The race (which incidentally was a two horse one....until recently when Facebook showed up) to attain the top valuation in the technology industry, is getting highly interesting. Where does that leave us or have to do with us ?.....you ask.

Quite simply POET is the jewel in the tech crown. License it and you compete, go it alone, and you face certain extinction.

Google parent Alphabet, on the other hand, could surpass Apple as No.1 if it reports solid fourth-quarter numbers on February 1, 2016. When Google's management announced the creation of Alphabet in August 2015, it said that the company's newer initiatives would be run separately from the main, Internet-related business within Google. The fourth-quarter 2015 earnings report will therefore be the company's first with two reported segments: Google (which includes Search, Ads, YouTube, Cloud, Apps, Android, ChromeCast etc.) and "Other Bets" (which includes stuff like Calico, Nest, Google Capital, and the new incarnations of Google Life Sciences, Google Ventures and Google X).

Why is this important? While core Internet-based products like Search and YouTube are money-spinners for Google, the entities in the "Other Bets" segment are working on long shots like glucose-sensing contact lenses, longevity, driverless cars, product-delivering drones and airborne wind turbines. The new segment reporting will enable investors to see how much these initiatives are costing Alphabet.