Tag Archives: Amazon

August 12, 2023 · 05:36

Tapping an economy

This happens, some other (or new) player sets the stage where they can become a major player. This is a rare case but it can happen and now I seem to be witness to one that could end up being a much larger stage than I ever expected. The BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66310714) gives us ‘Why it matters where your data is stored’. The article is all about the cloud, yet this article gave me parts that brought out questions that allowed the consideration that the new player could in a short time frame become a major player. Yet to see this, we need to look at the parts.

Part 1
The first question is coming from ““The American authorities have the right to go in and see any data that is stored in an American cloud, even if the data centre is in Europe,” Mr Åström says.” That was a selling point for American firms and with the IP in data centres the Europeans will become concerned. The American credit score is dwindling down as such they will become more and more concerned with THEIR value, a view Europeans will not share, or will be willing to chance sacrificing asI see it.

Part 2
Then we get to “it’s big enough to rival the major US cloud providers: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft and Google. They have a 65% share of the world cloud market between them, according to Synergy Research Group”, here I miss the IBM and Apple clouds. Apple is a different issue, they have a niche market and they are optionally decently safe from what is coming. IBM is different, they have been on the corporate data shoe forever, so why is IBM avoided? The numbers give me “IBM Hybrid Cloud has market share of 1.88% in infrastructure-as-a-service market. IBM Hybrid Cloud competes with 71 competitor tools in infrastructure-as-a-service category.” Perhaps they are ‘too small’, time will tell but that doesn’t matter. With this setting Evroc has the momentum to become a major player, perhaps slightly below AWS, but to go from a wannabe to a player next to AWS, possibly surpassing Microsoft is not done lightly and as far as I could tell has never been done before. But that is not the worst of it (for Amazon and Microsoft). You see the EU is larger in population, as such more services are needed there, but this could flow over into Canada (as it is a Commonwealth nation) then the larger concern (for Amazon et al) will be the Middle East. I reckon that both Saudi Arabia and the UAE might want to be separated more strongly from American firms. If I were China, I would be pushing that button too. As such Evroc as localisation bubbles could grow even further. 

Part 3
“Evroc has secured €15m in seed funding and plans to build eight data centres in Europe in the next five years. The first will be a large pilot data centre in Sweden next year.” As I see it, should they decide to add two more clouds (KSA and UAE) they could tap into a few massive organisations and that should make the US a lot more bothered than they ever considered. I had issues with ‘data sharing’ in the late 90’s but I was laughed at, I was overly BS howled at. Well, it seems that I was right all along and now that the US needs its corporations to do well, Evroc comes in and takes away even more. I never saw this coming, yet as I see it Mattias Åström played his cards well and at the right moment. There is no telling how far this goes, yet the idea that (based on the numbers) “Microsoft increased its share from 23%, up from 21% the prior quarter, while Amazon fell from 34% to 33% and Google remained steady at 11%.” Evroc could grow by taking 20% of the others, we get 18% Microsoft, 26% Amazon and 8% Google, Evroc could grow by 12% (optionally towards 20%+) almost overnight (if a night lasts 7 years) That puts them ahead of Google and Microsoft making them a new major player. That is beside the damage they could do in the Middle East. With Aramco, SAMA, Al Rajhi banking, SABIC, STC, MA’ADEN, International Holding Company (IHC), ADNOC, Emaar Properties and a few more more. You might think this is all fun and games, but it is about to get worse.

Part 4
This part was not in the article and that is not on the BBC. You see I have looked in this direction before. In 2020 I wrote ‘Institutionalised Positioning’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/11/02/institutionalised-positioning/) where we see ‘Microsoft Security Shocker As 250 Million Customer Records Exposed Online’ (source: Forbes), and add to that the recent forged key issue, an issue that the NSA warned them for 3 years ago, we see a much larger stage. A stage where Microsoft is bleeding faith, the faith the customers had in them is dwindling down, as such Evroc could take away a much larger part of that blue joke. As such Microsoft could face a much larger loss. It would be nice to state that Amazon loses less, but certain other parts might not make that realistic. The only player optionally not losing any is Apple. Their largest base are iPhone users with subscriptions. 

These 4 parts show that Evroc is the new player to watch. If that is the case they will need staff all over the world. Even I would like to work for a new player and that is the second danger that they (mostly Microsoft) faces. If Amazon and Microsoft only lose 5% of their cloud workforce they both face shortages all over, and this is in a place where you need all hands on deck. This last part is hugely speculative, but with 8 new centres coming and optionally 2-5 more in the middle east Evroc is set to grow beyond the assessments of analysts. As such Mattias Åström and its new Evroc could be a force to be reckoned with and as such bring massive cash coffers into the EU and towards the Middle East as well and all that revenue goes out of the US and that is a loss the US was not ready for.

Enjoy the weekend 

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August 4, 2023 · 08:56

Three voices

I have ‘complained’ about the media before and this time I come with an example. Weirdly enough none of them are doing anything wrong, but when you see the example you might wonder what the fuzz is about. As I see it is more than merely one stating the bottle is half full and the other stating the bottle is half empty. But I will let you decide. I got there because I am investigating a setting that is approaching maturity and I want my share. Google walked way from well over 5 billion a year and Amazon is leaving it on the floor. Both are entitled to do so, yet now Tencent Technologies is coming and there is every chance that they will not pay me a dime. I am not willing to hand it to Amazon with Andy Jassy stating ‘Thank You’ and pocketing all that revenue for himself. I am not THAT nice. As such I am in a state of worry and the battle arena seems to be Dubai. Amazon has options if it is forced to break up. I think its setting will be stronger if a layer like the Kingdom Holding Company would champion the stage, especially with someone like Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud overlooking the stage. A setting that brings benefits but might not be essential. I do believe that a strong setting could be presented from Dubai, it is a personal feeling. So at times I look at the UAE and that is where the three voices got hold of me. So lets begin.

Voice One: Arab News
Here we see (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2348896/business-economy) ‘UAE’s non-oil economy remains strong in July as PMI stands at 56’ this is good, someway. I like to think that it will be better soon enough, but the Arab News gives us “According to the seasonally adjusted S&P Global UAE Purchasing Managers’ Index, the country’s PMI stood at 56 in July compared to 56.9 in June. This still indicates a positive trend as any readings above 50 are considered a growth in economic activities, while figures below 50 show contraction.” Overall a strong message, there is a little fallback, but the story gives us that is still in the growth margin. The message has the added “Higher business activities were driven by an upturn in new orders, which continued to be boosted by strong customer demand and improving market conditions, the report stated, citing survey panelists. However, it noted that growth eased since June as several firms faced greater competition which dampened sales in the process.” OK, greater competition is a little vague, but that is fine a positive approach to a story.

Voice Two: Khaleej Times
Then we get the article (at https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business/uae-non-oil-sector-continues-to-grow-at-a-strong-pace-creating-more-jobs-in-july) here we are given ‘UAE non-oil sector continues to grow at a strong pace, creating more jobs in July’, which makes sense as it is a UAE newspaper. Here we get “The S&P Global UAE Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) – an indicator designed to give an overview of operating conditions in the non-oil private sector economy – dropped from 56.9 in June to 56.0 in July but remained well above the 50.0 no-change mark and the series long-run average. The reading indicated a sharp improvement in the health of the sector, supported by a marked expansion in output.” It basically gives us the same we saw in the Arab News with the added “S&P said driving activity higher was an upturn in new orders, which continued to be boosted by strong customer demand and improving market conditions, according to survey panellists.” I personally would have a few question marks, but in the end it is how the painting is made. I would state that this critic is looking at the painting, giving the summary and looking at the use of blue paint in the process. This happens, we all have our ways of looking at a painting and it is probably the best way to describe it. 

Voice Three: Reuters
It was the first article I saw (at https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/lower-sales-weigh-uae-non-oil-business-activity-july-pmi-2023-08-03/) making me look at the setting a little deeper. The start ‘Lower sales weigh on UAE non-oil business activity in July’ with the added “The slowdown was attributed in part to an easing of growth in new orders, although demand remained strong, with the sub-index falling to 57.4 in July from 61.0 the previous month, which was the fastest rate of expansion since June 2019.” Now we get an interesting sight, this article is cautiously pessimistic (headline) but the overall message is still positive. Yet the numbers are not matching. It might not be wrong as they use ‘sub-index’, but which one? Then we get the added “Owen added that the “the easing of sales growth was substantial and, if accelerated in future months, suggests that the demand boom could have reached its peak.”” The reference is to David Owen, senior economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence. Yet the station is how does ‘substantial’ apply? Is this fear-mongering for investors, is it biased negativity towards the Middle East? You tell me, I have no clue. But the fact that we have these three voices is important because it shows us that there is a media flaw. Now, there are all kinds of flaws and flaws due to arbitrary interpretation is nothing new and optionally not a flaw but the stage is there and now we have ourselves a ballgame. So which one is true? They might all be true but the anarchy in the three voices tend to impact us all. My gut tells me to go with the Arab News, but that is instinct and not a given view of evidence. I will let you decide which one is more apt.

Enjoy the day, Friday is about to start in Vancouver, the rest of us are already there. 

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July 27, 2023 · 13:47

Sportwashing, what does it mean?

I have had my issues with the media for the longest of times. This time something on sportwashing, written by a woman (of course) where the Guardian gives us (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/26/revealed-saudi-arabia-6bn-spend-on-sportswashing) ‘Revealed: Saudi Arabia’s $6bn spend on ‘sportswashing’’. This setting comes across as a massive joke (to say the least). So when we are given “Billions deployed since early 2021 in a move critics say is an attempt to distract from human rights record”, so who are these critics? Names please? The reality is a lot easier to set in. This is not about some wash, this is about the beginning of the end for media players all over the globe. The setting al almost 2000 years old and was given to us by Decimus Junius Juvenalis who phrased ‘panem et circenses’. He accused his world of “to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction, or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace, by offering a palliative: for example food (bread) or entertainment (circuses).” The west (especially America) took this to heart and for decades it worked for them. We all got the NFL, NBA, NHL and so on. The problem becomes when the well dries up, when the coffers are empty. This was an event that people like Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (aka Caligula) faced and now the west does too. That being said, as I stated a few times over, Saudi Arabia is about to become the largest 5G hub in history, connecting Africa, Asia and Europe via Saudi Arabia (STC), as such the new (soon to become released) news channel makes sense. In addition to that they need to create waves of watchers and as these high end sports will all set the focus to Saudi Arabia. Football, Formula One, eSports, Golf and that list keeps on growing. Soon all eyes will be on the STC and the MBC Group soon enough and that matters, the MBC group started in 1991 and in 31 years they grew and they are about to become the biggest player of them all. I saw part of this and adjusted my IP accordingly (to some degree). And as they go live, the advertisers will walk away from the BS channels we watched for decades. Advertisers will go where the money is and that has nothing to do with sportwashing. That is the business of the day. As such I have no idea where people like Ruth Michaelson get their ideas but they are massively flawed. Then she starts to add fictive settings based on the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, which is interesting (apart from that essay joke by the UN), no one ever presented clear and defining evidence on that part. It is my speculation that some people accepted some form of guilt after the immense bashing by the media and political players (I will exempt the Washington Post from this). It all starts to take shape and tis shape took some time to gather as this was a long play and the media is finally starting to figure out what I saw well over a year ago. These media people are about to become obsolete. All these ads in the UK and US, now pushing female football. This is simple, as I see it the other gender will be broadcasted all over the channels that the MBC group has and once they start owning stations in Europe the final part of this strategy becomes clear and just like Google buying YouTube, the MBC group will gather billions in advertisement revenue within the span of a year making Fox News close to obsolete, moreover over 300 sports channels will at some point show the MBC group logo and that is when the coins really start flowing into the coffers of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Losers like Microsoft and peers like Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta will bend over backwards to connect in some partnership to the MBC group. As such the evidence is out there in all kinds of messages and news casts. You’ll have to dig, because the western press has been drowning whatever news came from the KSA, but it is out there, as such I wonder who came up with the lame term ‘Whitewashing’ more important, as the media does close to nothing to the actions in places like Iran, do you think that Saudi Arabia needs to spend billions to hide whatever Human Rights issue is in play in Saudi Arabia? What a farce that presumption is. Saudi Arabia and other Islamic nations rule and act according to the Quran, the rules of Islam and they are just a few steps away from being the most dominant religion on the planet. Perhaps doing something about catholic paedophiles well over a decade ago was the best course, but feel free to disagree on that one. And there is a second upside, the NHL will prosper as other nations add their visibility to the global population, not in the least by the UAE Ice Sports Federation and its 50 members. Did you know that the Ice Sports Federation in the UAE was that big? What else are you not ware of and what is being kept out of western news? So which Cricket fan saw any matches on TV that were Pakistani or Indian based? Consider all the sports we will be getting soon and wonder why the others did not give us that, kept it from us. Why?  It boils down to money and short earned cash at that, when you play the long game the earning are different and the earnings could be long term. So consider all the sports that the US and EU have to bid for, all whilst they have no money left, only on paper, but that does not pay the invoice, especially when the banks fold. 

Enjoy the day, one day left to the day before the weekend that comes.

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July 23, 2023 · 16:59

Blue laundry leaking

It happens, sometimes the colours get into the other colours and your white stuff is no longer white. I had my issues with myself, overlooking a red sock with my white shirts and behold, I was suddenly the owner of pink shirts. This is a problem as it is not fashionable pink, but a melee of pink shades in white shirts. The fashion looks a righteous mess. This is something we all dread, and in IT land it is not different, especially when the detergent is Microsoft.

It all started (at https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/stolen-microsoft-key-offered-widespread-access-to-microsoft-cloud-services/) with ‘Stolen Microsoft key offered widespread access to Microsoft cloud services’ where we are given “Redmond revealed on July 12th that the attackers had breached the Exchange Online and Azure Active Directory (AD) accounts of around two dozen organisations. This was achieved by exploiting a now-patched zero-day validation issue in the GetAccessTokenForResourceAPI, allowing them to forge signed access tokens and impersonate accounts within the targeted organisations.” I was at first cautious. There are intense haters of Microsoft and they do not throw around any kind of evidence, as such I wondered how far this went and behold, ITWire gives us (at https://itwire.com/security/danger-from-microsoft-azure-breach-still-remains,-warns-wiz-researcher.html) ‘Danger from Microsoft Azure breach still remains, warns Wiz researcher’ and here we are given “New York-based cloud security firm Wiz has warned companies and organisations affected by the recent Microsoft Azure breach that the impact of the intrusion may be much wider than reported, and could affect applications beyond those claimed by Microsoft to be impacted.” In addition we are given “Our researchers concluded that the compromised MSA key could have allowed the threat actor to forge access tokens for multiple types of Azure Active Directory applications, including every application that supports personal account authentication, such as SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, customers’ applications that support the ‘login with Microsoft’ functionality, and multi-tenant applications in certain conditions”, I see this as an issue. The larger scope is not merely the cloud. That thing has all kinds of security issues. No, the small ‘hidden’ text becomes “The breach came to light on 13 July, with the email account of US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo cited as one of the more prominent accounts to have been breached” it came to light as a ‘prominent’ account was breached. So how long was this mess there? There is a reason I do not trust Microsoft and as such I do not want them anywhere near the 50 million accounts that I see coming, or the ones that follow, which will be a massive amount of accounts. Even more I reckon as I concluded a new stage in Dubai. I saw the opportunity when I investigated the Dubai Mall, the Mall of the Emirates, the Dubai Marina Mall and the Battuta Mall. There were a few more, but the setting of malls this big all in one city was something I never considered and it gave me more ideas, more options and that made me consider the interactions of my Augmented Reality IP with two other IP’s. Actually four, but that is a story for another day. What is absolutely clear is that I do not want Microsoft anywhere near it. Not with the mess they have, so either Amazon wakes up, or Tencent technologies gets it all. I never discontinued my interest in Google, but they basically took themselves of the field. No idea where Apple is, but that is not my problem at present. You see, the larger stage is the security risk that Microsoft is and it is also seen with “The news agency said Adair’s client had not forked out what Microsoft demands for its premium security suite, and hence detailed forensic data was unavailable.” Really? They are all about the forking out, all whilst their solution is like a 45 year old prostitute claiming to be a virgin? I would suggest that forking out is the least of their problems. That is even beyond the fact that the transgressions are requiring ‘detailed forensic data’ all whilst the transgressions are what the first article is implying “by exploiting a now-patched zero-day validation issue”, all whilst IT Wire implies that the damage is well beyond the ‘pretended’ scope and as such might (a speculation from my side) not be patched, not to the degree it needed to be. And anyone wonders why I do not trust Microsoft with my IP? They haven’t been able to close their barn doors, at least since 2019, optionally long before that. So your data (and my IP) would have been at risk for well over 4 years. We are also given “This isn’t a Microsoft-specific issue, if a signing key for Google, Facebook, Okta or any other major identity provider leaks, the implications are hard to comprehend. Our industry — and especially cloud service providers — must commit to a greater level of security and transparency concerning how they protect critical keys such as this one, to prevent future incidents and limit their potential impact” This might be, but I have never seen these levels of transgressions on Google Cloud or Amazon AWS, but that is merely my point of view. Then we get an interesting side “while Microsoft had ensured that Azure Active Directory applications would not longer accept forged tokens as valid, by revoking the compromised keys, the danger from the breach still remained” well, it might be, it might not be. Microsoft stated that they had the most powerful console in the world and within 2 years that Nintendo launched the weakest nextgen console of them all, they surpassed all sales records Microsoft claimed to have had, so I am not holding my breath here. The number one question is ‘Why could Microsoft not differentiate between real tokens and forged tokens?’ That would have ben my first question, but I am not seeing that here. Possibly for very valid reasons, but the missing out is a case here. So whilst some stare at “setting up application-specific backdoors”, my issue is that with every application, the change of interaction and transgressions increase. It just does. For example (a bad and debatable one), if EVERY application has a zero day issue (pure speculation) we get with 3 applications a speculative 9 zero day problems. So what happens when the average corporation has Azure and 35 applications. This implies that this customer has 42,875 risk factors. Yes, it is a speculation, yet the ITWire article gives us this with “The full impact of this incident is much larger than we Initially understood it to be”, as well as “We must learn from it and improve”, a setting that sounds nice, but consider that Azure was launched 14 years ago, if you are still learning, you have a much larger problem. In December 2020 I wrote ‘Historic view versus reality’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/12/26/historic-view-versus-reality/) there I quotes the No Such Agency giving us “National Security Agency warns hackers are forging cloud authentication information”, as such the Microsoft claim “Microsoft had ensured that Azure Active Directory applications would not longer accept forged tokens as valid” as a hollow joke. The NSA made the statement 3 years ago, as such Microsoft should have put (buggy) solutions in place to stop forged keys, but it seems they never did. Another mess they made with their own hands. Don’t take my word on this, the NSA send out warnings in 2020. Warnings that Microsoft seemingly never took to heart. Still happy with your blue cloud? I reckon it is time for people to consider Amazon AWS, Apple iCloud, Google Cloud (GCP), Oracle Cloud or wherever you will be trying to keep your data safe, as I personally see it Microsoft is not that place and with that they are scuttling yet another (what I personally like to call) a spin system, just like a washing machine trying to tumble dry your data on servers where you do not have access to them. But that might be my short sighted feel on the matter.

Enjoy the day, Monday is now but a day away.

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July 21, 2023 · 19:21

The writing is on the floor

Yes, it is the case here, never mind what the walls say. I have made mention of this again and again. The US had a piss poor approach to their innovation lack. First they tried to make Huawei their bitch and accuse Huawei of all sorts of things, whilst setting a backstabbing approach to remove Huawei from revenue streams. They did this in the worst possible way and they did it without any corroborating evidence. Then we get the setting that the media is painting China as the big evil. Yet America is not held to any standards. This is an issue for me and for most people relying on evidence. As such the article ‘Xi Jinping meets Henry Kissinger as US seeks to defrost China ties’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-66106076) comes over as hollow. In this the BBC has its own share of issues here too. As such when we see ‘US needs Kissinger’s diplomatic wisdom’ I would state “How about some simple wisdom?” Today Al Jazeera gives us ‘Australia blocks acquisition of lithium mine by China-linked firm’. I am not commenting on the events because I know too little, yet it is again some event involving China. Now, there might be all kinds of circumstances that could show it to be a valid block, but the fact that this started in January implies that a block this late has other attached reasons too. The issue is that the media is adhering to the US needs to paint China negatively in many ways and there is only s much you can get away with. At present Huawei is rocking the telecom industry all over Asia, the Middle East and soon enough Africa and Europe too. That will increase and accelerate with the release of 5.5G years ahead of Nokia and others, as such China, Asia and the Middle East are about to get a huge advantage. I reckon that the United Arab Emirates are about to become a larger technology hub in the Middle East and this one will stretch wherever the STC (Saudi Telecommunication Company) reaches. I reckon that before the end of 2025 it will connect Asia, the Middle East, parts of Africa and southern Europe making it pretty much the largest telecom company around. That was what I tried to warn you all for, it opens up all kinds of doors and with the release of 5.5G, my IP now has a shining new setting. One that the US and EU cannot match. They do not have the IP, they have shown consistent cluelessness and even Google and Amazon could fall short here. So what do you think all that will cost these players in revenue? So when I see ‘US seeks to defrost China ties’ I merely laugh. This was a joke and a mistake that was years in the making, now that the events are coming to a close (as the Conversation gives us) with ‘China is playing the long game in the Pacific. Here’s why its efforts are beginning to pay off’ (at https://theconversation.com/china-is-playing-the-long-game-in-the-pacific-heres-why-its-efforts-are-beginning-to-pay-off-209960) where we are given “Other appointments suggest China is appointing higher-calibre diplomats to the region. These include Li Ming, the current ambassador to the Solomon Islands, and Xue Bing, the former ambassador to Papua New Guinea who now holds the challenging post of special envoy to the Horn of Africa. With experience in the region and good language skills, these diplomats have been more able to engage with Pacific communities than their predecessors, who largely focused on sending good news back to Beijing. More serious representatives suggest more serious intent.” A setting I never saw (because I was looking elsewhere) and when you add this all up it becomes a much larger issue (especially for America). There are unconfirmed rumours that Saudi Arabia will join BRICS in August. There is every chance that the UAE will either join at the same time or shortly after. Now with China and Saudi Arabia (STC) having a united telecom front with 5.5G years ahead of all the other players, the setting for global telecom will shine well before the end of 2023. I made mention that I had found something in the last two days and here it is. It is not merely what they are doing. Players like Amazon and Google have the option to create service centres in the UAE (Dubai or Abu Dhabi) most likely and ride that tidal wave, or whomever gets there first will have the option to take market share away from these two players. Huawei is ready to start there, but they cannot do it alone, the waves will be too high. Google is already there (I checked), but unless they get the infrastructure ready others will pass them by left and right and there is the option for billions. Whomever is there first will be able to set the score, not adhere to it and that setting will go from Shanghai in the east to Croatia in the west all whilst these networks will include China, Bangla Dash, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, from there it all goes into Europe via TAWAL. A setting no telecom company has had to THAT degree and what do we get from Washington? ‘US seeks to defrost China ties’ I think it is a bit late or that and it is about to get worse, especially if the 5.5G is launched in Q4. Those ready to upgrade will show the rest what a massive lag in streaming technology looks like. It is like watching Wall Street people deal in stocks whilst having a system that is 3-4 milliseconds slower than the other system and it takes less than 50 trades to see a decent profit be reduced to a massive loss. I haven’t even taken the lack of labour force in the US at present, which makes their $42 billion overhaul plan an Edsel to say the least. All this was visible several days ago, but go right ahead, consider that China will defrost, they have been playing the long game and now that will turn into a near total victory. The setting I never clearly looked at was the pacific region, I saw the plans for Indonesia, but not the other parts and these are all about to come into focus. As I see it, by late 2024 Germany will chose solutions for their services and Huawei will have them, others do not. The moment that happens (I made mention of that before) France will adhere to the need of economic stability and that is where the EU either overturns the US directive, or be made (close to) obsolete. And all that happens whilst Tencent Technologies is about to launch a few products as well. My IP is in a different direction and I was (sort of) testing that premise beyond the Dubai Mall. I equally looked at the settings for the Mall of the Emirates, Nakheel Mall, tourist settings as well as the Real Estate setting which was a $20 billion market in the UAE (I did not initially know that), so I looked at my Canadian ‘solution’ to the UAE, and now we are vying for the big bucks (I am allowed to dream, am I not). Whatever YOU think, these elements are out in the open and some of them were out in the open since the first Covid lockdown (2020), so players like Amazon, Apple and Google had 3 years to wake up, as far as I can tell they never did.

So the writing was on the floor (the walls too) and these players were all watching the sky to see how their revenue streams were set up and doing. The media was full of it and with the shortage of people and pretty much dumping thousands of people, they had to look at the Middle East and see if these people would be willing to move to a new shore and that is where others will soon have a larger advantage. That I how I personally see it. 

You make your own conclusions, but take the time to go through all the sources, too many media is playing a catering game and they are not serving food. The day before the weekend is underway, enjoy it.

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July 19, 2023 · 21:18

Basic counting

This is a simple setting, there is no ‘complication’. There is a certain need to be competent and this is seen and shown in all walks of life. So I had a few issues with the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-66229577) I am not saying the BBC did anything wrong. Consider what we are being told in the article. We are given “The event was supposed to be a massive boost for the regional cities hosting it, at a cost of A$2.6 billion (£1.4bn; $1.8bn). But the cost of staging the 12-day Games had ballooned to more than A$6bn, Mr Andrews said.” The very first question that came to mind was ‘How incompetent is Daniel Andrews?’ Don’t just take my word for it, consider the image below. Yes, it is quirky and funny, but not entirely untrue. 

You see I get that mistakes are made, we all make them. We get fuel prices wrong ($2.78 instead of $2.43), we get the price of an item can be handed wrongly, these things happen. But to make an error that amounts to 230% of the invoice requires a very special amount of stupid and I reckon that Daniel is every bit as guilty as whomever wielded the abacus that gave us such wrong numbers. 

And this is not the only case. We are given “Just one Games has been held outside the UK or Australia in the last 20 years – the 2010 outing in the Indian capital, Delhi. Originally expected to cost $270m, India ended up spending 16 times that – almost $4.1bn.” This now gives us three issues. The first is that the logistical side of the Commonwealth games will need an overhaul (if there is one left). The fact that they got the number wrong in 2010 by 1600% is clear evidence of that. 

The second part is that these numbers should have ben checked and as such subsequent games would have been ready. This seems not to be happening. The third part is a little harder. The fact that within 15 years the cost are driven up by almost 50% is one, the second is that India required $4.1 billion, so how did anyone find a way to get it done for an initial $1.8 billion? For half the price even as construction costs tend to be higher in Australia? Yes, we can fidget with currencies all we ant, but the numbers aren’t adding up and that is on Daniel Andrews, the buck literally stops there. 

It seems to me that there are too many fingers in this Commonwealth Games pie. Costs are getting out of hand and there might be valid reasons, but which paper did a thorough digging into that? I personally reckon no one is looking deeper into this as it also impacts advertisers. And the media loves its role as a courtesan.

Wo we will have to wait what will happen next, yet the larger setting is also interesting. Melbourne had the Commonwealth games in 2006, are you telling me that these venues no longer suffices? It might have been part of the scuttled calculations, but I see no mention of that. The BBC article makes no mention of the 2006 games whatsoever, which is a little weird too. So when the Commonwealth games are cancelled, I wonder if anyone will look deeper into this cesspool of incompetency. On the upside, I seem to have found another pool of revenue (or cost reduction) at present and it might apply to Amazon, Apple and Google. But I need to dig a little further before I make official mention here. It might equally impact IBM to some degree as well. 

Well, that was another fine mess I aided in creating, but that is how I roll.

Enjoy the middle of the week.

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July 18, 2023 · 22:44

In souls we trust

I believe that this is the setting we should be in. Make no mistake, there is every chance that I might be wrong and I understand that many will not agree with me. This all comes to blows as I saw an article whilst researching others. I initially was reading up on Andrew Tate, I saw that his house arrest had been prolonged for yet another month. I have had my issues with the arrest. In the first for MONTHS there was no formal case made and we heard all kinds of excuses and the media just accepted it, as it seemingly does whilst being a courtesan. I saw a few other issues and I still believe on a speculative foundation that this all is a play by Romanian organised crime and some business people to steal the business enterprise of the Tate’s away. It is worth hundreds of millions and a fraction of that tends to be enough to start something like that. The media (for the most) was zero help, they are all of the mind to stretch the digital dollar as far as they can and then I stumbled upon ‘“Britain will be fully Islamic soon” – Andrew Tate shocks fans by openly calling for the Islamisation of Britain’ by sportskeeda (at https://www.sportskeeda.com/mma/news-britain-will-fully-islamic-soon-andrew-tate-shocks-fans-openly-calling-islamisation-britain). You might think that this is preposterous, but to some extend this is a global wave that is starting to happen. This world has 8 billion people in it (aka 8,000,000,000) the larger stage is that at present a little over 2 billion (aka 2,000,000,000) is Muslim, it is over 25% at present. Even as 2.6 billion are christian and we see messages how much it is growing, for the most, the people have had enough of the christian church. The exploitation, the child sex abuse, the Vatican in denial and the support of corruption on a global scale is getting out of hand. The overly American Christian waves of BS we see on a daily basis is a first example. One source (unconfirmed) gives us “Since 1970, weekly church attendance among Catholics has dropped from 55% to 20%, the number of priests declined from 59,000 to 35,000 and the number of people who left Catholicism increased from under 2 million in 1975 to over 30 million today.” The flock is leaving the shepherd by the millions, but some remain in denial. I saw another wave evolve 2-3 years back and that led to the IP I had been trying to sell to Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom Holdings, Amazon and Tencent Technologies. You see, we are given in the article “This building is literally dead centre in the middle of London’s historic centre. Amazing news. The only alternative to Islam for the brits are pride flags as they no longer have any innate culture or patriotism. Allah is the best of planners and I look forward to seeing The Islamic republic of Great Britistan in her final form. Alhamdulillah Britain will be fully Islamic soon.” I personally did not see that part, but I saw enough from the other parts to see that changes are needed and governments were actively avoiding them, which gave me the idea of IP which would get well over 50 million subscribers from the early days and that wave would evolve over time. With the claims made by Andrew Tate, these changes would herald a massive wave (in my favour), but that is not what this is about. You see, if we trust in souls the Vatican and governments would clean up their acts, but they do not. If anything they are making it worse and soon the people are driven by choices they weren’t ready to make and might not be ready to make at that point, but it would optionally prove Andrew’s setting. The fun part I that Google numbered itself out of that equation, for whatever reason, they stand to lose a lot. Microsoft will wherever the revenue is, optionally making matters worse and the others, I honestly cannot tell. American firms will get a tap on the shoulder ‘to make a choice’, but like the Huawei case there is now almost enough for them to switch, or set a double stage to provide both.

This might have been a setting in 2019, but there was enough evidence for years to change an Apple keyboard where EVERY key is a display and it can show the alphabet the user requires. IBM engineers came up with the projection keyboard in 1992. So why was it held back? The setting resurfaced with the Apple iPad, but overall it never took off and I can see a case where Apple had the option to become the number one player in the Middle East, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and a few other places. So what kept them? It cannot be revenue, they lack it and the technology has been out there for 30 years. So what is stopping them? I will let you figure that out.

Andrew further gives us “A secular UK as it is intended to be. All races and religions and cultures etc living in harmony. That seems like a better and more long term plan” I believe he is not wrong, but the media sucks up to the Vatican, the church of England, the Swedish church and a few other players and they are all in denial. So what comes next? It is anyones guess I reckon, but the growth of Islam is clear and has been clear for several years. It allowed me to create IP no one considered and there is more to come. When I unite the IP for 5G+ there will be a much larger stage and I saw that in Dubai it is already evolving. Arab News gave us 22 hours ago ‘Dubai’s real estate transactions increase 37% in Q2: report’ (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2339316/business-economy), this means that another IP piece I have will soon evolve, this is not wishful thinking, the quote “with the total value of properties sold touching 69.8 billion dirhams ($19 billion)” makes it so. I saw the real estate people doing the same thing over and over again. This needs a shakeup and that is where I saw the diverging of one IP into another. I didn’t initially see that in Dubai, I saw it evolve in Toronto and the step to Dubai is as I personally see it exceedingly simple. In souls we trust, all others rely on becoming a tool. It is not sweet, it is nasty, but this christian exploitative stage we are on now is running out of runway and I have no idea how it crashes next, but I reckon it will. If you doubt that, consider that I have put half a dozen IP pieces on the internet. Google and Amazon should have had it, but they did not. Why not? Are they blind, or are they hindered by blinders that are set to the coming and next quarter? And that is before you realise that I also came up with Augmented reality solutions long before Gucci was there, that is three times over. So what are they doing wrong? I will let you figure that our over a cup of coffee (which gives rest to the soul and activates the brain. I have lived on that stuff almost a lifetime. 

Enjoy the week.

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July 16, 2023 · 10:58

Single-mindedness towards greed

That is how I see it in this case. To see this we need to take a look at the CBC article (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/box-office-slump-2023-1.6906554) called ‘Blockbusters are failing spectacularly, but how that changes Hollywood is anyone’s guess’. First of all, are they failing? To the requiring mind of these movie releases they seemingly are. Yet I am not of that mindset. Lets see if I can get you on board. A second article is from the BBC and seen (at https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20230713-how-the-cost-of-living-crisis-is-fuelling-job-quits) where we are getting told about the cost of living. They call it ‘How the cost-of-living crisis is fuelling job quits’, especially in families with children, the revenue of worker number two is no longer covering the cost of the children. They tell us “Rising prices and interest rates are pushing some workers to move around the labour market, rather than dig in their heels at their current employers.” This is not merely a British thing, it is a global thing and when you add Australia with age discrimination we have a very different picture. We see a growing global community that can no longer AFFORD to go to the cinema. I used to go to the cinema at least once a month. Now I am happy if I can afford to go once a quarter, that is a drop of 60% and I am not alone, millions are in the same boat. To get any kind of tinsel town satisfaction we are driven to Netflix. $15 a month versus $15 per visit is simple math (if you have a proper internet connection), yet the CBC has merely one mention of Netflix and it is in the wrong direction. The article has nothing on ‘cost of living’ a clear first in any household. A week ago CBC gave its readers ‘Families face ‘hidden homelessness’ as Hamilton shelter system is consistently overwhelmed’ and no one was able to connect the dots? In ‘generalising’ statistics we tend to agree and accept that for any household collapsing, at least 50 more are on the verge to go that direction. It isn’t a foolproof stage, but with the lack of data that is a clear path to walk on and now we see that this implies that in Hamilton alone a thousand households are on the verge of collapsing. So how many of those would consider going to the cinema? It amounts to $25-$40 per person, and that is just for starters. There are travel cost to consider as well. So when you add it all up, Canada alone has close to 250,000 households that actually can no longer afford to go to the cinema. Add a few million from the US and a similar amount from the EU and it explains why people aren’t going to the silver screen, they lack funds. This doesn’t make the movie a flop. I would have loved to have seen Shazam 2 (or the new Indiana Jones, or Oppenheimer, or Mission Impossible) I just couldn’t afford the ticket. It is life on a budget and I reckon that Jackson Weaver has some rewriting to do, perhaps add a chapter (or two). The funny part is that I saw this path clearly within the first 2 minutes. Me, for now is saving up so that I can see Dune Chapter 2 on launch date (which is November 2nd). This is the reality that millions face, we aren’t happy, we aren’t thrilled. This is our lives and the people in the entertainment better take notice (like the CEO’s making 135 million plus annually). You are either getting smarter on how you do things or lose more and more money and downgrading payments of actors is definitely the wrong road to travel on.

And why is this single-mindedness? Simple, you see Google and Amazon should be running circles around me. Yet for now I am growing my IP count where they should have been ahead of me and they are not. The simple setting is that they (and Hollywood) should have the goods, but I wrote several stories (could be scripts) in directions they never contemplated. So, why not? Are they the next creative failings after Ubisoft? You tell me, I should never have been ahead or even close to equal to them, but it seems that I am. I will tell you that I am not driven by greed, I believe that this is the setting that is drowning them. When did this happen? My personal feeling is that Avatar and the Marvel movies opened a door they never saw and now they are all rushing to get to that revenue. It is a greed driven drive, which is why they will never equal people like James Gunn (even when he is wearing glasses), the creative minds like Ridley Scott, James Cameron, Christopher Nolan and Martin Scorsese are titans because it is about the creation, not the revenue (it is a nice side effect for them). Art is never bankable, but it is collectable when completed. A simple premise that most never seem to get and they all rely on one other element. People who can afford to go to the cinema and for now that equation is massively out of balance.

It might not be their fault, but it is still on their plates today. Not hard was it?

Try to enjoy the last day of your weekend.

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July 15, 2023 · 22:07

A 2 minute warning?

Yes, we can relate. Yet some will think it is about the 1976 movie, and they are not entirely incorrect. It has a different relationship. It is about a BBC article (at https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20230712-consumer-brands-leave-social-media-meta-threads) where we see ‘Why your favourite brand may be taking a social media break’. It is here where the speculations start. We are given “Like many of us, big companies are struggling to keep up with the number of social media platforms vying for their time and attention. They’re faced with the important choice of which apps to choose, in a market where social media can be an important brand-building tool and enable them to target consumers where they are most active.” You see there is more than one stream in motion. It goes beyond sniping (or shotgun marketing for that matter). It is about amount of considering versus smart considering. It was never far of my mind. You see my IP was set on a premise and even as it had options for advertising, or sniping. It was never about the timeline. Facebook overplayed its hand. Not initially, but over time people are starting to resent this approach. And like that 1976 movie, you could take a sniper rifle into the LA Colosseum and seek your target. One building with packed people, the chance to find your target is decently high. Now consider that Facebook was the Gatling gun and people started to shy away from that building you see that building holds 77,500 people. The Gatling gun (modern version) shoots up to 6,000 rounds a minute, as such the entire stadium is covered in 13 minutes. A sniping rifle can never get there, but its usage is different, each shot is a kill. It is precise and takes time. Sniping advertising is the same. It take time and effort (and causes less alarm). Yet the return on investment is almost always there and that was the approach I had in my new solution. It allows the ‘target’ the choice and that is the operative word. I do not think that brands are taking a social media break. They are (finally) figuring out that you can either market more and more, or you can start being smart about how you market your brand (almost like SPSS Answertree, 1998). And brands are figuring out that they start need to become smart about there approach (which would work out nicely for me as well). The article mentions Lush cosmetics and “The beauty company initially dropped off the platforms in 2019, due to concerns about fighting with ever-changing social media algorithms as well as the company’s worry about the potentially negative impact of social media on young people.” I reckon they were ahead of the pack when they decided that and they were considering what was wise, what was clever and how to be smart about it. Meta cares about its own bottom dollar first and that is where the users see the impact of a free service. I got there in 2021 and my models are looking very awesome, and their view is improving by the month. As such I mentioned a few months ago that I would indirectly be taking business away from Meta (and others), now if Amazon wakes up, they could end up with the home and away advantage all at the same time. If not it will fall to Tencent Technologies. I reckon that they are about to realise what I found and my mind would be worth a lot overnight. Apple is still not out of the race I reckon (if they have the answer to the qualifying question) but it is too much speculation. This is about marketing and that is only the start. You see, no matter how we see it. Whether we consider shotgun marketing, sniping marketing, blanket marketing and a few other methods. In the end these are the old ways and when the new ways come to pass a lot of granular discussions go out of the window. You all saw Meta (or Facebook), YouTube and Instagram marketing as the next wave, it was never that, it was a digital approach to Direct Marketing and SPSS shot that to smithereens in 1998 when they gave the audiences on global level Answertree. When you realise the simplicity and the connected improved results of that solution, that is when you realise that the age of Meta is nearly over. They had a good run mind you. They ran marketing into new directions for 19 years, just like Direct Marketing did 2 decades before and whatever came before that. This doesn’t mean that Meta is ending, but it will see a reduced interest and others will push the next wave. Who it will be? I have no idea, I am not tapping the vein of marketing. I merely saw another option that could have benefits for me, merely a benefit and that was enough for me. The next marketing wave is for whomever has a life dedicated to marketing, it is not me.

So there might be a 2 minute warning, although in marketing terms it is most likely a 2 years warning, as such someone will be raking in new solutions somewhere in 2025 and I reckon that this is when other options will be drowning out the voices of fake news and real news and create a new setting of what consolidates the marketing and advertising surrounding it. But that is my speculated view on the matter.

Enjoy the weekend, just 48 hours at best to go.

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July 14, 2023 · 22:47

About last night

Yup, I am going to go there. Yesterday I started writing about a new IP, a new game. It is incomplete. It is new and as far as I can tell, it has never been done before. As such I leave this IP for free exclusively to developers for the Amazon Luna and the Tencent technologies. You see, Microsoft is out. They are so driven to keep gaming IP out of the hands of Sony, making all non-Microsoft gamers suffer. It is my duty to make them burn. For instance they are trying to buy Blizzard/Activision for $69,000,000,000. This means that they need (over 3 years without accounting for interest) $2,000,000,000 a month just to clear this. Microsoft will have a whole battery of accountants making some bad loan corporation (where they push in all the bad loans into) or some other creative solution. You see, they can try to make the revenue, or I can hand solutions to their competitors and if I create enough options, Microsoft will end up being cornered more and more and it will implode. Especially when you cannot pay for a $69 billion dollar solution. Amazon and Tencent created a viable solution. Apple, Google and Sony are pushing on other corners as well. As such pushing more and more against Microsoft will show the dents in their armour until it cracks and no longer protects their board (or is that bored) of directors. The creative mind gets to win and the fakers at Microsoft trying to rely on spin will end up with less and less. That is my simple motivation to teach Microsoft a lesson. When they validly took over Bethesda they woke up an angry gamer. To everything there is a consequence, Microsoft is about to learn what a world with 

The stage
The stage was set in a dream. In that dream I was climbing a building. I was not alone and the building was a ruin, no idea where or what caused it. The ruin was parts of floors, walls and it had paths with boxes, crates made out of metal, plastic and wood. I needed to get somewhere, but what it was faded the moment I woke up. And that reminded me of Mirror’s edge. All clean, crisp and futuristic. Now consider a new game, doing free running, or free running plus to get to a price, part of a story or something we need to achieve. But this is not set as ‘set to a path’. An open world building, but the design and the programming is not set to a graphic, but set to engineering principles. The building could collapse, but to gravity and engineering, not to cool looking premisses. As such there are no ‘set courses’ there is no one sides solution. And as we scale more and more (and higher places) we get an entirely new game. This is not some game that would work on consoles, this has streaming (GaaS) written all over it and as you see it now, it might not be an actual solution, merely the start to one. Yet as far as I can tell no one has this and now it is free for the Amazon and Tencent technologies. I reckon I need to come up with half a dozen ideas more and the fate of Microsoft will be sealed. It already is, but getting there sooner works for me. Consider that Microsoft seemingly had a quarter revenue of $52.857B, a mere 7% more. They will (with future purchases) require well over $59 billion a quarter just to stand still, but with the added purchase they will require to get well over $65 billion a quarter just to appease their shareholders and that is where I come in If I can divert enough people to Amazon and Tencent Technologies whilst Apple, Google and Sony keep the pressure building on the other side there is every chance that Microsoft will see the down side of pissing off gamers in their pursuit of greed at their expense. 

It is my personal view and I admit if someone tells me I am wrong, they might have a case, but we all react in out own ways and this was mine. At least I am creative and handing it to hands of non-Microsoft making. 

Enjoy the day before the weekend.

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