Innovation doesn’t always move forward. Sometimes it circles back. For instance, Amazon saved you from having to travel to physical stores, and then circled back and opened physical stores. Starbucks made it so you’d never again have to brew supermarket coffee at home, and then circled back and placed its products in supermarkets so […]
Remember Blackberry? It’s still around—and making headlines. The company just announced its $1.4 billion cash purchase of Cylance, known among other things for AIs that guard against cyberattacks. And in particular, the autonomous car industry has taken notice. A little over a decade ago, you weren’t cool, much less current, unless you were packing a Blackberry phone. […]
If you’re going to produce a drama with an Artificial Intelligence unit as a principal character, here’s a tip: be sure the AI unit turns evil and dangerous. Sweet, empathetic AIs like David in A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Andrew in Bicentennial Man tend to land with a thud. We humans like our AIs scary, thank you very much. We […]
Mergers that don’t make national news might create the impression that bank M&As aren’t frequent. The opposite is true. Last week, the Federal Reserve listed 163 pending financial institution merger or acquisition applications. And that’s just in the United States. But some mergers have caused buzz, like the planned mergers TCF Bank with Chemical Bank, Fifth Third Bancorp* with MB Financial Inc., SunTrust […]
According to a recent story by Steve Cocheo in The Financial Brand, “Millennials, Gen X and even boomers will ditch banks for Amazon.” Hold on. Even boomers? They’re the group that research usually shows as slowest to adopt nascent technology. But Cocheo cites a Novtantas report that … … classified those who have switched banking providers in the last […]