Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 109

I don't even know how to start this story, but a Dutch family was found to be living inside of a hidden room in their farmhouse -- for, get this... 9 years. The family was "waiting for the end of time" according to BBC News.

The family included the 58-year-old father and 6 of his sons aged 18-25, but then one of them escaped and fled to a nearby pub. The boy downed 5 beers (I'd be drinking more if I thought the world was going to end) and told the bar owner that he had escaped and needed some help.

BBC News reports that police officers then visited the farmhouse and searched it, discovering a hidden staircase that was behind a cupboard in the living room. Going down the staircase let them to a secret room where the family was hiding out for "the end of time". The 58-year-old man was arrested, and is now under investigation after refusing to cooperate.

Apple has been met with some well-deserved scrutiny with its recent assumed kowtowing to the Chinese government.

Apple has been targeted as being subservient to China in favor of sales over the freedom of users. Apple, in a controversial move, removed an app called HKmap.live, which was used by protestors of China's oppressive tactics to coordinate demonstrations and resistance to Chinese authoritarian rule.

The app works like other geolocation and mapping apps we have seen on mobile. The app allows users to set emojis in areas to signify police or other protest locations where they could congregate and coordinate with other protestors.

Facebook is no stranger to legal battles, and now they are about to jump right back into another one. This time for allegedly stealing the logo of a banking app.

Facebook formed a subsidiary company called Calibra to watch over its coming cryptocurrency that is planned to launch in 2020. Facebook's cyptocurrency 'Libra' hasn't had the best of weeks, as major backers such as PayPal, eBay, Stripe, Visa, and Mastercard have dropped support for it, and now the company is under fire for trademark infringement.

The trademark infringement has been filed by banking app Current, and judging from their official Twitter page located above, they have some grounds to stand on when saying that Facebook copied their logo they have been using since 2016. It should be noted that Facebook announced Libra in June of this year, meaning that Current had their logo for years before Facebook even conceived the idea of developing a cryptocurrency. Current says in their lawsuit that "is not only confusingly similar to, but virtually identical to the Current Marks."

Most of you have likely had some experience with Fitbit. Or at least heard the name or maybe even have come across an ad or store display for them. For the uninitiated, Fitbit was one of the early brands touting the capability and benefits of fitness-based wearable computing.

For the past year or more, the US administrative branch has been imposing and proposing new escalating tariffs on Chinese made goods in an attempt to hedge off the claimed unfair trade deficit.

Fitbit saw this coming as trade negotiations seemed to stall numerous times, and tensions escalated with threats of new tariffs to come if an agreement is not met. With that, any company would think about their current manufacturing supply chain and alternatives to China as a resource. Fitbit did just that, as you will see below in the quote from the current CFO of Fitbit Ron Kisling.

The amount of spending consumers do on mobile apps and games is increasing in a big way, with mobile app research firm Sensor Tower releasing some new data that is quite surprising, to say the least.

Sensor Tower estimates that consumers spent a huge $21.9 billion on mobile apps across the Google Play Store and Apple App Store in Q3 2019 alone, which is up from $17.9 billion in the same quarter of 2018 -- representing an increase of 22.9%.

Apple did the biggest business with $14.2 billion or so in gross app revenue in Q3 2019, up from the $11.6 billion in Q3 2018 while Google made $7.7 billion in revenue in Q3 2019 versus $6.2 billion from Q3 2018.

HP, the acclaimed purveyor of PC systems, printers, and other consumer and enterprise-level tech, announced it would move forward with plans to restructure and 'simplify operations.' The term 'simplify operations' is a cute way to say they want to lower headcount to match their business needs.

Needless to say, HP has seen a downturn in its formerly popular printing business as the world has become far more digital with less reliance on printers and printing technologies. HP has just made the planning announcements last week that they will be restructuring over the next three years and reducing overall headcount by 7000 - 9000 (up to 16%) employees.

This on the surface is not that uncommon as business units falter, companies will try to relocate or reposition employees to avoid the culling. But in this case, it appears between now and 2022, HP's goal is to make the necessary cuts. The strange part in all of this has to do with the fact that the board for HP just approved an extra budget of $5 billion for opportunistic repurchases of HP common stock.

The fight between Disney and Netflix is really starting to fire up, with reports surfacing from CNBC that Disney will be stopping ALL ads for any Netflix-related content on all of the properties it owns... except for ESPN.

CNBC reports that a Disney spokesperson said: "The direct-to-consumer business has evolved, with many more entrants looking to advertise in traditional television, and across our portfolio of networks".

Netflix will be enemy #1 for Disney, at least for now -- but eventually, Disney will ban ads from all competitors big and small as it leads into the launch of its own streaming service in Disney+.

Correction: OBS and Streamlabs OBS are different. Many people reached out to me about this mistake, I'm sorry and the article below has been amended. Streamlabs is built on top of the foundation of OBS, but is not OBS.

Logitech has just announced that it has acquired Streamlabs OBS, used by millions of gamers and professionals for live streaming.

Streamlabs OBS has grown considerably over the years becoming a key tool for streamers so they can get their game stream blasted out to the likes of Twitch, Mixer, Facebook or YouTube. OBS has been an instrumental part in growing big streamers, and will be an important acquisition for Logitech.

Let's see how deep the rabbit hole we're about to go, with the SEC fining Comscore and its former CEO Serge Matta over fluffing its own books and committing fraud.

Comscore -- whose performance metrics on websites is widely used across the world, has its former CEO admitting to fraud as he artificially inflated revenue by $50 million by fluffing numbers between 2014 and 2016, with Matta reportedly seeing Comscore join "non-monetary transactions" that would see the company giving data without expecting money.

The inflated sense of that value was reported as revenue, with Matta lying to both accountants and auditors -- these moves however, made it seem like Comscore was rocketing nowhere but towards the sky.

Disney+ isn't far away with the industry-changing streaming service going live on November 12, but if you want to get in early you can pre-order now.

The service will start at $7 per month or $70 per year, but you'll get a 7-day free trial on November 12 to help sway you over. Disney+ allows you stream ad-free content to 4 devices at once, with no limits to downloads.

If you want access to Hulu and ESPN+ then you'll be spending another $6 per month bumping up the monthly cost of Disney+ to $13 per month. All Disney+ subscription packages automatically review, but the company will be offering cancellations before each renewal date just in case.