January 8, 2019

Apple started the new year on the wrong foot following a surprise announcement that last quarter’s iPhone sales will likely fall short of projections. While the company had originally planned to bring in between $89 billion and $93 billion, CEO Tim Cook said last week that overall revenue would likely tally at just $85 billion. “Lower than anticipated iPhone revenue, primarily in Greater China, accounts for all of our revenue shortfall,” Cook wrote in a letter to investors. As a Continue reading

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August 9, 2018

Last year, Apple sold more than 280 million iPhones, iPads, and Mac computers to customers around the world. And judging by the tech giant’s ever climbing stock price, the sales tally for 2018 appears to be going strong as well. In fact, last week the price of an Apple share climbed above $207. Besides being good news for investors, reaching this milestone meant that Apple became the first publicly traded company to achieve a market capitalization above $1 trillion.

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March 23, 2018

In the aftermath of Facebook’s data sharing scandal, critics of the company are calling on lawmakers to discuss ways that the social network could be regulated. To these concerned citizens, Facebook has grown too large to be trusted with so much of the public’s information. The video below looks at how America’s tech giants became so big and the ways that regulators could possibly target these companies in the future.

Questions:

  1. Do you think big tech companies like Facebook, Continue reading
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March 9, 2018

With a userbase of more than 2 billion people, Facebook drives an astonishing amount of Internet traffic every day. So how exactly does the social network manage to succeed without collapsing under the weight of all that data? Like other tech giants, Facebook depends on enormous data centers packed with computer servers to keep the constant stream of information flowing. In fact, these “hyperscale” structures are just as important to the tech industry as factories or mines are to manufacturers. Continue reading

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January 11, 2018

If you’ve ever owned an iPhone, you may have noticed that the device tends to slow down as it gets older. At first glance this might seem like a natural occurrence. After all, any piece of technology inevitably grows to be obsolete, no matter how advanced it appeared when it was first introduced. But the way that iPhones drop in performance has frustrated customers since the iconic product launched in 2007. Then last month, a group of Internet investigators discovered Continue reading

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November 10, 2017

Even before the release of the Paradise Papers this week, Apple has faced plenty of criticism over the years for exploiting foreign loopholes to avoid paying taxes. The most prominent example of this occurred in 2013 during a Congressional inquiry of CEO Tim Cook. A Senate committee brought in the executive for questioning after they discovered Apple had hidden billions in taxable income through a series of “ghost companies” in Ireland. Cook admitted nothing, however, telling legislators, “We don’t depend Continue reading

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September 29, 2017

Last week Apple released the iPhone 8, the latest version of its iconic smartphone. The company’s flagship product has brought in billions upon billions of dollars over the years, prompting some to wonder why Apple doesn’t move iPhone production to the U.S. After all, it could definitely afford the increased labor costs that comes with doing business domestically. But as this video shows, looking after the bottom line is far from the only reason why Apple keeps its manufacturing operations Continue reading

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June 30, 2017

iphoneOne decade ago this month, Apple launched the iPhone and changed the business world forever. The rise of smartphones caused entire industries to collapse as new ones quickly appeared to take their place. Of course, the iPhone fundamentally changed Apple more than any other organization. Before the smartphone’s launch, the tech company earned 40 percent of its sales from iPods and had a market capitalization of $72.9 billion, less than a third of Microsoft’s valuation at the time. Today, iPhone Continue reading

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September 22, 2016

MichaelHicksAs the Internet’s popularity began to rise in the late 1990s, the music industry had just enjoyed some of their best years to date. Annual sales soared over $14 billion at its peak, driven by an enormous demand for CDs that appeared to be insatiable. After 1999, however, consumer interest shifted online where users could download any song they wanted for free. While the Recording Industry Association of America tried in vain to stop illegal file trading, the practice only Continue reading

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A few weeks ago, a team of investigative journalists detailed the tax-avoiding habits of numerous rich individuals and organizations in a massive data dump called the Panama Papers. The release of these documents inspired debates in the media about corporate tax avoidance and whether the government should put stronger regulations in place to prevent it. While some politicians tried to avoid these arguments, at least one has thrown himself into the fray as a strong advocate for closing tax Continue reading

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