Think of your favorite brands: what makes them so special?

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Cisco‘s shares increased by more than 5% after its Q2 fiscal 2016 growth surpassed analysts’ estimates. The company then announced an increase in dividends and share buybacks, exhibiting ample confidence in its future growth potential. Cisco mentioned that even though macroeconomic headwinds are keeping carrier spending below what it wants, the company executed very well during the quarter, which helped it beat its initial guidance on revenues and EPS. Although the company doesn’t expect its growth to accelerate going forward, it is expected to be steady and much better than what the current slump in the market indicates. With increased focus on high-end switches and routers, higher investments in security, data analytics software and cloud-based tools, a string of acquisitions and the evolution of the Internet of things (IoT) domain, Cisco appears to be well-equipped to fend off negative headwinds.

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There have been reports that Samsung’s key rival TSMC has won exclusive rights to manufacture the A10 SoC on the iPhone 7, which is expected to launch later this year.  This could prove to be a major setback for Samsung’s foundry operations, since the company currently holds a chunk of Apple’s orders for the A9 chip on the iPhone 6S series.

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Twitter again disappointed investors with quarterly results that failed to meet expectations on user growth as well as future guidance. The company’s average monthly active users (MAUs) grew 9% year-over-year (y-o-y) to 320 million in Q4 2015 but were flat compared to the prior quarter. In fact, if we exclude users who receive tweets via text messages (SMS Fast Followers), Twitter’s average MAUs actually declined from 307 million in Q3 2015 to 305 million in the fourth quarter. To ward off investor fears of a declining user base, management stated that MAUs had reached Q3 2015 levels by the end of January 2016, showing positive active user growth. Twitter’s struggle to grow its active user base was the primary investor concern through 2015, and that is unlikely to change this year. 

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What makes a cat choose between biting and clawing? This question was originally answered on Quora by Rory Young.

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Tesla provided some very aggressive guidance for 2016.

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Tesla Motors announced its fourth quarter and full year results for the fiscal year 2015. The Silicon Valley based auto maker announced record deliveries for the year of its premium sedan, Model S. New vehicle sales increased by 76% year over year resulting in a $179 million positive cash flow from core operations for the full year. However, on an aggregated basis, the company is still in a loss position, due to ongoing expenditures related to the production of Tesla’s new premium SUV (Model X), the construction of the Giga Factory, the production of the company’s energy storage product (Tesla Powerwall), and other expenditures related to product testing, research and development and testing. Still, there were several pointers towards the success of the Model S, which now holds a 25% market share in the premium sedan market in the U.S. There are early signs, moreover, of strong demand for the Model X.  The company is also set to unveil a prototype of the Model 3, its mass market electric car, on March 31.   Additionally, management posted encouraging guidance for a number of year-ahead metrics, including: 1) an improved gross margin for the Model S; 2) non-GAAP profitability for the full year and GAAP profitibiity for the fourth quarter; 3) a 60%-80% increase in new vehicle sales for 2016; and, 4) a March 31st unvieling of the Model 30 (as noted) with production and deliveries to follow in late.   Below, we take a look this quarter’s results and the outlook for the company going forward.

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What do we mean when we say that a person has a lot of heart? I think we mean that a person has a lot of empathy. Empathy means understanding someone else’s emotions, to the point where one can imagine experiencing what the other person is experiencing.  Empathy isn’t feeling happy or sad for someone, it is feeling happy or sad with someone.

We will think of these AI-based products as emotional participants in our lives because they will be designed for us to think of them that way.

This Valentine’s Day, do a little thought experiment: think of the day in terms of the people whose emotions you will try to manipulate and who will, in turn, try to manipulate your emotions. We think of emotions as a purely human quality, person-to-person. And yet people also think of their pets, products and other inanimate objects they buy as having human emotional values, such as warmth, goodness, coldness, and even evil.  What if our manufactured products could sense and respond to our emotions in a very human way?

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Movie marketers continue to oversaturate viewers with spoiler-filled trailers for films like ‘Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn Of Justice.’

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