Shares of both of these tech companies have surged in recent years.
"We talk about the omniscience of these tech giants, but that omniscience takes a huge step forward again if they are able to predict.
At one level this is unremarkable, for most of us use the products or services of these tech giants every day.
Nina Bhatia, managing director of British Gas' Connected Homes division, said the interest of these tech giants was a good thing.
Such efforts are a response to public distrust of these tech companies following Edward Snowden's revelations about the extent to which governments spy on their citizens.
I've lived through a couple of these tech-booms; my neighbourhood in Toronto – a collection of illegally rented warehouse flats by the railroad tracks – launched dozens of startups, several of which I worked for.
It may be in the interests of these tech companies to think of storage as a generalized online activity to which many applications apply, but there is no need to mystify the consumer.
There will always be magnets of tech investment that draw foreign attention, but every one of these tech hubs started with friends helping friends, and locals helping locals – just look at the lineage of almost every software or hardware company in Silicon Valley.
"Sun making the statement that they should turn profitable in their fiscal fourth quarter provided a little lift in that there's light at the end of the tunnel for some of these tech names," said Owen Fitzpatrick, head of the United States equity group at Bankers Trust Private Banking.
There are now 900-odd of these tech-packed steel columns in greater Paris, each sporting an integrated touch-screen, microphone and loudspeaker for live communication with the scheme's HQ in Vaucresson, outside Paris, and each serving a row of between three and five reserved Autolib' parking spaces and electric charging points.
