Good morning, Data Sheet readers. Robots are obsoleting traditional job skills more quickly than ever. Here’s how humans can stay ahead forever. Plus, Cisco is shedding a nonessential consumer business, and Apple is trimming capital spending. Look for Amazon’s latest financial update after the stock market close. Enjoy your Thursday!
TOP OF MIND
Robots automate. But only humans can lead. Schools across the United States are slashing art, music and humanities subjects to beef up science, technology and mathematics curriculum. Yet, future generations need a balance of both to excel.
"We want to follow human leaders, even if a computer could say all the right words, which is not an implausible prospect. ... To look into someone's eyes—that turns out to be, metaphorically and quite often literally, the key to high-value work in the coming economy," writes Fortune senior editor-at-large Geoff Colvin in his new book out in August, Humans are Underrated.
The human advantage? The three skills you need to thrive are outlined in an excerpt of Colvin's book.
TRENDING
Cisco is ditching its set-top television business for $600 million, to invest more in cloud video technologies and services.
Apple will cut almost $1 billion of capital spending this year for data centers, manufacturing equipment and retail stores.
Oracle wants to update its Java patent lawsuit against Google. The Supreme Court last month refused to weigh in, allowing the dispute to proceed.
Big job cuts at Qualcomm. The chipmaker is idling 15% of its workforce, as management considers a plan to split up the company.
New York blinks, delays vote. A measure that could reduce the presence of Uber and other ride-sharing companies desired by taxi companies, reviled by celebrities.
EMC's CEO stands firm against breakup. Despite declining profits, Joe Tucci still thinks spinning off VMware is "not a good idea."
Should Twitter start naming names? Herbalife is pressuring the company to reveal the identity of a particularly vicious critic.
THE DOWNLOAD
The 12 disruptive technologies you need to know
People pay plenty of money for consulting giants to help them figure out which technology trends are fads and which will stick. You could go that route, or get the same thing from the McKinsey Global Institute’s in-house think-tank for the cost of a new book. No Ordinary Disruption: The Four Global Forces Breaking All the Trends, was written by McKinsey directors Richard Dobbs, James Manyika, and Jonathan Woetzel, and offers insight into which developments will have the greatest impact on the business world in coming decades. Fortune's Anne VanderMey recaps their list of the “Disruptive Dozen”—the technologies the group believes have the greatest potential to remake today’s business landscape.
ALSO WORTH SHARING
ADP speaks out on Zenefits dispute, decries its "campaign of misinformation."
Microsoft gets chatty. It just released an iPhone app called Send meant for "brief, snappy communications" between co-workers.
By the way, did you realize its tablet sales are up 64% this fiscal year?
What Verizon, AT&T and Twitter have in common. They are among the latest companies proactively supporting an emerging data center technology called containers. Also on board: HP, IBM and Goldman Sachs.
New perk for catching a ride with Lyft: Starbucks loyalty points.
Watching the Watch. Apple didn't break out sales of its latest gadget, sending analysts into a tizzy. CEO Tim Cook dropped enough hints to inspire some calculated guesses—many of them lower than original estimates. Now, the company is trying to convince more women to buy them.
Plus, the experience of this widely followed journalist could be a PR nightmare for Apple Music.
What does soccer great David Beckham know that you don't? He's an investor in MyEye, an emerging rival to video streaming apps from Meerkat and Periscope.
This lead is better than that one. Leadspace, a marketing analytics startup fronted by the former CMO of Salesforce and Skype, just raised another $18 million.
Dropbox means business. Just one day after naming a new global sales chief, the company revealed its acquisition of Clementine, an enterprise collaboration app.
Good in a crisis. BlackBerry continues its diversification into software with the buyout of AtHoc, a specialist in emergency communications.
Etsy bucks the diversity trend—86% of its sellers are female.
MakerBot just doubled its production capacity, with a new printer plant in Brooklyn.
MY FORTUNE BOOKMARKS
Microsoft makes it easier to erase traces of revenge porn by Barb Darrow
Apple's job just got a lot harder by Shawn Tully
How Bosch and TomTom are capitalizing on the driverless car movement by Kirsten Korosec
Don't travel anywhere without these 10 apps by Christopher Elliott
Silicon Valley startups go farming by Katie Fehrenbacher
ONE MORE THING
Sorry Carly. HP's current CEO won't campaign for a former one. Meg Whitman is officially fundraising for Chris Christie.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
LinuxCon North America: All about open source. (Aug. 17 - 19; Seattle)
SuccessConnect: Simplify the way the world works. (Aug. 10 - 12; Las Vegas)
VMworld: The virtualization ecosystem. (Aug. 30 – Sept. 3, 2015; San Francisco)
Gartner Customer 360 Summit: Strategies for digital engagement. (Sept. 9 - 11; San Diego)
Dreamforce: The Salesforce community. (Sept. 15 - 18; San Francisco)
.conf2015: Splunk's "get your data on" gathering. (Sept. 21 - 24; Las Vegas)
Cassandra Summit: Largest gathering of Cassandra database developers. (Sept. 22 - 24; San Francisco)
AppSec USA 2015: Application security principles. (Sept. 22 - 25; San Francisco)
BoxWorks 2015: Cloud collaboration solutions. (Sept. 28 - 30; San Francisco)
Workday Rising: Meet and share. (Sept. 28 - Oct. 1; Las Vegas)
HP Engage: Big data, big engagement. (Oct. 4 - 6; San Diego)
Gartner Symposium ITxpo: CIOs and senior IT executives. (Oct. 4 - 8; Orlando, Florida)
I Love APIs 2015: Apigee's annual conference. (Oct. 12 - 14; San Jose, California)
Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing: World's largest gather of women technologists. (Oct. 14 - 16; Houston)
DevOps Enterprise Summit: Lean principles meet technology management. (Oct. 19 - 21; San Francisco)
CX San Francisco: Forrester's forum for customer experience professionals. (Oct. 22 - 23)
Oracle OpenWorld: Customer and partner conference. (Oct. 25 - 29; San Francisco)
TBM Conference 2015: Manage IT like a business. (Oct. 26 - 29; Chicago)
eBusiness Chicago: eBusiness and channel strategy. (Oct. 29 - 30)
QuickBooks Connect: SMBs, entrepreneurs, accountants and developers. (Nov. 2 - 4; San Jose, California)
CMO+CIO: Forrester's summit on strategy collaboration. (Nov. 2 - 4; Sarasota, Florida)
Oktane15: Identity management trends. (Nov. 2 - 4; Las Vegas)
FutureStack: Define your future with New Relic. (Nov. 11 - 13; San Francisco)
