Amazon is buying Whole Foods Market

Generally, when you think of shopping, you think of walking into your local grocery store or Target, and picking up your normal shopping list full of stuff to fit into your trunk of your car. However, it is 2017, and if you are looking for something in particular, you are going to go ahead and just buy it online, from most likely, Amazon. The eCommerce giant has been getting much bigger in size over the last few years, and the Amazon Prime two-day shopping guarantee may have changed you to prefer this short wait over waiting or searching for that product at your supermarket. This is really scary when you come to think of it, especially if you were to ask Walmart.

On June 15th of this year, Amazon.com, Inc. put out an offer to buy out the multiple location organic food-based supermarket chain for $13.7 billion dollars. This decision was rumored as far back as April of the same year. Recently, on August 23rd, the Federal Trade Commission approved of the buyout. Amazon announced on the 24th of the same month that the purchase will be final as of the following Monday, which is August 28th. This purchase would give the e-commerce giant over 400 physical locations.

This would not be the first time Amazon has had a brick-and-mortar location. In 2015, Amazon started opening up Amazon Books stores, which are bookstores owned completely owned by them, to sell consumers the latest books, and also showcases the latest Amazon electronics. There are about  10 of these locations currently up and running, with many more, at least 4, coming soon.

Walmart will most likely be affected the most from this acquisition. They have leaded the supermarket game for quite a while now, and they have even already been greatly affected from this. Already, they have tried to make a larger presence with the online market. In an attempt to try to get customers who favors Amazon's choice of free 2 day shipping, they have added a grocery store pickup ability to a majority of their locations.

AmazonFresh is a service which Amazon has had for quite some time now, where you purchase food or other groceries from their respective website, and have it shipped to you. The style of the website is similar to the main Amazon shopping page, but requires a paid membership to the program. This ability, currently, however, is only in selective areas. It is rumored to be available wherever there is a Whole Foods Market location very soon.

Back at the end of 2016, Amazon decided to show us a sneak preview of a project they have been working on called Amazon Go. It is a store designed to have no waiting, lines, and possibly even human workers. A person would simply sign in with their smart device when they walk in, using the Amazon app, then whatever they pick-up would be added to their cart automatically. The type of stuff sold at these locations are very similar to that which Whole Foods already sells. There is a possibility the store chain was bought to test out the Amazon Go-style store.

There are many other different ideas of what Amazon's plans for this chain are. Although it has been confirmed that as of Monday, all of the items at these 400+ locations will be getting a cheaper face lift, so stay tuned in for that. What are your thoughts of the purchase of the chain by our favorite e-commerce company?

BlackBerry KEYone is coming to AT&T

This morning, we have heard from BlackBerry Mobile (TCL), the licencee of BlackBerry-branded devices for the global market, with big news about their BlackBerry KEYone device. TCL and BlackBerry Limited originally showed off this device at the Consumer Electronics Show in Los Vegas, back in January, rumored to be the "Mercury," until it's official announcement ahead of Mobile World Congress the following month.

This device, which is currently available at Sprint, Amazon, and Best Buy (which can be sold compatible with T-Mobile and Verizon's 4G LTE networks), will soon be available at AT&T, the United States' second largest 4G LTE network. This will be available within it's own network coming in early September.

Also, an even bigger announcement for both the cellular device manufacturer and the phone network is that there will be a new complete model of the KEYone available, the BlackBerry KEYone Space Black, which will be made as an AT&T-exclusive device. As far as we currently know, this device will contain the same specs as the original model, just in a different shade, customized by AT&T. From looking at the rear of the device, it almost resembles the Samsung Galaxy S8 Active, another AT&T exclusive model of a global phone. This device is expected to hit shelves on September 1st of this year.

LG G6 Spec Sheet

So, back ahead of Mobile World Congress 2017, many great devices were shown off by many wonderful companies and organizations, one being the new flagship phone, G6, from the famous South Korean technology-giant, LG. These are some of the specs from this excellent device.

Display: 5.7" 1440p (18:9)
Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 821
Cameras: front - 13 MP dual-camera (standard & wide-angle lens) rear - 5 MP
Memory: 32/64 GB with expandable storage
RAM: 4 GB
Ratings: IP68 & MIL-STD 810G
OS: Android 7.0 Nougat with LG UX
Connector Type: USB-C
Battery: 3200 mAh

What happened to Yahoo!?

So, for the last few days, the name, "Yahoo!" has been floating around the public and the their customers. Has anything been happening affecting Yahoo? I'll try to sum up for you what has been happening for the last year with Yahoo, to explain what's going on.

Yahoo has been in the top visited website list for years now, although more recently, has been declining in visits. Verizon Communications has then decided to purchase Yahoo Inc. in order to grow its presence in the global web. In 2015, to help with this, Verizon acquired AOL LLC, the former dominant Internet service provider in the United States.

Mrs. Marissa Mayer, former speaker and top senior executive at Google, helped with the purchase of Yahoo, as chief executive officer of the company. Many rumors have circulated the news that Mayer would resign or be fired from the company after Verizon's acquisition. Mayer declined this, sending out an email saying how she will continue to see Yahoo! grow and develop as a company.

During Verizon's acquisition of Yahoo, the latter addressed publicly that 2 separate hacks had happened to the company's user database. These have occurred at least almost two years beforehand. It was then reported that Verizon would reconsider finishing the acquisition of the Internet company. Despite the data breaches, the acquisition continued, with the price of purchase going down, and Yahoo warning their users to check for any suspicious activity within their accounts. The price went down to $4.48 billion, from $4.8 billion.

Verizon's plan for the company were to merge it within AOL, according to many sources. It was later reported that they will only purchase the core Internet business from Yahoo, the rest will receive a new name. In April of 2017, AOL CEO, Tim Armstrong, posted on Twitter a picture of a new logo, supposedly the one for the new combined company, which will go under the name, "Oath," rather than AOL. He also hinted that the Yahoo! acquisition from Verizon would finish up in the summer of 2017.

In the beginning of June 2017, it was announced that the purchase would finish on the 13th of the month. After the finish of the purchase, the now-former Yahoo Inc's core Internet business was the foundation of Oath Inc. Joining it, AOL became a subsidiary of the newly formed company. Minutes later, despite the email, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer resigned on Tumblr (owned by Yahoo/Oath), and gave her final "Yaho-o-oo!" Tim Armstrong took over as Oath Inc's CEO.

The remainder of the company, although mostly-non-existent at the time, continued to use the YHOO stock ticker symbol for NASDAQ, under the name "Yahoo Inc." as normal, despite it being renamed as "Altaba Inc." on Friday, June 16th. On June 19th, the YHOO symbol was retired for AABA. The name Altaba is based on Alibaba Group. Alibaba Group is just one o f the companies, in which the new Altaba, Inc. is investing in, along with Yahoo! Japan. (Alibaba Group, beforehand, bought out Yahoo! China.) The publicly trading company is classified officially now as a "non-diversified, closed-end management investment company," by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

From Yahoo Inc.'s Board of Directors, Eddy Gartenstein, Richard Hill, Jane Shaw, Jeffery Smith, Maynard Webb Jr., along with former CEO Marissa Mayer and co-founder David Filo resigned. Thomas J. McInerney, remained with the company, and took over for Mayer as CEO of the former Yahoo Inc, then for Altaba Inc. on June 16th. Tor Braham and Catherine Friedman are also remaining, along with Alexi Wellman, who will become Chief Financial and Accounting Officer, DeAnn Fairdield Work will become the Chief Compliance Officer. Also according to the website, Arthur Chong will continue to serve as the company's General Counsel and Secretary.

What do you all think about all of these changes going on with Yahoo, AOL, Verizon, and everything? This is one of the most confusing acquisitions for a technology company. We hope Marissa Mayer well, and that the new Oath Inc and Altaba Inc will continue to be successful.

Notice for Verizon Customers

For Verizon customers, they have decided to get rid of their web services, and instead focus on helping their customers with providing their Internet services and data plans. Due to this they are "teaming up with" AOL, their subsidiary, to provide their customers with web services. This means that customers using "@verizon.net" email addresses must sign into their accounts on a computer and switch to Aol Mail.

This means that Aol will take over for both Verizon and Yahoo (when it is acquired) services at some point in time. For Verizon customers, everything will need to be transferred to Aol within the next 24 days, or the entire email and web services will be deleted.

When transferring over to Aol, it may take a while for everything to successfully transfer over from Verizon, but everything should be transferred successfully. From once you start the transfer, everything is in the hands of Aol. When it is completed, it will ask you for a new password for Aol, which will not affect your My Verizon status.

If you have any questions, I will try my best to answer.

Verizon Webmail (Redirect)

My Guess on the Next Few Years

So, technology has been improving greatly within the past few years, and the mobile world just went to life in 2007, when Apple announced the iPhone, and Android Inc. was working on their project with Google and the now-Open Handset Alliance. Just recently, Microsoft has been slowly coming back to the mobile game, which they entered during the late 1990's. So, what is next to change huge?

So, at the moment, we are having a clash of the old technology, new technology, and standards. This is kind of an awkward transition period, since there are older PC's, new mobile devices, and still standards (pencils and paper) out there together. I think the first thing to change up is the PC market.

So, Google has been making their Chromebook lines the new best thing for schools and organizations, as they are basically laptop-styled Internet clients, with the internal hardware found in many Android phones. Although these are basically crazy ideas at the time, coming from Windows PCs, I do believe that this is what it will come to in a few years when you think of "computer." Although, for those of us who use our computers for more than just the Internet, I do not believe Windows will be going anywhere. I believe that Windows will make another Chromebook alternative, and be the major operating system for anything technology, as that was their hope for Windows 10.

Next, I believe that mobile devices will turn to be more capable of becoming your PC. Although this may seem odd to us, but I believe that basically mobile devices and computers will basically switch places in the chart of which is the most powerful. Microsoft has been trying to do this for quite some time now, and recently was able to run full Windows 10 on a unknown device running over a mobile processor. This may allow for us to emulate our current applications to mobile devices. Soon, this may just be used for backwards compatibility, as newer applications may be make specifically for the emulators. Due to this, Linux may grow more, such as with Android, within the mobile world within the next few years.

Then, we have the standards. This is the stuff that we have always been used to, like paper, pencils, and physical items. Unfortunately, in a few years, there is a possibility that these, to us, everyday items may just become technology accessories. This is due to that with more technology, what were used to before may no longer be popular. However, this doubtfully will throw these items immediately extinct, although this may cause the companies producing and selling these items to make risks, such as merging with competition or going out of business. An example of this is the merge of Office Depot and OfficeMax (Staples was also originally in this deal to buy out both of them).

Finally, for the devices that help convert modern technologies to standards and back. These are like printers, fax machines, landlines, and so on. It is predicted that these devices will continue to lose sales, and eventually become almost extinct, unless it becomes known as a new type of device later on. For example, printers may stop use in households, and the files then could stay electronic. This would cause a huge chain reaction within household products worldwide within decades.

In the way technology is going now, this is just a sneak peek at what we have to expect within the coming years of technology. These predictions still have over half a chance of being completely inaccurate, although only time can tell whether it is or isn't accurate.

Who's Kodak?

Kodak was a camera company, who almost had a monopoly on cameras on any type for over 45 years! They are the inventors of the digital camera, founded by George Eastman. The Eastman Kodak company may have slightly dodged going out of business 5 years ago, by selling a majority of the business', which they have still not re-entered, but they are planning a comeback, not to cameras, but to phones.

So, this isn't the work of Kodak's manufacturing techniques or anything, but of Bullitt Group, who are rugged phone manufacturers from  the United Kingdom. They are the ones who manufactured CAT's phones. It is so far unsure of if Kodak licensed their product out, or if this is all from Bullitt.

We are to believe the camera on this device will top the one's Nokia has been known for, and since the both of them, Samsung's. The phone is focused on taking steady professional photos, running Android as a smartphone, but it is a camera first, according to Kodak Phones.

So, will this be the rise above Canon's cameras, and declare Kodak as the biggest camera company once-more, because of a "smart camera"? No, of course not, but it would be a good comeback for Kodak to get back into the swing of things, especially in a 2016 market. Many believe that Kodak suffered bankruptcy, and went out of business, and that the name was bought out. That didn't happen, as they a majority of their markets, including cameras, online photo-books, printers, and movie productions, were sold out.

So, how did they "disappear"? Kodak tried to become a monopoly on the home, by entering many markets, but was unable to focus around the digital camera market, which they themselves have created. When they tried to save the company, by entering the printer business, the entire company collapsed.

We just have to wait and see whether this can save the name of Kodak or not. Their smartphone, the Kodak EKTRA, is expected to release later on in this week of December 5th, 2016.