Welcome to the Tech Mem Ride Home for Monday, April 16, 2018. Today the U.S. punishes a Chinese

cell phone maker.

Two interesting acquisitions, General Assembly and Earn.com.

App Store earnings, original streaming content numbers, and Android apps might be collecting data from

children. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. The United States Commerce Department today announced that it is officially banning U.S. companies

from selling components to Chinese Telecom Maker ZTE Corp for seven years after ZTE

allegedly provided false statements to US officials about shipping technology

to Iran and North Korea. This could severely hamper ZTE's

operations as American companies apparently provide 25 to 30% of the components used in ZTE's devices.

Last year, ZTE pled guilty in federal court

to conspiring to violate US sanctions surrounding Iran and North Korea.

Eric Hirschhorn, a former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce, told Reuters, quote,

if the company is not able to resolve it, they may very well be put out of business by this.

Many banks and companies, even outside the U.S. are not going to want to deal with them."

Tech blogger Jeff Nolan tweeted,

This is huge.

ZTE has $16 billion in revenue that depends on components manufactured by U. by US companies.

Tech analyst Avi Greengart tweeted,

Whoa!

Unless ZTE can somehow prove these assertions wrong,

it looks like the US government just killed ZTE's handset business.

Among the U.S. companies that supply parts to ZTE are Qualcomm and Dolby.

...