Google CEO Sundar Pichai is adding another responsibility to his job: Pichai will also be the CEO of parent holding company Alphabet going forward, taking the helm from co-founder and longtime CEO Larry Page. Additionally, co-founder Sergey Brin will be resigning from his post as the president of Alphabet. Brin and Page jointly announced the Read more about Sundar Pichai Becomes Alphabet CEO, Larry Page to Step Back[…]
Whether we decide to take out that insurance policy, buy Bitcoin, or switch jobs, many economic decisions boil down to a fundamental gamble about how to maximize our wealth over time. How we understand these decisions is the subject of a new perspective piece in Nature Physics that aims to correct a foundational mistake in Read more about This ‘fix’ for economic theory changes everything from gambles to Ponzi schemes, because people adapt their risks wrt their wealth over time[…]
El Reg has quizzed Andrew Sullivan, the president and CEO of the Internet Society (ISOC), about his organistion’s decision to sell the non-profit .org registry to private equity outfit Ethos Capital. We have previously covered the controversy over the proposed sale, the continued failure of ISOC and DNS overseer ICANN to answer detailed questions, and Read more about Internet Society CEO: Most people don’t care about the .org sell-off. Grabbing money at the expense of non-profits is fine by everyone we didn’t consult or listen to their opinion.[…]
Eighteen states rang in 2019 with minimum wage increases — some that will ultimately rise as high as $15 an hour — and so far, opponents’ dire predictions of job losses have not come true. What it means: The data paint a clear picture: Higher minimum wage requirements haven’t reduced hiring in low-wage industries or overall. Read more about Job loss predictions over rising minimum wages haven’t come true – Axios[…]
This past weekend, the board of the organization that is selling the rights to .org, and which will likely make $1bn or more from the sale, the Internet Society, met. On both the Saturday and Sunday, the proposed sale was a key topic of conversation. It has just to provide any details on what was Read more about .org being sold off to richest people in world and ex-ceo in massive moneygrab, harming non-profits in the process.[…]
On Sunday, Motherboard reported that the hacker or hackers known as Phineas Fisher targeted a bank, stole money and documents, and is offering other hackers $100,000 to carry out politically motivated hacks. Now, the bank Phineas Fisher targeted, Cayman National Bank from the Isle of Man, confirmed it has suffered a data breach. “It is Read more about Cayman Bank Targeted By Phineas Fisher Confirms it Was Hacked – 2 TB of data can be searched through now, find the money launderers[…]
A new German law passed yesterday requires Apple to allow other mobile payments services access to the iPhone’s NFC chip for payments to allow them to fully compete with Apple Pay. Apple initially completely locked down the NFC chip so that it could be used only by Apple Pay. It later allowed some third-party apps Read more about Germany forces Apple to allow use of iPhone’s NFC chip to other payment providers, breaks some little part of the monopoly[…]
Hackers didn’t waste any time and have started hijacking Disney+ user accounts hours after the service launched. Many of these accounts are now being offered for free on hacking forums, or available for sale for prices varying from $3 to $11, a ZDNet investigation has discovered. A stream of user complaints The Disney+ video streaming Read more about Thousands of hacked Disney+ accounts are already for sale on hacking forums, technical problems, people driven to bittorrenting again.[…]
Google will soon offer checking accounts to consumers, becoming the latest Silicon Valley heavyweight to push into finance. The Wall Street Journal: The project, code-named Cache, is expected to launch next year with accounts run by Citigroup and a credit union at Stanford University, a tiny lender in Google’s backyard. Big tech companies see financial Read more about All the tech companies are into finance now – so Google is going into banking. They want to know what you spend your money on.[…]
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players will no longer be able to trade container keys between accounts because the trade was part of a massive worldwide fraud network. Players earned cases in Counter-Strike containing weapons and cosmetic upgrades, but had to purchase the keys to open the boxes. Developer Valve runs an internal marketplace on Steam where Read more about ‘Nearly All’ Counter-Strike Microtransactions Are Being Used for Money Laundering[…]
Forty-seven state attorneys general have now joined a sweeping investigation into Facebook’s business practices aimed at determining whether the company has engaged in anti-competitive behavior, ignored privacy laws, or violated any other laws, according to the New York Attorney General’s office. In a statement on Tuesday, Letitia James, the Democratic attorney general of New York, Read more about Facebook Under Investigation by 47 Attorneys General[…]
With Tether’s monthly trading volume about 18% higher than that of Bitcoin, it’s arguably the most important coin in the crypto ecosystem. Tether’s also one of the main reasons why regulators regard cryptocurrencies with a wary eye, and have put the breaks on crypto exchange-traded funds amid concern of market manipulation. “If there is no Read more about Bitcoin Isn’t the World’s Most-Used Cryptocurrency – it’s a centralised one run by some private company in Hong Kong[…]
Mobile money is fast blossoming in Africa, boosted by rising mobile adoption across the continent, but in Zimbabwe—which is battling a severe financial crunch—the most common cash-in and cash-out functionalities have just been killed off as the government battles to contain the country’s economic crisis. Cash-out is process of converting mobile wallet balances into hard cash Read more about Zimbabwe shuts down mobile money because cash is being sold at a premium of 50%: basically two competing currencies with the same label[…]
We love containers. And, for most of us, containers means Docker. As RightScale observed in its RightScale 2018 State of the Cloud report, Docker’s adoption by the industry has increased to 49 percent from 35 percent in 2017. All’s not well in Docker-land There’s only one problem with this: While Docker, the technology, is going Read more about Docker has a business plan headache, another showcase for FOSS money making failure[…]
A cybercrime data center that was shut down by German authorities was housed inside a former NATO bunker in a sleepy riverside town, police revealed on Friday. More than 600 law enforcement personnel including Germany’s elite federal police unit, the GSG 9, were involved in an anti-cybercrime operation that took place in the town of Read more about Darknet cybercrime servers hosted in former NATO bunker in Germany busted in 600 policemen operation[…]
The United States House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee is launching an antitrust investigation into Apple and its anti-competitive behavior. Part of the investigation will focus on Apple’s repair monopoly, which for years has given the company control over the useful life of its products. In a letter to Apple, the committee asked Apple to turn Read more about Congress Is Investigating Apple’s Repair Monopoly[…]
Logius is absolutely minting it, considering that almost every interaction with the government, locality, insurance company is done through DigiID. Unbelievably, this price is down from EUR 3,50 in 2006, but up from last years’ 12 cents per login. So now we know why government IT projects cost such an inane amount of money – Read more about Logging into NL gov costs in incredible 14 cents per time![…]
New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced Friday she is launching a multistate investigation into Facebook for possible antitrust violations. Facebook shares were down about 0.5% in Friday’s premarket, but did not seem to react to James’ announcement. Attorneys general of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and the District of Columbia Read more about New York attorney general launches a multistate antitrust probe into Facebook[…]
The study suggests that marketers can use this understanding of local identity versus global identity to shape consumers’ price perceptions and behavior. UTA and three other universities contributed to the study. “Consumers tend to use price to judge a product’s quality when their local identity is most important to them,” Janakiraman said. “When promoting high-priced Read more about Study shows how consumers rely on price and locality to determine quality of products[…]
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that “more than half of the nation’s state attorneys general” have signed on to and are preparing an antitrust investigation against digital titan Google, with the paper writing the inquiry is “scheduled to be announced next week, marking a major escalation in U.S. regulators’ efforts to probe Silicon Valley’s Read more about More Than Half the Nation’s State Attorneys General Could Sign on to Antitrust Inquiry Against Google[…]
Researchers from Texas A&M University published new research in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science, which shows that retailers’ branded mobile apps are very effective in increasing customer engagement, increasing sales on multiple levels, not just on the retailer’s website, but also in its stores. At the same time, apps increase the rate of returns, although Read more about Do those retail apps increase customer engagement and sales in all channels? In the US: Yes.[…]
Ultimately, the rider paid $65 for the half-hour trip, according to a receipt viewed by Jalopnik. But Dave made only $15 (the fares have been rounded to anonymize the transaction). Uber kept the rest, meaning the multibillion-dollar corporation kept more than 75 percent of the fare, more than triple the average so-called “take-rate” it claims Read more about Uber And Lyft Take A Lot More From Drivers Than They Say[…]
A judge in Oklahoma on Monday ruled that Johnson & Johnson had intentionally played down the dangers and oversold the benefits of opioids, and ordered it to pay the state $572 million in the first trial of a drug manufacturer for the destruction wrought by prescription painkillers. The amount fell far short of the $17 Read more about Johnson & Johnson Ordered to Pay $572 Million in Landmark Opioid Trial[…]
The state attorneys in more than a dozen states are preparing to begin an antitrust investigation of the tech giants, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported Monday, putting the spotlight on an industry that is already facing federal scrutiny. The bipartisan group of attorneys from as many as 20 states is expected Read more about States to launch antitrust investigation into big tech companies, reports say[…]
Amazon constantly scans rivals’ prices to see if they’re lower. When it discovers a product is cheaper on, say, Walmart.com, Amazon alerts the company selling the item and then makes the product harder to find and buy on its own marketplace — effectively penalizing the merchant. In many cases, the merchant opts to raise the Read more about Amazon Squeezes Sellers That Offer Better Prices on Walmart[…]