By Timothy Renshaw
The shot to the heart of government and sleepy homeland security in Canada from the fatal October 22 Parliament Hill gun battle likewise sent shockwaves through the TSX.
However, the market also took it on the chin from falling resource prices, especially oil, which hit a two-year low on concerns over lower demand and oversupply.
File the rest of this week’s topics under core business appeal as Apple posted fiscal 2014 fourth-quarter results that “demolished” “smashed through” forecasts or otherwise surprised analysts and beat the street with $US$42.1 billion in revenue, thereby exceeding analysts’ expectations by US$2 billion and change.
The results compare with US$37.5 billion in revenue for fiscal 2013’s fourth quarter.
Apple’s entry into the mobile payments industry via Apple Pay is likewise being hailed as a potential game-changer in the oft-hyped pay via your mobile device sector.
But as with any Apple event and/or announcement, it all was not all Mozart and maypole dancing for the world’s reigning tech giant.
Tongues clucked over the continued decline in iPad sales, which dropped 6% from the previous quarter to 12.3 million compared with the 13 million expected by analysts. The erosion of iPad sales could be attributed to the company’s successful launch of its iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus; it could also be a factor in keeping Apple from running the table in every state as America’s favourite stock.
Contrarian states like Wyoming and North Dakota prefer GE and Bank of America, respectively.
But it was not just a big week in the tech world for Apple. Once arch-rival Microsoft – the anti-Christ to original Appleheads – rolled out a new family of cloud-computing Azure data appliances.
Meanwhile, the masses appear to be increasingly falling under the spell of online video entertainment as an Adobe report found that 38.2 billion free videos were consumed online in 2014’s second quarter, a 43% jump over the same quarter in 2013. The Adobe report added that almost three-fifths of the videos were viewed on smartphones.
And neither is live entertainment immune to global techno-trends.
The acting fraternity would be well advised to do more than play the part of nervous onlookers over news that robots are now securing roles in major productions, including the lead in a new Japanese-French production of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis.
True, we’ve had robots in leading roles before, but they were still flesh and blood. (Arnold, is that you?)
What’s next? Robot writers?
