Farhad Manjoo visited Iowa State Campus Wednesday night to give a lecture, despite his official invitation to the new iPad release event which was the same night. “Apple release events to tech press are like the Superbowl to sports fans,” Farhad said. Farhad gave a lecture called The War between Apple, Facebook, Google, and Amazon. Its a war between all these companies and the battle ground is you.

Apple is planning in the close future for everyone to own a smart phone and a their own tablet. These technologies are being called the post PC. They are looking to replace laptops and PC’s.

Amazon is hoping to change behavior shopping. “People usually only shop online if they can’t find the product offline,” Farhad said. Amazon wants to make them the only place people think to buy stuff.

Google has made big moves as well with the Android phones. Their voice recognition is impeccable. It’s so well designed because of the free service they offered years ago called 411, which was a free service offered by Google which recorded millions of voices. That’s how Google recognizes your voice on the Androids now.

Facebook is a data mega power. “Facebook can use data from lots of sites in a profitable way,” Farhad said. They get data from everything you ‘like’, even if you aren’t on the site. “If you read a article in the New York Times and like it, Facebook receives that data,” Farhad said.

Farhad predicts in the near future Facebook will have to put more advertisements and have to run ad’s on phones. He predicts that Facebook will soon come out with their own mobile phones. “Right now Facebook is basically at the mercy of its rivals,” Farhad said. The only way people get to Facebook is through Google and Apple.

Farhad also predicted that in the future these companies will move into television. That is one of the only things they haven’t moved into yet. Farhad says this can only benefit us because they will compete for our buying dollar, meaning we will pay less and have more choices. Also it will bring interaction into television.

“There is a sense of inevitability, and there is no getting around it,” Farhad said. These companies are changing things and they are unavoidable. Studying the moves these company giants are making will raise your awareness of the economy.