microsoft Ignite postmortem: The underlying hybrid convergence - ZDNet
As my colleague Mary Jo Foley noted during a live interview at Microsoft Ignite, IoT and intelligent edge processing predominated Satya Nadella's opening words at Microsoft's enterprise event held this week in Orlando. Beyond the keynote, AI was front and center. As we noted from our dispatches about Build this past spring, AI is driving Microsoft's enterprise front and back office suites, not to mention how it manages the Azure cloud.
But as Microsoft is increasingly focusing its business on Azure, there's an equally important message that gets drowned out by the noise that, in the long run, could distinguish Microsoft from the pack. Unlike Amazon and Google, Microsoft has an on-premise presence and to its credit, it has not let its on premise legacy drag it down like ball and chain. It is aspiring to deliver a consistent experience on premises and in the cloud. In all fairness, that is also the position that each of the household brands in enterprise IT are shooting for. Microsoft's advantage is that Azure has had a head start in building its footprint over IBM and Oracle clouds dating to its Office 365 foothold.
The latest announcements coming from Microsoft at Ignite about SQL Server 2019 and Azure SQL Database show how near and how far the brass ring of consistent experience across on premise and cloud are. A strong clue is the unification of the code bases between SQL Server and Azure SQL Database that came with last year's releases. Both were twins separated at birth: Azure SQL Database was patterned off SQL Server, but until last year followed its own code branch to support a cloud-native architecture.
Convergence means that SQL Server and Azure SQL Database will share some identical features, provide consistent experience on similar features, while retaining operational differences relating to the fixed nature of on-premise data centers vs. the elasticity and almost-limitless scale of the cloud.
Both of them placed storage and compute together. Now the differences get blurred with SQL Server 2019 Big Data Cluster support and Azure SQL Database's new Hyperscale feature.
Previously, SQL Server queried Hadoop through the pushdown mode of PolyBase. With the 2019 release, SQL Server has added a new mode in addition to its traditional relational table layout: a cloudlike scale-out mode for collocating SQL Server's database engine on the same compute nodes as Spark, that in turn are adjoined to Hadoop's HDFS data nodes. This allows SQL Server to run T-SQL queries on HDFS and it will provide native Spark support as a bonus.
In big data clusters, SQL Server 2019 separates the database engine from the data, with the engine sitting in the compute node, along with Spark. It's a topology that very much resembles that of Impala, Cloudera's open source interactive SQL-on-Hadoop engine that stations daemons on every Hadoop compute node. The draw of this approach is that SQL Server can run T-SQL queries over terabytes or petabytes of data much faster than PolyBase could. It also draws SQL Server closer to what is possible in Azure.
While this is not a carbon copy of cloud architecture, one could imagine a companion cloud-native service from Azure SQL Database that runs SQL -- or Spark -- against data stored in Azure Blob storage or ADLS. One can always dream.
The cloud parallels for SQL Server 2019 Hadoop support further extend to containerization. The first trappings of container (and Kubernetes) support came in SQL Server 2017, but it was limited to TestDev sandboxes because of the lack of high availability/disaster recovery capability. With that gap addressed in the 2019 release, SQL Server 2019 can operate in Docker containers that are orchestrated by Kubernetes High Availability Disaster Recovery (HADR) scenarios. One could imagine the parallels with cloud where Azure Service Fabric is used for HADR.
There's another piece that makes the experience of running SQL Server look like you're running in the cloud: Azure Data Studio. Known as SQL Operations Studio while it was in preview, Azure Data Studio this week entered general release. It provides a database developer's IDE for coding T-SQL or Spark that can be used with SQL Server, Azure SQL DB and Azure SQL Data Warehouse from Windows, macOS and Linux. You develop T-SQL or Spark, but it doesn't matter whether you're working in SQL Server or Azure SQL Database.
On the cloud side, Azure SQL Database introduces a new hyperscale capability that emphasizes how cloud databases differ from on premise. As the name implies, hyperscale scales out the database, with Microsoft currently claiming support of up to 100 TBytes, at least for now. Faster cloud network speeds in conjunction with decoupling of compute, storage, and log writes make hyperscale possible.
Hyperscale works by using a service fabric relying on a Paxos consensus approach for ACID consistency. Transactions are processed with the primary compute node writing logs to a log tier, while separately fetching data pages either from local cache (for hot data) or page servers (for cooler data). This means that hyperscale can support data tiering, exploiting the variety of storage options available in the cloud. The database automatically partitions itself for scale out, while snapshots address one of the big show-stoppers for large transaction databases: speeding database recovery operations from hours or days to minutes. In turn, elasticity allows you to scale compute for multi-terabyte databases up or down within minutes.
The hyperscale capability of Azure SQL Database provides a case in point of how cloud and on-premise databases can both differentiate and mimic one another. In the cloud, the abstracted architecture that separates compute, logs, and storage is useful for providing elasticity. On premises where compute and storage capacity are more finite, those same features could be used for accelerating maintenance, backups, and database commits if Microsoft were to extend those capabilities to SQL Server.
And while we're on the topic of extensibility for hyperscale, the modular way that Microsoft implemented this feature could also pave the way for extension to Azure's other relational database services like MySQL, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL. While Microsoft is not saying what it will do with hyperscale in the future, our take is never say never.
How Microsoft Does Security in 2019 - PCMag
Microsoft announced a variety of security products at its Ignite conference this week, but one of the things that stood out was their firm belief that the way you run your security operations is as important as the products you run.
Microsoft Chief Information Security Officer Bret Arsenault (at top) was emphatic as he described Microsoft's own security environment and its approach to managing security for itself and its customers. He said the company resolves an enormous 20 billion security events per day.
"Users are both my first line and my last line of defense," Arsenault said, and noted that Microsoft has 125,000 employees plus 70,000 "badged" partners. He emphasized the tremendous challenge of managing such a large and diverse environment, which includes 32 versions of its operating systems in use, 500,000 Linux environments, the second largest Macintosh installed base anywhere (Apple is first), and the "N+1" next version of Windows. He said his primary goal is to protect the company, not to use Microsoft products.
Arsenault spent a lot of time on "opportunity and risk," and explained how always-on access, massive data sets, cloud-based storage, and modern engineering create many opportunities and significant security challenges. For example, data sovereignty is a major issue, because the company has 596 locations, and Arsenault must consider data that may transcend borders. He said that money derived from cybercrime has surpassed that made in the illegal drug trade. He is also worried about the supply chain and any company's ability to protect it.
Arsenault noted the shift to cloud computing means that while network security remains important, it is not sufficient, and said that "identity is the new perimeter."
Arsenault shared his own leadership principles, saying it is important to have simplified goals. His three main points: a leader needs to create clarity, generate energy, and deliver success. On clarity, he said it is important to "put down the engineering pencil and pick up a crayon"—in other words, to make things simple for end users. Arsenault emphasized that it's important not to confuse a message that works for an engineering population with what works for the general user base.
To that end, he described his strategy as a three-legged stool: identity management, data and telemetry, and device health.
In other words, Arsenault said, to connect to any of the services, you need a strong identity, one verified by multi-factor authentication. If you have great identity, he still needs to ensure that the device you are connecting from is secure. With 20 billion events a day, he needs great data telemetry to track systems, improve them, and protect them.
Moving from the general to the more granular, Arsenault said that he had identified five major pillars or principles as areas for investment this year—risk management, identity management, device health, data and telemetry, and information protection—and within these pillars he focuses on 27 core services. He also listed 11 "epics"—essentially short-term projects lasting 18-24 months—that will be completed, will fail, or will become future core services. He has a relatively small team of nine or ten people who look at emerging technology to see what can help the company with its security needs. Microsoft had 80 security vendors when he took over the CISO role 8 years ago, Arsenault added.
One key initiative over the past few years has been moving workloads to Azure. Arsenault said the company has moved 95 percent of its workloads. In terms of process, the first thing to do is consider applications and decide if they still need them; of about 2,000 line-of-business applications, Arsenault said Microsoft found it could simply eliminate 30 percent. The next thing to do is find applications that could be converted to a Software-as-a-Service solution; this worked for about 15 percent of Microsoft's applications. For those that remained, the next step was to virtualize all of the applications and take new or simple applications and move them to Platform-as-a-Service, doing a "lift and shift" to Infrastructure-as-a-Service offerings for most of the others.
In this process, more applications moved to the cloud than he would have thought (including Microsoft's SAP system), and he suggested that companies should move to PaaS earlier than they might have planned.
It's important to keep moving during such an effort, Arsenault said, and to keep creating energy around the project, as projects often cease progressing about halfway through. People will often use the 5 percent of workloads that won't move to the cloud as an excuse not to do the other 95 percent, and he said you need to create a sense of urgency to make the move happen (such as setting a date for closing a data center).
One thing his team created was a DevOps Toolkit for Azure designed to monitor 250 controls on various applications to ensure everything is working. Arsenault said his group has made this available via open source, and believes these principles for enterprise management will be built into Azure in about 18 months.
Arsenault focused part of his talk on securing administrators, who typically have the most access to a system. He talked about reducing the number of standing admins; using a separate identity system to give them fewer privileges; and having them perform security tasks only on a "secure admin workstation," which he described as a "super secure device" with a special image that flattens and rebuilds the machine frequently, and which is created using a secure supply chain. These machines only run site code and are highly locked down, with whitelists to determine to what and where they can connect. For connections to other services, administrators can connect to virtual machines.
Arsenault also talked about the importance of eliminating passwords. He has been using the company's Authenticator app for quite some time, and said it's important to not "let the perfect be the enemy of the good." This is really about eliminating prompting, he said, and while users of this app don't see passwords, they are still there under the surface (although in a few years, they may be replaced with certificates instead). He suggested that security professionals within companies stop talking about MFA and instead start talking about eliminating passwords, the goal being to see this not as an extra layer, but rather as something that eases access for users.
What really stood out for me in Arsenault's talk was that most of his ideas—simplifying your tools, moving what makes sense to the cloud, focusing on identity, controlling administrative accounting, moving beyond traditional passwords—aren't new, or even controversial. The biggest challenge, instead, seems to be actually getting these things implemented in ways that don't interfere with the rest of your IT footprint, and which are acceptable—or even preferable—to your end users. In a world with more security threats than ever, it's crucial to keep moving forward.