Technology investor Justin Bieber. The Canadian pop singer is pictured in police custody in Miami Beach, Florida January 23, 2014 in this Miami Beach Police Department handout released to Reuters.HANDOUT/Reuters
Hot takes! Everybody has 'em, some are actually interesting, many just tell you about the taker's analytical faculties. Wait, what is a hot take? The Urban Dictionary, which can be trusted in all matters of marginal culture, says a hot take is "an opinion based on simplistic moralizing rather than actual thought. Not to be confused with a strong take." Sounds great. Let's simplistically categorize some of this today's tech stories.
Bonkers valuation of the day
Could we really do an insane tech dollars hit every day? How much of your future will you leverage to bet? Bloomberg says Uber is in talks with T. Rowe Price Group Inc. and Fidelity Investments as well as other investors looking to pour a billion more dollars into the ride sharing service. Despite recently having one of its worst runs of publicity (from court fights to media threats to older stories about dirty tricks) that funding would value the controversial startup between $35-billion and $40-billion. Want a Canadian yardstick? That would suggest Uber is worth as much as Bell, a mega telecom with major media and ISP holdings. As a side note, here's a fun chart from The Information on several billion-dollar valued companies or "Unicorns" that ended up being virtually worthless: Wheeee!
Canadian does a thing!
CNBC is saying a Justin Bieber-backed selfie photo sharing app called Shots is in talks with Twitter about a possible purchase. Groan. Is Bieber going to be the next Ashton Kutcher, tweeting dumb things about his startup portfolio? Is this what Twitter CFO Anthony Noto's infamous M&A DM fail tweet was about? Shots has 3 million users, please tell us you're not one of them.
From the "Sure, why not?" pile
Victoria's Secret is making a computerized sports bra. Because bras + wearables trend + fitness = brand extension. Actually, there are already several electric bras on the market.
Please buy this company
Mobilicity is still for sale. The Globe's Christine Dobby reports that "a number" of interested parties are hoping to purchase the wireless telecom's spectrum and succeed where Telus failed/was blocked by Industry Canada.
Businessweek's cover this week is about #Gamergate
Anita Sarkeesian, or @femfreq, is called an adversary of the gaming industry in the display copy on this cover story. A characterization that troubles me, seeing as it buys into the frame that she's an antagonist of all gamers and gaming companies, as opposed to a critic who applies an intellectual lens to the industry. Also, as we have written in the past, Gamergate is nonsense.
Blame the Internet
The U.K. government says web companies don't turn over enough user data to shadowy intelligence agencies, which is why terrorism is still happening, or something. "Terrorists are using the internet to communicate with each other and we must not accept that these communications are beyond the reach of the authorities or the internet companies themselves," says PM David Cameron, which is a windy way to cast blame on somebody else for the death of British soldier Lee Rigby. Rigby's slaying at the hands of alleged "homegrown" extremists is a super complex story, and this morning a former head of MI6 said it was unfair to blame Facebook for any of it. But that won't stop some folks.
Labour file
Apple's security guards are hoping to unionize says the San Jose Mercury News, which in case you didn't know is not something a lot of tech companies encourage. But you can't offshore or automate some people-heavy service jobs, right? Don't worry union busters, a company called Knightscope has you covered: The company recently showed off its 300-pound robot sentries at Microsoft's Silicon Valley campus.
Alluring/absurdist recent Product Hunt taglines or product names
Mo' money
The Movember people have attempted to chart how much the moustache charity campaigns are raising in different cities. It appears growing a soup strainer in NYC earns an average of $142, San Antonio is less friendly to lip toupee's: residents there only donate $27 per mouth brow. Toronto is roughly Chicago- or Houston-sized, so we could extrapolate from their numbers that a snot catcher in Canada's biggest 'burgh would earn you judging glares and also about $100 bucks per set of whiskers. I know, this has nothing to do with technology, except for a weak link to hipsters and social media. But I love all those synonyms for face fungus.
Like our hot takes? Hate 'em? Go on social media and yell at us: @globetechnology or @shanedingman.
Shane Dingman