Not a good week for incumbents

First the good news. IEEE forecasts that data usage will grow 10 times today's volume in a mere three years, and will expand a whopping 100 times by 2020. This will be driven by almost two billion new heavily online people in Asia, half a billion more from Middle East and Africa. Altogether it means adding 15 billion new devices.

This is good news for device makers, communication companies. It is also going to be good for anyone delivering products via the cloud, social, mobile and analytics (big data). If you are in Asia, then you can count yourself as the lucky(er) ones.

Now for the bad news. Between now and 2015 is going to be one of the roughest rides since world war two. For starters, South East Asia despite emerging as a significant market, runs the risk of becoming a military hotspot. China seems to be eager to try to divide ASEAN via the South China Sea. Russian and American governments have also recently increased their focus, resources (arms) in our part of the world. This is also in addition to previous announcements by the Indians who will also increase patrols here.

Secondly, there is a growing number of economists who opine that the world is in a depression. Although there aren't any people jumping from the top of the Empire state building, all the major economies have all the symptoms: crippling sovereign debt, financial crisis, declining economy and chronically high unemployment. Al Lewis from Dow Jones, shares that one out of seven Americans are living on food stamps. This is around 45 million, roughly the same population as Spain.

Thirdly, the USA federal reserve, the European Union and the Chinese government have increased prospects of their respective stimulus to DEFCON 3. Expect cheap money to flood soon. That means prices will go up for us folks in Asia. Any incumbent trying to get re-elected in the next couple of years is going to have a challenge staying in power.

People want to get rid of the old and bring in the new. The new has to be visibly cheaper, better and faster. Take for example the Ouya game console under development. When it is built, it will probably not reach standards of PCs and any of the major consoles. But it will be so cheap that people will use it, then upgrade it when a better version releases, just like android based phones. And yes, Ouya will run on the android operating system.

It wasn't long ago that e-commerce companies like Amazon and e-Bay were the vanguard, but they are quickly becoming incumbents. Governments around the world are now starting to put together laws to tax their transactions. This includes the U.S. Senate, who is starting a debate to instate sales tax for online transactions.

Even weapons companies are starting to lose their grip. A few days ago, a chap codenamed "Have Blue" printed an assault rifle using his 3D printer, then used it to shoot 22 calibre bullets. It is a good time to put your head down, roll up your sleeves and do something new and meaningful, even if it only makes a small difference. Because the times are a-changing.

STD: Socially Transmitted Decline

It's been a quiet week for South East Asia, considering all the political noise last week about South China Sea. The bright spot is the markets, which continue to climb. Malaysia hit its all time top this week. But you know what happens, when you hit the top?

The global economy is still going sideways, but the drama will heat up as the Americans go into election. The latest political football is the Federal Reserve. In reality, they are under heavy influence of the very same banks they are supposed to regulate, since its birth in 1913. Regional federal reserve board of directors are elected by banks themselves. Recently, congress passed a bill to allow them to audit the Fed, thanks to Ron Paul. But its unlikely the Senate will pass it. Pity.

It has not been good news for social networks. Twitter's been offline, facebook was punished in the market. Its umbilically attached gaming co, Zynga, slowed from limping to crawling. Drawsomething, is now yesterday's news, and has become an expensive anvil around their neck. Paypal finally admitted its still stuck in the past (ie net 1.0), but its plan is vague. Oh well, they are not alone. The unasked question is: what's going to happen to Groupon?


But hey, its only part of hype curve, as explained by Gartner. There continues to be heavy VC investments in everything social including: social tickets, social hotel finding, social marketing / targeting, social learning, social "word of mouth", white-label social CRM, social video. That's over $160M in just seven days.

Google is not the only company that's got glasses. Canon and Oculus have developed their own respective, cool versions. Canon have developed a solution called mixed reality. Its similar to augmented reality except it includes fully 3D rendered objects, intended for training engineers. Actually, I think it will be more fun, and lucrative, to give it to the people who develop Call of Duty or Battlefield. Oculus, born from Stanford and Berkeley (where else) are building a holodeck ala Star Trek! I guess, they still have some more work to do. But its promising.

The last words in social: the world's first fully digital sexually transmitted disease, developed thanks (I think) to Stanford and Venter labs who succesfully modelled the disease called "Mycoplasma genitalium". They have also included the link with full source code. Download it  http://bit.ly/MPJp8i , if you dare! Maybe the Indonesians may help stem the tide of digi-sex. They have just blocked over 1 million smut sites, just for the month of Ramadan. I guess when the following month Syawwal arrives, the porn is back on?

The meek shall inherit the world

Studies have shown there are as many women graduating as men. In fact, there are more women getting university, college degrees than men. So the future is going to be very different. But for now, the technology sector is very much testosterone filled. 


But change is afoot. Yahoo! has a new CEO! A femme. They have brought in a tech person, but the problem is clearly in content and media. Having said that, their display ad engine needs a spruce up. Will it go the way of its search? ie 100% outsource. You would think they have enough smart people to build it or buy it (ala google, facebook).



On the venture side, there is plenty of seed and round A money in the usual portfolios (cloud mobile social). Deals for B is less. C and onwards continue to be a scare commodity, and rightly so. Few acquisitions announced. Dell having bought a few late stage storage Cos, are now offering $ to storage startups.


The global economy is still flat and has limited prospects of lifting. This includes China. But that's not a bad thing either, considering that everyone really needs to hunker down and work and spend, not just spend. However, the shadow of QE3 and stimulus looms. More money for banks, big brother and their familiars.


Talking about big brother: Both Russia and USA have recently legislated their respective forms of internet control. Yes, USA too.


On the regional front, South East Asia continues as the rare jewel in the great recession. But IMF has recently cooled its forecast, only by a bit. Meantime, the Malaysian capital market has reached an all-time peak. The regional political interplay and plot thickens. It seems Cambodia is China's knight in its South East Asian chessboard. It is coincidental that the Scarborough Shoal issue is peaking at a time when Cambodia is chairing ASEAN? 



Finally, on the scientific front: its all about mind reading thanks to Northwest Uni and Vere, Israel. One machine can determine if you are friend or foe. This will be useful for married men. The other can remote control a robot via pure thoughts alone. This will be a useful tool for married women.