Tag Archives: Big Data

Google Stock Surge Adds Record $52 Billion to its Market Value

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“Google shares surged at the opening of Friday trading a day after the company reported earnings, adding a total of $52 billion in market capitalization in the largest single-day gain ever, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.  Google’s gain of about 15 percent in early trading was having an outsized effect on the S&P 500 as well, adding 7 points at the open, according to Howard Silverblatt, an index analyst for S&P Dow Jones Indices.  That beats Apple’s April 2012 gain of $46.4 billion, the prior record holder for biggest increase in market cap.”

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/markets/google-stock-surge-adds-record-52-billion-its-market-value-n393826

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Facebook US users can now send cash to friends in the messaging app

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“After months of teasing, Facebook has finally added payments to its Messenger app – in the US at least.  The service lets users pay friends within the private messaging app ‘in just a few taps’ and Facebook has described it as ‘easy and safe’.  Facebook formally announced in March that it would be competing with services such as PayPal and Snapchat, which already lets users beam money to friends and family using smartphones linked to bank accounts.  David Marcus, Facebook’s head of messaging products, announced the launch in a post on the social network. The service is free and is available on Apple and Android mobile devices and computers in the US.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3145793/Facebook-Messenger-rolls-payment-service-Users-send-cash-friends-messaging-app.html

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Visa CEO Charlie Scharf: Moving at the speed of money

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“West Coast venture capitalists see Visa as an oligopolistic dinosaur and are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into rivals that use bitcoin. Meanwhile, banks, which collect the bulk of the fees from merchants, are warily eyeing Visa’s efforts to bypass them and forge direct relationships with retailers by offering one-click internet transactions and providing data on consumer behaviour that only Visa possesses.  None of which seems to faze Visa’s chief executive, Charlie Scharf. In time, he says, would-be Visa disruptors all discover—just as internet upstarts PayPal, Square and Uber did—that it is simply easier and more economical to work with his leviathan than fight it.”

http://india.forbes.com/article/forbes-global-2000/visa-ceo-charlie-scharf-moving-at-the-speed-of-money/40423/0

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UK home secretary warns Yahoo over its move to Dublin [2014]

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“The move to make Dublin the centre of its headquarters for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) was announced last month.  The firm has been horrified by some of the surveillance programmes revealed by Snowden and is understood to be relieved that it will be beyond the immediate reach of UK surveillance laws.  Following the Guardian’s disclosures about snooping on Yahoo webcams, the company said it was ‘committed to preserving our users trust and security and continue our efforts to expand encryption across all of our services.’ It said GCHQ’s activity was ‘completely unacceptable..we strongly call on the world’s governments to reform surveillance law.'”

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/20/theresa-may-yahoo-dublin-security-worry

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FBI doesn’t want to have to force tech companies to weaken encryption

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“Ever since Apple commendably announced last September that it would increase the security protecting millions of iPhones so that only the user – and not the company – would be able to unlock them, Comey has spent months arguing that this could spell disaster for the FBI trying to access what is on suspects’ phones. Since then, other popular messaging services like WhatsApp have followed in Apple’s footsteps and encrypted user’s chats ‘end-to-end.’ Since his initial objection to tech companies enabling end-to-end encryption, Comey has rightly been bombarded with criticism from security experts, cryptographers and engineers.”

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/09/government-access-backdoor-encryption-bad

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FBI and DOJ Target New Enemy In Encryption Wars: Apple and Google

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“The FBI and Department of Justice on Wednesday targeted a new set of threats to national security and law enforcement: not ISIS, or pedophiles, but Apple and Google.  Those companies and others that provide or will soon provide end-to-end encryption make it impossible to read intercepted digital messages — and without naming names, FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates said that they will ‘work with’ those companies to ensure access to their customers’ communications. Yates refused to provide data on the number of cases in which encryption has posed an insurmountable barrier.”

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/08/fbi-doj-name-new-enemy-crypto-wars-apple-google/

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Google pulls listening software from Chromium

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“Google has pulled its listening software from the open-source Chromium browser after complaints from developers and privacy campaigners.  The tool, which uses the computer’s microphone to listen out for the ‘OK, Google’ hotword to trigger voice searches, was silently downloaded with updates of Chromium by default.  Open-source advocates complained that Google was downloading a ‘black box’ on to their machines that was not open source and therefore could not be verified to be doing what it said it was meant to do. Google has now made it an optional download that will not be installed unless a user adds it from the Chrome Web Store and opts into the voice-search functionality.”

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/25/google-pulls-listening-software-chromium

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It’s Google’s Turn to Be Plundered

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hornberger1

“Let’s face it: raising taxes to fund Europe’s ever-burgeoning welfare state is not an easy process, politically speaking. It’s much easier to plunder and loot big, wealthy foreign companies. The process reminds me of how local communities here in the United States impose exorbitant taxes on hotels and motels under the idea that it’s politically better to tax ‘foreigners’ than one’s own residents. Or U.S. asset-forfeiture laws that enable cops to fund their departments with cash seized from highway travelers.  In the late 1990s, the EU went after Microsoft, which was the economic boogeyman at that time.  Microsoft ultimately was plundered to the tune of $2.3 billion.”

http://fff.org/2015/04/20/googles-turn-plundered/

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The European Parliament Threatens To Break Up Google

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“Or at least that’s what is being suggested in the European Parliament, that search engines should be forced to be divorced from other business activities. It’s also true that they don’t directly mention Google but that’s obviously who it is aimed at. Fortunately, as a matter of public policy this isn’t going to go very far. Because the European Parliament doesn’t actually have the right to propose either actions or legislation. Only the European Commission can actually propose something and then the Parliament gets to say yea or nay to it.  It is an indication of quite how wildly the (would be) policy makers over here in Europe are out of touch with the way that the real world works.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/11/22/the-european-parliament-threatens-to-break-up-google/

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Germany’s top publisher bows to Google in news licensing row

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“Germany’s biggest news publisher Axel Springer has scrapped a move to block Google from running snippets of articles from its newspapers, saying that the experiment had caused traffic to its sites to plunge.  Springer said a two-week-old experiment to restrict access by Google to some of its publications had caused web traffic to plunge for these sites, leading it to row back and let Google once again showcase Springer news stories in its search results.  Chief Executive Mathias Doepfner said on Wednesday that his company would have ‘shot ourselves out of the market’ if it had continued with its demands for the U.S. firm to pay licensing fees.”

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/05/us-google-axel-sprngr-idUSKBN0IP1YT20141105

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