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DOGE is up after Gemini and eToro said they would add the cryptocurrency to their trading platforms. FYI: Wealthsimple's investment platform and Coinbase don't support dogecoin.
- Canada posted a $1.1 billion trade deficit, the highest since 2019, as it relies on foreign imports to meet demands.
- Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen hints that interest rates may soon increase in the U.S.
May 05, 2021
📈Pandemic gainz
Good morning. There's so many juicy details coming out of the Epic vs. Apple trial that we can hardly keep up. Who do you think will come out on top?
Markets
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TSX | 19188.03 | -0.13% |
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S&P 500 | 4164.66 | -0.67% |
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DOW | 34133.03 | 0.06% |
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NASDAQ | 13633.50 | -1.88% |
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Gold | 1799.30 | -0.7% |
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Oil | 66.15 | 2.57% |
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Dollar | 0.81 | -0.21% |
- 14,219,688 doses have been administered in Canada, as of writing. 34.4% of Canadians have received at least one dose, 3% of Canadians are fully vaccinated, 85% of doses delivered have been administered.
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Percent of population who have received at least one dose: Israel: 62.5%, U.K: 51%, U.S: 44.1%, Canada: 34.4%, E.U: 24.9%.
- Here's why some people experience side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine and others don't.
- Canada is getting one million vaccine doses from Moderna today, a week earlier than expected.
- Ontario plans to continue remote learning into next year.
The panini is on Pfizer’s side. Pfizer made US-$14.6 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2021, up US-$4 billion from this time in 2020.
- The pharma giant said its COVID-19 vaccine that it developed with BioNTech generated US-$3.5 billion in revenues, about a quarter of all sales.
Pandemic Profits: Pfizer predicts US-$26 billion in COVID-19 vax sales this year, nearly double their previous expectation of US-$15 billion.
- The company wants to turn its COVID-19 vaccine into a long-term business by developing new formulas that are easier to store and ones that can fend off variants.
- Pfizer and BioNTech filed an application to get their vaccine FDA-approved that would let them market the vaccine to people.
- Canada’s deal with Pfizer will get us up to 125 million booster doses by 2024 with the option to buy an extra 60 million doses in 2024.
Patent Pending: But while Pfizer had a great quarter, the threat of a suspension of intellectual property (IP) rights on the COVID-19 vaccine looms.
- Progressive activists are pressuring the government to remove intellectual property rights on the vaccine so less developed countries can produce it without Pfizer’s involvement.
- The move would significantly expand production, but industry experts warn it could set a terrible precedent for the pharma sector that relies on IP rights to justify high R&D costs.
Zoom out: Pfizer’s latest round of profits may add ammunition to the push to suspend intellectual property rights considering how much the company’s already made off the vaccine.
Toronto-based startup Cohere launched yesterday with backing from Canada’s biggest tech leaders, according to the Globe.
- Geoffrey Hinton (aka the godfather of deep learning), Uber ATG’s Raquel Urtasun, Apple’s head of AI Ian Goodfellow are a few of the early investors.
What’s Cohere? Founded in 2019, Cohere developed an API—prewritten code that acts as a middleman between two applications—that lets companies access their machine learning models for practical uses.
- These models read and analyze “billions of web pages” to learn the meaning and intent of words, so that their software can talk to people in a natural, non-robotic way.
Google implements this kind of software to write predictive text in Gmail, but that tech is hard for smaller companies to access.
- That’s where Cohere comes in: they want to enable people with the tools to access algorithms that can help them run their businesses more efficiently.
- For example, Cohere can be implemented on companies' websites to chat with customers.
What’s next? Cohere has partnered up with 3 companies, including Toronto-based chatbot service Ada Support, and said it will roll out its tech to general users starting this week.
Carbon emissions, that is. UK-based Arrival will work with Uber to build electric vehicles (EVs) that ride-hailing drivers around the world can use.
- Uber hopes to deliver on its promise that all of its vehicles will be electric by 2025 in London and by 2030 in Canada, the U.S., and Europe.
- The cars aren’t exclusive to Uber: other ride-hailing drivers will also be able to purchase the EVs.
What’s Arrival? Arrival uses sustainable materials and manufactures EVs in ‘microfactories’ that reduce its overall carbon footprint.
- It had a US-$13 billion valuation when it went public on the Nasdaq via a SPAC (it’s been a minute since we’ve used our favourite word) merger, making it the largest tech listing to come out of the UK.
- Their products include an all electric van and bus that are to go into production in 2022.
So far, Uber has raised US-$188 million to help their drivers upgrade to EVs, including future ones from Arrival, in London.
- Arrival’s EVs can drive up to 50,000 km per year, around 40,000 km more than what you would get from a regular car.
- The Arrival car is expected to go into production in Q4 2023.
Big picture: EVs are more expensive for ride-hailing companies to purchase, but they’re a better long-term investment because they’re easier for drivers to maintain and have a smaller carbon footprint than gas-guzzling cars.
Melinda Gates won’t have to hide her Macbook anymore. Bill and Melinda Gates announced plans to divorce after 27 years of marriage on Monday.
- The settlement from their divorce could be the largest on record, according to Forbes.
- The two oversee some US-$146 billion in assets.
Bill and Melinda signed a separation contract (that’s different from a prenup) before they got married, but it’s unclear how things will be split.
- Bill Gates is the 4th richest person in the world and his largest asset, Cascade Investment, is a holding company that invests in companies like Canadian National Railway.
- They own a number of properties, cars, and planes together.
That’s… odd: One of the stranger things we found researching this story was that Bill and Melinda had a marriage contract which specifically permitted Bill to vacation every year with his ex-girlfriend.
Unusual contractual terms aside, there’s serious money at stake here. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that the two founded in 2000 is worth over US-$51 billion, making it the 2nd wealthiest foundation in the world.
- The Gateses said they will continue working on the foundation together as chairs.
Fortnite-maker Epic Games and Apple are battling it out in court over cuts the tech giant makes from its App Store.
- The trial is expected to last several weeks.
- Apple CEO Tim Cook will testify for the first time ever (date TBD).
Refresher: Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has long had an issue with app stores, and Apple’s in particular, that take up to a 30% cut through in-app purchases. Epic filed a formal lawsuit against Apple last August.
The trial had a chaotic start when random people called into the court’s conference line to chime in about the case (we hear there was a lot of cursing), until the court figured out how to mute people.
- Epic said Apple shouldn’t be allowed to control what apps do or don’t appear on its app store.
- Apple argued that letting iOS users download third-party app stores would expose them to security risks and Epic should have to pay a cut to get its games in front of millions of iOS users.
Yesterday, we learned that Sweeney emailed Apple CEO Tim Cook in 2015 suggesting iPhones should allow other app stores on it.
- Cook forwarded the email to an Apple exec basically saying ‘who dis?’
- Reps from Xbox, Nvidia, and Down Dog (a popular yoga iPhone app) also took the stand.
Zoom out: Apple made US-$64 billion from their App Store, a chunk of their fastest-growing revenue stream, in 2020. The outcome of this trial would not only upend how the App Store is run but would put a major dent in Apple’s profits.
- Ford stops production at two plants due to the ongoing global chip (the Doritos are safe) shortage.
- The SEC didn't find Volkswagen's April Fools prank funny.
- Toronto-based startup Willful partners with Allstate Canada.
- The U.S. wants in on Europe's plan to curb China's economic powers.
- BioNTech founders predict the pandemic will last until mid-2022.
- Canadian Imperial Oil's shareholders struck down a zero-emissions target.
- I've tried and failed to describe cheugy. It's one of those terms that's easier to visualize than to articulate.
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This Tik Tok creator invented a new cryptocurrency, and admits he has no clue what he's doing.
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Blob-looking furniture is the cool new thing.
- PSA for plant parents: the peat used to grow houseplants is bad for the environment.
- How fish sticks conquered the world.