Technology Industry Will Likely Benefit from China Trade Deal, But Uncertainty Remains “Phase One” of a potentially wider trade deal with China will probably bring some relief to U.S. technology providers, but many key questions remain unanswered.  

“The big win for the tech industry achieved through the deal includes stronger Chinese legal protections for American intellectual property. Specifically, China has agreed to stop forcing American companies to transfer technology as a condition of doing business in China. This has been a common way for China to get its hands on US intellectual property, which it has used to develop its own competing products and industries,” writes Marguerite Reardon in CNET. “China also agreed to improve criminal and civil procedures for combatting online patent and copyright infringement. And it has agreed to crack down on the sale of counterfeit goods, another issue that’s plagued the consumer electronic and tech industry among other types of businesses.”

The deal doesn’t address tariffs on $300 billion worth of products, and leaves key structural issues in a state of limbo. But from my perspective, it’s a step in the right direction, and it should help to level the playing field for U.S. tech innovators selling products and services in China.

Analyst: New iPhone Camera Will Scan 3D Objects

New iPhones apparently will have 3D camera sensors, enabling them to perform increasingly important tasks such as creating maps of rooms that can be used to improve augmented reality experiences.

“Barclays’ semiconductor analysts said in a note to investors on Thursday that Apple’s new iPhones, which are expected to launch this fall, will have a new version of Face ID and fancy new 3D camera sensors,” writes Todd Haselton of CNBC. “These can help iPhones create 3D maps of rooms and may also help Apple improve its augmented reality (AR) applications. AR allows Apple and developers to overlay digital objects on top of the real world, but it works best when the iPhone is able to understand the room it’s in.”

Trending in AI/ML: Computer Vision, NLP, Conversational AI and Reinforcement Learning

It’s clear that artificial intelligence is sweeping through the industry at a much faster pace than many of us anticipated. I recommend taking a look at this article from TOPBOTS, which provides a quick “at-a-glance” summary of leading AI trends.

The topline is that technology markets will be strongly influenced by four AI sub-fields in 2020: Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, Conversational AI and Reinforcement Learning. From my perspective, these are key areas to keep our eyes on, since they will likely impact a portion of our technology investment decisions going forward.

India Moving Toward Consumer Control of Credit Data

Here’s an interesting development that’s worth watching: India is taking steps to provide consumers with more control over their financial data. If the plan goes through, it could set a new standard for consumer data transparency.

“India has more than 560 million internet users, all generating data by the terabyte. Soon they’ll have an unprecedented amount of control over their digital financial footprints, with the ability to decide what to share, with whom, and for how long,” writes Saritha Rai in Bloomberg Technology. “India’s top banks are getting ready to roll out a system that gives consumers access to a wide swath of their financial data and allows them to share it instantly. Backed by the Reserve Bank of India, it’s an ambitious approach that combines privacy protection with credit reporting: if it works, it could unlock the credit market for millions of Indians while offering new levels of data security and consumer control.”