Tag Archive for Apple

| January 5, 2017
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Is Your Battery Healthy?

Li-ion batteries need very different care and feedingLithium-ion batteries have been in the news lately for causing fires and explosions. Explosions have happened with e-cigarettes, hoverboards, and the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, which was banned from all flights by the FAA due to its explosion risk. Despite the risks, most of today’s most popular gadgets have a battery.

Is Your Battery Healthy?Fred Langa at Windows Secrets Newsletter posted an article on how to get the most out of the lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. Li-ion batteries need very different care and feeding than the nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) and nickel-metal-hydride (Ni-MH) batteries used in earlier devices. Proper care of a Li-ion battery can result in as much as 15 times longer service life than with an improperly cared-for battery.

Steps to extend the battery service life

The article does not cover ways to get more run time between recharges; those techniques are already well-known. Most portable devices offer ample manual and automatic power-saving modes and methods such as adjusting screen brightness, slowing CPU speed, and reducing the number of apps running.

15 times longer service lifeRather, the article focused on ways to extend the battery’s overall service life. Follow these five important tips, and you’ll help make sure that your Li-ion batteries will deliver long, full, safe service lives in your new portable devices.

Keep your lithium batteries cool

Heat is the number-one enemy of Li-ion batteries. Heat issues can be caused by usage factors such as the speed and duration of battery charging and discharging. The physical environment also matters. Simply leaving your Li-ion powered device in the sun or in an enclosed car, even if the device isn’t being used, can significantly reduce the battery’s ability to take and hold a charge according to the article.

battery capacity can be reduced by 50%.Li-ion batteries perform best at about normal room temperature (68F/20C). If the device warms to 86F/30C, its ability to hold a charge drops by about 20%. Mr. Langa says if the battery is used at 113F/45C — a temperature easily reached by devices that are working hard or that are in the sun, battery capacity can be reduced by 50%.

So if your device or battery becomes noticeably warm while you’re using it, the article recommends moving to a cooler place. If that’s not possible, try reducing the amount of power the device is using by turning off unneeded apps, reducing screen brightness, or activating the device’s power-saving mode.

Of course, you can turn the device fully off until its temperature returns to normal. For fastest cooling, remove the battery, if possible Windows Secrets recommends. The battery and the device will cool off faster if they’re physically separated according to the article.

Low temperatures aren’t as much of a worry. Low temps usually won’t cause any long-term damage, although a cold battery won’t produce as much power as it otherwise would. The power drop becomes very noticeable at temperatures lower than about 40F/4C. Most consumer-grade Li-ion batteries are essentially useless at temperatures below freezing.

If your Li-ion powered device becomes excessively chilled for any reason, don’t try to use it. The article says to leave it powered off and move it to a warm place until the device is at normal temperature. Once the battery warms to a normal temperature, so will its electrical performance.

Unplug the charger

Overcharging, leaving a battery connected to a too-Unplug the chargerhigh voltage source for too long, can reduce a Li-ion battery’s ability to hold a charge, shorten its life, or kill it outright according to the author. Most consumer-grade Li-ion batteries are designed to work at around 3.6 volts per cell but will accept a temporary overvoltage of around 4.2 volts while charging. Mr. Langa warns that if a charger outputs the higher voltage for too long, internal battery damage can occur.

In severe cases, Windows Secrets warns that overcharging can lead to what battery engineers delicately refer to as “catastrophic failure.” Even in moderate instances, the excess heat produced by overcharging will negatively affect battery life, as you saw in Tip #1.

High-quality chargers can work in concert with circuitry inside well-designed Li-ion-powered devices and their batteries, reducing the danger of overcharging by properly tapering off the charging current. The article says the simplest, can’t fail method is not to leave your Li-ion devices connected to any charger longer than needed.

These properties are quite different from those of older Ni-Cd and Ni-MH battery technologies, which did best when left on their chargers for as long as possible. That’s because those older battery types have a high rate of self-discharge; that is, they start losing a significant amount of stored energy the moment you take them off the charger, even if the device they power is turned off.

In fact, a Ni-Cd battery can self-discharge at a rate of 10% in the first 24 hours. The self-discharge curve flattens after that, but a Ni-Cd battery will still lose an additional 10–20% charge per month. Ni-MH batteries are even worse. Their self-discharge rate is about 30% higher than that of Ni-Cd.

But Li-ion batteries have a very low rate of self-discharge. A healthy, full, lithium battery will self-discharge at about only 5% in the first 24 hours off the charger — with only 2% or so per month after that.

It’s simply not necessary to leave a Li-ion device on the charger until the last possible moment. For best results and the longest battery life, unplug the charger when it or the lithium-powered device shows a full charge.

It’s also not necessary to give new Li-ion devices an extended charge before first use. (Ni-Cd or Ni-MH devices used to come with warnings to do an initial charge of anywhere from 8 to 24 hours.) Li-ion batteries are fully ready for use when the charger or the device reads 100% charge. No extended charging is needed.

Don’t deep-discharge your battery

Not all discharge cycles exact the same toll on a battery. Long and heavy usage generates more heat, putting more stress on the battery; smaller, more frequent discharges extend the overall life of lithium batteries.

Don't deep-discharge your batteryYou might think that a higher number of small discharge/recharge cycles would eat into the battery’s overall lifespan. That was true with older technologies, the author says it’s not the case with Li-ion. Battery specs can be confusing because most manufacturers count a full Li-ion charge cycle as whatever it takes to add up to a 100% charge. For example, three 33% discharge/recharge cycles equal one full-charge cycle, five 20% cycles equal a full charge, and so on.

In short, a higher number of small discharge/recharge cycles doesn’t reduce a lithium battery’s total available full-charge cycles.

Again, heat and stress from heavy discharges cut battery life. So try to keep your deep-discharge events to a minimum. Mr. Langa recommends that you don’t let your device routinely run down to zero charge (where the device turns itself off). Instead, think of the bottom 15–20% of battery capacity as a reserve — for emergency use only. Get into the habit of swapping in a fresh battery (if possible) or plugging the device into external power well before the battery is empty.

Slow and steady is best

Slow and steady charge/discharge is bestAs you now know, both fast discharging and fast recharging generate excess heat and exact a toll on battery life. Windows Secrets says if you’ve run a device long and hard, let the battery cool to room temperature before recharging it. Batteries won’t accept a full charge when hot. And when recharging, make sure your charger doesn’t make the battery become hot to the touch, a hot battery is a sign the charger is pumping too much current, too fast, through the battery.

Overcharging is more likely with chargers that are cheap, off-brand models; that use fast-charge circuitry; or that are wireless (inductive). These “dumb” chargers simply pump out current, accepting little or no feedback from the device being charged. Overheating and overvoltages can easily occur, damaging or even destroying the battery.

Fast chargers provide a useful charge to a drained battery in minutes and not hours. The author explains there are various approaches to fast-charging technology, and not all of them are compatible with all lithium batteries. Unless the charger and the lithium battery are specifically designed to work together, fast charging could cause overheating and overvoltages. Generally, it’s best not to use one brand of fast charger on a different brand’s device.

Wireless (inductive) chargers use a special charging mat or surface to restore a battery’s power. It sounds wonderfully convenient, but inductive charging always generates excess heat, even when it’s working normally.

Not only is the excessive heat produced by a wireless charger not good for lithium batteries, it also wastes energy. By its nature, inductive charging’s efficiency is always going to be lower than a standard charger’s. Mr. Lunga says that higher heat and less efficiency easily outweigh convenience.

In any case, the safest approach is to use only chargers sold by the OEM of your lithium-powered device. It’s the only way to be sure that the charger will keep temperatures and voltages within specs. The article recommends that if a OEM charger isn’t available, use a low-output charger that’s unlikely to pump damaging amounts of power into the device you’re charging.

One source of low-output, non-OEM charging that’s often available is the USB port on a standard PC. A typical USB 2.0 port provides 500mA (.5 amps) per port; USB 3.0 provides up to 900mA (.9 amps) per port. In contrast, some dedicated chargers will output 3,000-4,000mA (3-4 amps). The low amperage offered by USB ports will usually provide cool, safe charging of almost any Li-ion device.

If possible, carry a spare battery

carry a spare batteryIf your device allows for easy battery replacement, carrying a spare battery is cheap insurance. It will give you twice the run time. When the in-use battery approaches 15–20% charge, simply swap out the drained battery for a fresh, cool one — you get instant full power, with no heat worries.

A spare battery also allows for other benefits. For example, if you find yourself in a situation where the installed battery is running hot, you can swap out the hot battery to let it cool. Having two batteries should also eliminate any need to use fast chargers — you can charge the spare at a safe, slow rate while the other is in use.

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For more tips on how to keep your Apple iPhone battery in tip-top shape, check out this post from 2014.

Related articles

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| August 22, 2016
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Chatbot Risks

Chatbot RisksChatbots are the latest rage on social media. As Time explained, they have been around since the 1960s. That’s when MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum created a chatbot called ELIZA. Chatbots found a home on desktop messaging clients like AOL Instant Messenger. Chatbots went dormant as messaging transitioned away from desktops and onto mobile devices.

Sophiscated botBut they’re poised for a resurgence in 2016. There are two reasons for this. First, artificial intelligence and cloud computing has gotten better thanks to improvements in machine learning. Second, bots could be big money.

Tech titans have chatbots on social media

All the tech titans have released social bots on the web; Apple’s (AAPL) Siri, Facebook’s (FB) “bots on Messenger“, Google’s (GOOG) Allo, and Microsoft’s (MSFT) ill-fated Tay. They believe there’s a buck to be made here, and they’re scrambling to make sure they don’t get left out.

Social botThe July issue of the Communications of the ACM included an article, “The Rise of Social Bots,” which lays out social bots’ impact on online communities and society at large. The authors define a social bot as a computer algorithm that automatically produces content and interacts with humans on social media, trying to emulate and possibly alter their behavior.

The Business Insider published this infographic about the social bot ecosystem.

Business Insider infographic

Chatbots can be deceptive

The ACM article argues that social bots populate techno-social systems; they are often benign, or even useful, but some are created to harm by tampering with, manipulating, and deceiving social media users. The article offers several examples of how social bots can be a hindrance. The first example involves the Twitter (TWTR) posts around the Boston Marathon bombing. The researcher’s analysis found that social bots were automatically retweeting false accusations and rumors. The researchers argue that forwarding false claims without verifying the false tweets granted the false information more influence.

bots can artificially inflate political candidatesThe ACM article also discusses how social bots can artificially inflate political candidates. During the 2010 mid-term elections some politicians used social bots to inject thousands of false tweets to smear their opponents. This type of activity puts the integrity of the democratic process at risk. These types of attackers are also called astroturfing, or twitter-bombs.

Anti-vaxxer chatbots

The article offers another example of the use of social bots to influence an election in California. During the recent debate in California about a law on vaccination requirements there appears to be widespread use of social bots by opponents to vaccinations. This social bot interference puts an unknown number of people at risk of death or disease.

bot provoked stock market crashGreed is the most likely use of social bots. One example from the article is the April 2013 hack of the Twitter account of the Associated Press. In this case, the Syrian Electronic Army used the hacked account to posted a false statement about a terror attack on the White House which injured President Obama. This false story provoked an immediate $136 Billion stock market crash as an unwarranted result of the widespread use of social bots to amplify false rumors.

Chatbots manipulate social media reality

Research has shown that human emotions are contagious on social media. This means that social bots can be used to artificially manipulate social media users’ perception of reality without being aware they are being manipulated. The article says the latest generation of Twitter social bots has many “human-like” online behaviors that make it difficult to separate bots from humans. According to the authors, social bots can:

  • Search the web to fill in their profiles,
  • Post pre-collected content at a defined time
  • Engage in conversations with people,
  • Infiltrate discussions and add topically correct information.

Some bots garner attention.Some bots work to gain greater status by searching out and following popular or influential users or taking other steps to garner attention. Other bots are identity thieves, adopting slight variants of user names to steal personal information, picture, and links.

Strategies to thwart bad chatbots

The authors review several attempts to thwart these growing sophisticated bots.

1. Innocent-by-association – This theory measured the number of legitimate links vs. the number of social bots (Sybil) links a user has. This method was proven to be flawed. Researchers found that Facebook users are pretty indiscriminate when adding users. The article says that 20% of legitimate Facebook users accept any friend request and 60% accept friend requests with only one contact in common.

2. Crowdsourcing – Another approach to stop social bots is crowdsourcing. The crowdsourcing approach would rely on users and experts reviewing an account. The reviewers would have to reach a majority decision that the account in question was a bot or legit. The authors pointed out some issues with crowdsourcing.

  • It will not scale to large existing social networks like Facebook or Twitter.
  • “Experts” need to be paid to check accounts.
  • It exposes user’s personal information related to the account to unknown users and “experts.”

3. Feature-based detection is the third method the researchers noted by the authors. Feature-based bot detection uses behavior-based analysis with machine learning to separate human-like behavior from bot-like behavior. Some of the behaviors that these types of applications include:

  • The number of retweets.
  • Age of account.
  • Username length.

4. Sybil until proven otherwise – The Chinese social network RenRen uses the fourth method noted by the author. This network uses a “Sybil until proven otherwise” approach. According to the article, this approach is better at detecting unknown attacks, like embedding text in graphics.

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Use your brainWhile people’s ability to critically assimilate information, is beyond technology, the authors call for new ways to detect social bot-generated spam vs. real political discourse.

The researchers speculate there will not be a solution to the social bot problem. The more likely outcome is a bot arms race, like what we are seeing in the war on SPAM and other malware.

Related articles
  • Man vs. Machine: What do Chatbots Mean for Social Media? (blogs.adobe.com)

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| June 11, 2016
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What You Need To Know About Germs on Your Cell

What You Need To Know About Germs on Your CellOver 2.6 billion Americans now have a cell phone. And they are walking around with some nasty stuff on their phones. I’m not talking about porn or malware but real viruses. An article by Caroline Kee and Taylor Miller at Buzzfeed found that most phones are covered with some pretty scary germs.

Swab cell phones for germsThe author took swabs of people’s cell phones to prove the point. Ms. Kee shared her swabs with Dr. Susan Whittier from Columbia University. They found that all phones had germs, bacteria, protozoa, viruses, and fungi on them, some of which are good for us and some of which are bad for us. The tests revealed that most phones had five kinds of harmless germs from the skin, mouth, nose, and environment.

• Staphylococcus epidermidis (not aureus): Dr. Whittier says if you were to just swab your skin, this is what you’d find. It is normal and would get on the phone from regular daily use, like touching or talking on it.

All phones had germs, bacteria, protozoa, viruses, and fungi on them• Micrococcus: Dr. Whittier says this makes up the normal skin flora, especially on the face. Everyone has different skin bacteria; it depends on the person. It can get on your phone if you touch your face a lot or talk on it often.

• Streptococcus viridians: This bug lives in the mouth and throat, so it can get on your phone from talking, your fingers after touching your lips, coughing, etc. It’s usually harmless, but it can also cause infections in vulnerable people.

• Moraxella: This is from sinuses, and it’s often found in people with recurrent sinusitis or post-nasal drip. In high levels, it can cause inner ear and bloodstream infections. It’s still a pretty normal thing to find on a phone.

25,000 germs on a cell phone• Bacillus: Bacillus is a common bacteria from the environment, so it’s basically a sign that you’ve been outdoors. A lot of Bacillus means the phone is super dirty.

The bad news is that pathogens – potentially disease-causing strains of bacteria – were found on some of the phones tested. This is alarming. Think – salmonella, Ebola, bird flu, etc.

The most dangerous bug found on a phone was MRSA. MRSA, the flesh-eating bacteria, is a Staphylococcus aureus bacteria that is resistant to many antibiotics, including methicillin. It can cause serious infections in the skin and internal organs and can be fatal in vulnerable people. MRSA can spread easily between people and surfaces—often in health care settings, but it can also live on surfaces like subway handles, doorknobs, community bathrooms, showers, and especially gyms.

MRSA, the flesh eating bacteriaColumbia’s Whittier explained, “It’s a little worrisome for a phone to test positive for MRSA because it isn’t part of our normal flora.” We also know that MRSA loves to lurk on gym equipment and locker rooms, so it’s not completely abnormal to have it on your phone. About half the population carries Staph aureus with no problems. But this also makes it easy to spread between people and causes disease. Dr. Whittier warns that if Staph aureus gets into an open wound, it can cause major skin and blood infections, which can result in boils, food poisoning, toxic shock syndrome, and even death.

Poop. You’ve heard of E. coli. E. coli outbreaks have shut down restaurants like Chipotle and have caused many supermarket foods recalls. It was found on mobile phones. It’s a fecal organism, so it’s usually found in poop, but it can also live in the gastrointestinal tract along with other gut bacteria. Buzzfeed reports there are different types of E. coli, and some strains are way more pathogenic than others.  E. coli has the potential to cause serious food poisoning and even death.

E.Coli bacteria

E. coli infections spread through the fecal-oral route. You will get sick if you touch your mouth with contaminated hands after using the bathroom or touching fecal matter. It turns out this is very common. In 2015, Verizon found that 90% of cell phone users use their mobile phones in the bathroom. A 2013 study by Michigan State University found that just 5% of people properly washed their hands after using the bathroom.

The Columbia MD warns this is why you shouldn’t bring your phone to the bathroom or use it while eating. E. coli on a phone could be from the person’s stool if they didn’t wash their hands or another person’s stool if the phone went into a public bathroom because fecal matter sprays everywhere when the toilet flushes

Dont bring your phone to the bathroomWhat to do? Even if you’re an avid hand-washer, your phone can still pick up germs all day. The Buzzfeed article makes two recommendations to keep your phone safe. Keep your mobile phone out of the bathroom (where gross stuff like Norovirus lurks). And don’t use your cell phone while you’re eating since that can transmit bacteria and viruses to your mouth and get you sick.

How can you keep those nasty bugs off your phone? The article recommends cleaning your phone once a week using this magical “phone soap.” It’s not actually soap — it’s a charger box that shoots out UV lights that “kill 99.9% of germs using UV rays” at Amazon.

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Back in 2013, I wrote about dirty mobile phones spreading Ebola here.

Wash your handsThe advice from 2012 on how to disinfect your cell is still the same as in 2016. Use a soft, slightly damp, lint-free cloth. Avoid getting moisture in openings. Don’t use window cleaners, household cleaners, aerosol sprays, solvents, alcohol, ammonia, or abrasives to clean your iPhone. The front and back glass surfaces have an oleophobic coating. To remove fingerprints, wipe these surfaces with a soft, lint-free cloth. The ability of this coating to repel oil will diminish over time with normal usage, and rubbing the screen with an abrasive material will further diminish its effect and may scratch the glass.

Related articles

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| May 1, 2016
Comments Off on How Much Cash Do Tech Firms Stash Overseas

How Much Cash Do Tech Firms Stash Overseas

How Much Cash Do Tech Firms Stash OverseasA new report (PDF) from charity Oxfam says American companies stash a significant part of their cash overseas to take advantage of more favorable tax laws in other countries. They claim that tech companies take particular advantage of this practice, also known as “tax havens.” Oxfam which is crusading to get the U.S. government to crack down on this practice says tax havens costs the United States more than $100 billion a year in lost tax revenue.

Tech firms are hoarding nearly $500 Billion overseasThe Business Insider brought us this Statista chart, based on the Oxfam report. Tech firms are hoarding nearly $500 Billion in cash overseas. The chart shows how much money major US tech companies have stashed overseas, and how many subsidiaries they have set up in countries that Oxfam defines as tax havens, “which can be characterized by secrecy, low- or zero-tax rates, and the almost complete lack of disclosure of any relevant business information.”

U.S. tech firms with most cash held overseas

While tech is the most prominent sector on Oxfam’s list, the article claims tech is not alone — large companies in other sectors like General Electric ($119 billion), Pfizer ($74 billion), Merck ($60 billion), and Exxon Mobile ($51 billion) also have lots of cash stashed overseas.

There’s nothing illegal about this practice. But Oxfam believes it contributes to income inequality. They are urging U.S. lawmakers to make it harder for companies to use international tax laws to their advantage in this way.

money stashed overseasOverseas tax havens have been the focus of recent revelations about tax scams by wealthy people, based on the leak of the “Panama Papers,” documents from a single Panama-based law firm, Mossack Fonseca, involving 214,000 offshore shell companies. The firm’s clients included 29 billionaires and 140 top politicians worldwide, among them a dozen heads of government.

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This list looks a lot like the one for the top lobbying spender firms. I wrote about the tech titans lobbying efforts just a couple of weeks ago here.

RankFirmCash $ held off shoreLobbying rankLobbying $ spending
1Apple181.1B104.5M
2Microsoft108.3B78.5M
3IBM61.4B114.6M
4Cisco52.7B142.7M
5Alphabet/Google47.4B116.6M
6HP42.9B
7Oracle38.0B134.5M
Related articles
  • Obama urges Congress to take action on corporate tax reform (bnn.ca)

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| April 16, 2016
Comments Off on Hey Lobbying Tech Spender

Hey Lobbying Tech Spender

-Update 04-26-2016- As if to prove my point, Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders just named Verizon one of America’s Top Ten Tax Avoiders. VZ has a corporate tax rate of -2% for the last 6 years according to the post. Verizon has the #4 lobbying spender.

Hey Lobbying Tech SpenderJust in time for the U.S. tax deadline, the Business Insider has a report which details the amount of money the tech titans spent on bribing lobbying the politicians in DC. Thanks to one of the small bits of transparency in the gooberment, the U.S. House of Representatives requires companies to file government lobbying records. You can search their disclosures here at the Office of the Clerk of the House. (rb- Use this while you can, it’s likely to be shut down at any time by politicians with things to hide.)

Amazon was the most aggressive tech lobbyist in 2015The most aggressive tech spender on lobbying in 2015 was Amazon (AMZN) according to research by Consumer Watchdog. The company spent $9.07 million (a company record) on lobbying in 2015, an incredible 91.4% surge from its 2014 spend dedicated to influencing federal regulations last year according to BI.

Amazon lobbied Washington about

tech firms spent over $122M lobbying Washington politiciansDespite Amazon’s aggressive lobbying, Google (GOOG) topped the list of tech companies for the second year in a row. Google spent $16.6 million in 2015 vs $16.83 million in 2014. The biggest spending tech firms spent over $122M lobbying Washington politicians.

How the tech titans spent their money

  1. Google: $16.6 million in 2015 vs $16.83M in 2014.
  2. Comcast (CMCSA): $15.63 million vs $16.8M in 2014
  3. AT&T (T): $14.86 million, up from $14.56M in 2014
  4. Verizon (VZ): $11.43 million, up 1.9% from $11.22M in 2014.
  5. Facebook (FB): $9.85 million from $9.34M in 2014, a company record.
  6. Amazon (AMZB): $9.07 million up 91.4% from 2014 .
  7. Microsoft (MSFT): $8.49 million vs $8.33M in 2014.
  8. Time Warner Cable (TWC): $6.8 million in 2015, down 13.2% from 2014.
  9. T-Mobile (TMUS) $6.14 million, up 1.7% from 2014.
  10. Apple (AAPL): $4.48 million in 2015 compared to $4.11M in 2014.
  11. IBM (IBM): $4.63 million, a 6.5% decrease from $4.9M in 2014.
  12. Intel (INTC): $4.55 million in 2015, up 19.7% from $3.80M in 2014.
  13. Oracle (ORCL): $4.46 million in 2015, down 23.5% from $5.83M in 2014.
  14. Cisco (CSCO): $2.69 million compared to $2.35M in 2014.
  15. Yahoo (YHOO): $2.84 million in 2015 vs $2.94M in 2014.

Tech titans with boxes of meney for politicansBI reminds us that these may seem like big numbers, they’re a tiny part of these companies’ overall expenditures — in the third quarter of 2015, Google spent $3.47 billion on traffic acquisition costs (such as the price of its deal to stay the default search on Apple’s iPhone), and another $6.93 billion on other operating expenses.

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I haven’t written about the tech’s industry lobbying efforts since 2010. Many of the names have remained the same, ATT, Verizon, Google, IBM, Yahoo, and Intel have been bribing lobbying the gooberment for a very long time.

However, just 5 years ago, Apple and Facebook were barely in the lobbying racket.  In 2015, they both ranked at the top in lobbying spending.

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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