The Wall Street Journal - 07.04.2020

B4| Tuesday, April 7, 2020 **** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

TECHNOLOGY WSJ.com/Tech

Skip Credit Cards,

Speed Up Checkout

Annoyed about handing out

your credit-card number over

and over again? Set up one or

two online services that you

can trust, to reduce the expo-

sure of sensitive information

like your credit card and ad-

dress.

PayPal:One big reason

to use the service: Purchases

made through PayPal are pro-

tected. If an item is damaged

during shipping, you can open

a reimbursement claim.

But before you start shop-

ping, enable two-factor authen-

tication and, for the fastest

checkout, turn on One Touch,

which lets you skip the user-

name-and-password dance. It

should only be enabled for per-

sonal—not shared—devices.

Apple Pay:Apple’s pay-

ment system works in Safari

on Mac and iOS. If you already

use Apple Pay on your phone,

it’s easy to set up on your

Mac. Go to Wallet & Pay in

System Preferences, where

you’ll be prompted to enter

your iCloud credentials.

Shopify:You’ve probably

used this e-commerce software

without realizing it—over one

million merchants are powered

by Shopify. When you check

out from a Shopify store, you

can choose to save your infor-

mation. Next time, Shopify will

send you a verification code via

text and auto-populate the ap-

propriate fields. (Just make

sure you have a PIN protecting

your mobile account.) You can

opt out at any time.

ping small.

Find in-demand items—or

the best alternatives. While

hand sanitizer and other

sought-after products remain

limited on Amazon, they can

be found elsewhere.

Many businesses are mak-

ing their own sanitizers.

Search “[your state] distillery

sanitizer” to see what’s near

you. Hanson of Sonoma and

Prohibition Distillery are two

examples in my area.

Medical masks are hard to

come by these days. But now

they’re encouraged while

you’re in public. You’ll likely

need to buy a handmade one

or make your own. Many Etsy

shops are selling nonmedical

fabric masks. Get faster ship-

ping by filtering the shop lo-

cation by your state.

Locate small businesses

in your city. Give and Get

Local by Square and Ameri-

can Express’s Shop Small

show establishments near

you. Rally for Restaurants,

Save Our Faves, and Support

Local list eateries in your

town. Many cities have an Of-

fice of Small Business or

Chamber of Commerce with

comprehensive lists of local

merchants.

Need a book?Buy titles

from independent bookstores

online using Indiebound or

Bookshop. If you prefer e-

books, Hummingbird and

Kobo sell copies for partici-

pating booksellers. If you pre-

fer audiobooks, Libro.fm

splits the profits with book-

set up the network and is test-

ing different suppliers’ equip-

ment in a lab, a BMW spokes-

man said.

BMW didn’t respond to a

question about whether the

network will use Huawei equip-

ment and m3connect declined

to comment on whether it will

use Huawei products.

Local 5G networks come

with other security benefits,

Mr. Popovski said. Companies

can keep a close eye on activity

crossing private networks, he

said. “Any intruder in the area

will be detected simply because

you own it,” he said. “It’s the

same as if you bought a parking

place and see someone else

park there.”

Lufthansa’s maintenance

subsidiary, Lufthansa Technik

AG, in February said it set up a

private 5G network operated by

Vodafone Group PLC, using

Nokia Oyj equipment, for re-

mote engine inspection and re-

mote 3-D cabin design. Luf-

manager of political affairs at

the German Electrical and Elec-

tronic Manufacturers’ Associa-

tion.

The U.S. government consid-

ers Huawei a national-security

threat and claims the company

could use its products to spy on

behalf of the Chinese govern-

ment. Huawei has denied the

claims.

Mobile carriers choose

where to buy network equip-

ment, and their corporate cus-

tomers and consumers must ac-

cept those decisions or switch

carriers. By building their own

5G networks, industrial compa-

nies can make their own sup-

plier decisions.

Mr. Berger of Mugler said

the company will use equip-

ment from several suppliers,

but declined to name them.

BMW bought spectrum for a

private 5G network at one of its

sites in Bavaria. M3connect

GmbH, a German telecommuni-

cations software company, will

ploy 5G networks without a

telecom operator, and can

choose the suppliers that pro-

vide equipment. Britain started

a similar process last year to

sell licenses for companies’ 5G

networks. The U.S. hasn’t

opened up applications for 5G

spectrum licenses to industrial

companies.

A spokesman for the German

Federal Network Agency said

the agency decided to allow

private 5G networks in part be-

cause of the potential benefits

for industrial companies. Com-

panies have so far paid be-

tween around €1,000 and €1

million for the licenses, de-

pending on the bandwidth and

the size of the area that will be

covered, he said.

Discussions about potential

cybersecurity weakness in

equipment from Huawei Tech-

nologies Co. sparked compa-

nies’ interest in running their

connections independently, said

Jochen Reinschmidt, senior

is stored. We don’t have any ex-

ternal influences,” said Fabian

Berger, a board member ofMu-

glerAG, a company based in

Oberlungwitz, eastern Germany,

that provides enterprise tele-

coms services. Mugler is set-

ting up a local 5G network that

will span two office buildings

and two fabrication-and-logis-

tics facilities across 40,000-

square meters. Mugler may

save money by building its own

5G network rather than using a

public network, Mr. Berger

said.

In the U.S.,WalmartInc. is

in talks to test a 5G network

provided by Verizon Communi-

cations Inc., The Wall Street

Journal reported last month.

The network would support

new digital health services in

Walmart stores. Verizon and

other U.S. carriers are setting

up the networks in some cities

and sports arenas.

German manufacturers and

other industrial firms can de-

gauge the effectiveness of ads by

measuring foot traffic, the

merger with Factual will build on

its ad-targeting capabilities, ex-

ecutives said.

Factual’s location software

helps marketers home in on cus-

tomer segments, for instance,

people who have visited certain

car dealerships in the last 30

days. Factual or Foursquare’s

data is already integrated into

the digital advertising platforms

of companies that include Oracle

Corp. and Roku Inc.

Foursquare already allows ad-

vertisers to target different audi-

ence groups, but Factual’s under-

lying data set is better, said

Foursquare Chief Executive Da-

vid Shim.

Foursquare, which is based in

New York, and Factual, based in

Los Angeles, together generated

more than $150 million in reve-

nue last year, executives said.

Foursquare Labs Inc. is
merging with yet another loca-
tion-focused startup, Factual
Inc., in an all-stock deal, the
companies said.
The financial terms of the
deal weren’t disclosed. The an-
nouncement on Monday came
less than a year after Foursquare
bought Placed, another purveyor
of location data and software,
from Snap Inc.
Foursquare, which first
gained fame for an app that al-
lowed people to share their loca-
tion with friends, pivoted in re-
cent years to providing location
data and software to businesses
including marketers and ad
agencies, helping them see how
well their ads steered people to
their stores and restaurants.
While the Placed deal im-
proved Foursquare’s ability to

BYSAHILPATEL

Two Providers

Of Location Data

Merge in Stock Deal

thansa Technik said the

network increases security and

provides more configuration

options, allowing the company

to adapt the bandwidth for up-

loads and downloads for spe-

cific projects.

Chemicals firm BASF is dis-

cussing plans to build its local

5G network, and aims to decide

by the end of the year which

network operators and equip-

ment suppliers will manage it,

a spokeswoman for the com-

pany said. The network will be

used for BASF’s production fa-

cilities and logistics, she added.

Germany’s industrial giants

can protect valuable informa-

tion by maintaining control

over operational data and de-

ciding where it is stored, said

Gabriel Brown, a principal ana-

lyst at Informa PLC’s research

business, Heavy Reading. Com-

panies operating a local 5G net-

work choose whether to store

data in their own data centers

or in the cloud, for example.

More reliable connections at

industrial production sites are

another potential benefit. A

Volkswagen spokesman said

the company wants to buy a li-

cense for a local 5G network,

and that a dedicated network is

the only way to guarantee

transmissions will be interfer-

ence-free.

Volkswagen wants to use 5G

for bandwidth-intensive indus-

trial tasks such as managing

the 5,000 internet-connected

robots in its Wolfsburg, Ger-

many, plant. In the future, the

auto maker will need 5G to co-

ordinate robots and driverless

cars in production sites and

transmit volumes of data in

real time, the spokesman said.

The company would prefer to

operate the network itself, and

is in the process of hiring mo-

bile-technology experts, the

spokesman said.

German car makers, chemi-
cal companies and other indus-
trial firms are taking steps to-
ward creating their own private
5G networks, leapfrogging Ger-
many’s telecommunications
carriers,
which ha-
ven’t yet de-
ployed the superfast networks
for widespread commercial use.
BMW AG, Robert Bosch
GmbH,VolkswagenAG,BASF
SE andDeutsche LufthansaAG
are among the companies that
have applied to set up local 5G
networks in recent months af-
ter Germany’s network regula-
tor began accepting applica-
tions for the radio spectrum
last November. So far, 33 com-
panies have bought licenses, a
spokesman for the regulator
said.
Private 5G networks are es-
pecially useful for industrial ap-
plications such as operating ro-
bots and driverless vehicles
inside factories, which need
fast, reliable connections that
can perform critical tasks in
real time, experts say.
“You wouldn’t be comfort-
able putting your industrial ap-
plications on a Wi-Fi network
because there’s no reliability,”
said Petar Popovski, a professor
of wireless connectivity at Aal-
borg University in Denmark.
Seconds-long delays might not
matter in an office, but being
able to control precisely when a
heavy machine processes mate-
rials can make a big difference
to an industrial company.
The private networks will
help strengthen cybersecurity,
the companies say, because
they will be able to configure
the networks to fit their needs,
use custom security features
such as encryption and avoid
sharing bandwidth with other
firms.
“We decide where the data

BYCATHERINESTUPP

German Firms Plan to Use Their Own 5G

Industrial companies

apply for licenses for

private networks to be

used in critical tasks

A conveyor vehicle works with 5G technology at an event booth of Robert Bosch GmbH, which is applied to set up a local network.

FRISO GENTSCH/DPA/ZUMA PRESS

CYBERSECURITY

PRO

CYBERSECURITY

wsj.com/pro/cybersecurity

WSJ

intricately knitted into the

global marketplace as both

manufacturer and supplier.

The company reports full re-

sults later this month.

On Tuesday, Samsung esti-

mated an operating profit of

6.4 trillion South Korean won

($5.2 billion), compared with

6.23 trillion won at the same

time last year. The South Ko-

rean electronics maker also

said it expects to report 55

trillion won in revenue, com-

pared with 52.39 trillion won

for the prior year’s quarter.

Analysts had forecast about

6.2 trillion won in operating

profit and 55.6 trillion won in

revenue, according to esti-

mates gathered by S&P Global

Market Intelligence. The com-

pany’s expected drop in smart-

phone sales was padded some-

what by an expected

resurgence in memory-chip

demand, which had been ex-

pected to rally after a slump

throughout 2019.

Samsung ElectronicsCo.
provided some hope that the
business slowdown spurred by
the coronavirus pandemic
might only moderately dent
one of the world’s largest
technology companies, deliver-
ing a profit forecast above an-
alysts’ expectations Tuesday.
The South Korean com-
pany’s projected 2.7% rise in
first-quarter operating profit
provides one of the first cor-
porate indicators of how large
an impact the coronavirus will
have on the global technology
market and the broader econ-
omy.
The global shift to remote
working lifted demand for
Samsung-made memory chips
that power data centers and
cloud computing, analysts say.
Samsung, the world’s larg-
est smartphone and memory-
chip maker, acts as an indus-
try bellwether because it is

BYELIZABETHKOH

Samsung Says Profit

To Top Expectations

PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY|By Nicole Nguyen

SomeOnlineRetailersOut-AmazonAmazon

I ordered

some gifts—a

hand salve,

tea, soap and

a cookbook—

from a Wash-

ington, D.C., boutique on

March 19. My friend’s birth-

day wasn’t for another week

and I figured the package

could take a while. But it ar-

rived on her New York door-

step two days later. I was

stunned. The same cookbook

onAmazonis currently de-

layed until late April.

Massive order volume,

fueled by the coronavirus cri-

sis, is causing a logistics

backlog at Amazon. Shoppers

accustomed to receiving

packages in a matter of

days—the main perk of the

$120-a-year Prime member-

ship—are now waiting for up

to a month for items like lap-

top chargers and coffee mak-

ers. And for a good reason:

Amazon is prioritizing essen-

tial items such as medical

supplies.

In a statement, an Amazon

spokeswoman said the com-

pany is focusing on those es-

sential items, and “selectively

bringing more products” into

its fulfillment centers.

Meanwhile, retailers with

closed bricks-and-mortar

spaces are rivaling, and

sometimes even beating, the

e-commerce giant on ship-

ping times. “We’re nimble

and can implement changes

quickly without any big cor-

porate wheels to turn,” said

Amanda McClements, who

owns Salt and Sundry, the

shop that shipped my pack-

age with Prime-like speed.

Still, Ms. McClements, who

has 40 employees across four

locations, had to reduce pay

for full-time staff and cut

hours for part-time workers.

We’re often reluctant to

venture away from Amazon.

We’re understandably wary

of handing out our credit-

card number to retailers

we’ve never ordered from be-

fore.

But express checkout soft-

ware has made online pur-

chasing more secure and con-

venient.

Here’s how to find what

you’re looking for while shop-

stores. Try searching “[prod-

uct name] near me” in Google

Maps. A successful search for

puzzles yielded Chronicle

Books, a San Francisco pub-

lisher with many in-stock op-

tions. Just be wary of the

fake listings on the platform.

For everything you can’t

find locally, useGoogle

Shopping.The site scours

listings from megastores like

Best Buy, as well as smaller

boutiques online. It helped

me track down a pair of hair

clippers at Target, estimated

to arrive in one week. The

“Available Nearby” filter is

also handy.

Try ordering directly

from the manufacturer.A

recent win: On Amazon, a

Belkin surge protector was

delayed for weeks, while Bel-

kin’s own website offered

free two-day shipping for the

same product.

Consider using a virtual

credit-card number. Both

Capital One and Citi offer sin-

gle-use card digits as a safety

feature. Privacy.com can also

create up to 12 virtual cards a

month for you—but it can

only link to your debit card,

so you can’t take advantage

of credit-card perks.

Use your password man-

ager to auto-fill informa-

tion. LastPass, Dashlane, and

1Password all help fill in your

address and other info on

websites.

Because password manag-

ers have strict security mea-

sures (like requiring a pass-

word or biometric

confirmation when you open

the app), it’s safer than let-

ting your browser fill out the

same information.

Track your deliveries. Ar-

rive is a free iOS and Android

app by Shopify that automat-

ically pulls order information

from your email and sends

you notifications about its

progress. (Just know,

Shopify’s privacy policy says

it could use this data to as-

sist with marketing.)

If you don’t want to grant

access to your email, Deliver-

ies is a beautiful $5 iOS-only

app, made by a small Michi-

gan-based software company,

that allows you to add orders

manually.

A cookbook ordered from Salt and Sundry arrived in a few days.

SALT AND SUNDRY