Qatar, a small, wealthy country in the Middle East, announced its resignation from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on December 3rd.  OPEC is the most powerful oil cartel in the world, holding a near monopoly over the oil industry that allows the group--which now consists of 14 countries, most notably of which are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, and Iran—to exercise nearly complete control of oil prices and production.  Russia also holds an alliance with OPEC, more specifically with Saudi Arabia, and shares an influence on the oil market.

Apple and smartphones will always seem to be connected, almost as Apple is a monopoly for the market. While Apple only holds 17.9% of the smartphone market industry, it is no question that they are the top tier in smartphone manufacturing and production. However, Apple is currently being trialed in a case that claims Apple violated anti-trust laws in affiliation with their app store. Apple controls their app store, the only way to get apps on an iPhone is through Apple’s Appstore. The case, Apple v. Pepper, turns on what happens when iPhone users buy something at the Apple App Store. In allowing the suit, a federal appeals court said the transaction is a simple one in which consumers buy directly from Apple.  According to anti-trust laws, there are statutes developed by the U.S. Government to protect consumers from predatory business practices by ensuring that fair competition exists in an open-market economy. When looking at the definition, we must keep in mind that for Apple to be found liable, there must be clear evidence showing that consumers were harmed in some way. This is where it gets tricky because Apple is such a dominant price chooser for the application industry, that there is no clear idea if they are suppressing consumers or not. Also, it is important to note that Apple has incentives to raising the price of applications, as producers must agree to give 30% of profits in exchange for having permission to sell apps on Apple’s Appstore. While this court case is being decided, it is important to note the impact that this ruling could have on any other competitive monopolistic tech giants such as Facebook, Google, or Amazon.

In a report released by The National Retail Federation, U.S. holiday retail sales in November and December are expected to grow between 4.3 and 4.8 percent over 2017 sales. This will create an approximate spending of around $720 billion. In the United States, record-low unemployment numbers combined with strong consumer confidence has led to these bullish estimates regarding holiday shopping. Deloitte is predicting that U.S. e-commerce sales could reach $134 billion this holiday season.

Imagine a video where a Fortune 500 company's CEO confesses to fraud, and his company’s stock falls by 50%. Only to find out that the video was fake. With the advance of deepfake technology, things like this could occur. Scenarios like this could have huge ramifications and they are not far from our reality, artificial intelligence and deep learning technology is making it easier to make fake videos that look realistic.