Business, Financial & Legal - Page 100

Last we heard, CPU architect Jim Keller had left AMD for Samsung. Turns out that's only half true, as Keller is now confirmed to be the new Vice President of Autopilot Hardware Engineering at Tesla Motors, where he'll help build self-driving cars.

"Jim will bring together the best internal and external hardware technologies to develop the safest, most advanced autopilot systems in the world," said Tesla, relaying the news.

While Tiger Direct and Radio Shack have bit the dust, the once-reigning Circuit City has risen from its grave to peddle electronic wares to a new age of consumers.

According to tech industry site Twice, the first resurrected Circuit City will open its doors as early as June, with 50 to 100 stores planned for 2017. The new stores will feature "product zones" specifically tailored to millennials, stocked with popular tech like smartphones, tablets, laptops, 3D printers, wearables, and more. The new brick and mortar stores will have electronic web terminals connected to a "million-SKU online selection" of products.

The company will be helmed by Ronny Shmoel and Albert Liniado, who have an ambitious multi-faceted approach for business. The new Circuit City will fire on all cylinders with web storefronts, "express" kiosks placed in convenience stores, airports and pharmacies, mobile shops, franchised stores, and even a line of Circuit City-branded products.

PayPal has joined Facebook in a positive earnings announcement , stating that it has enjoyed a revenue rise of 17 percent.

The result of this rise was a 6 percent increase in stock, thanks to the reported fourth quarter adjusted revenue of $2.56 billion, marking a 17% improvement year-over-year and an adjusted net income of $443 million. This net income figure made for a 36 cents per share earning, ensuring a 27 percent growth since the fourth quarter of 2014 and helping cement PayPal as the king of digital payments.

Sporting a market cap of $39 billion, PayPal is enjoying a higher evaluation and better results than its sister company EBay, which is rated at $32 billion and has seen a recent 10 percent drop in shares, part of a turbulent existence since the seperateion of these two giants 2015.

Another quarter, another slew of trucks backing up to Apple's HQ and dumping piles of money. Apple profits have gone through the roof for the past three months, surpassing the record-breaking quarter Apple enjoyed in Q3 2015.

Apple's Q4 2015 was magical, with $18.4 billion in profits from $75.9 billion in revenue. Apple noted the inflated profits and revenue to the average sale price of its best-selling devices - the iPhone, iPad and Mac - was also a record high, boosting Apple's margins to 40.1%. The company has also predicted its Q1 2016 results, where it's expected to hit $50-$53 billion, down from the $58 billion it pulled in during the same time last year.

Considering Apple only launched one new devices during the quarter, the oh-so-meh iPad Pro, it's surprising Apple did so well. But then you consider the insanely popular iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus smartphones, and it begins to make sense. Apple is also seeing a decline in orders with its suppliers, but of course, Apple didn't talk about that with its earnings release - for obvious reasons.

A peer-reviewed study was just published in May at the annual Association for Computing Machinery's Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in San Jose, and this novel study shows that both Bitcoin users and non-users have some surprising misconceptions about the digital currency.

Simply put, the researchers found that people that didn't have experience with Bitcoin found it intimidating to use, and similarly those that are familiar with it were also not so well informed as to how it works. One of the most surprising findings was that those surveyed had misconception as to the ability of Bitcoin to actually protect someone's identity and help them remain anonymous. And they trust the security methods more than they should, and mostly without understanding how the underlying Bitcoin transaction process actually works.

Furthermore, at least half of the participants felt that the government should regulate, the currency or at the very least provide some sort of assurance against any fraud, which can occur. But overall the studies participants seemed to feel that a currency to Bitcoin would be ideal in a perfect world, because of the features it does have.

In a recent speech, Donald Trump expanded on another way that he's planning to make the US "greater than ever before," telling all that he plans to ensure Apple manufacturers its products on US soil.

"We're going to get Apple to build their damn computers and things in this country instead of in other countries," said Trump, with that being basically all that was mentioned on this topic. In addition to this, Trump explained that he has a similar vision for Ford, stating that "For every car, truck and whatever else you're building, you're going to pay a 35 percent tax every time you bring a car across the border." This tax came about due to Ford investing in Mexican manufacturing plants, rather than focusing on US production.

ZDNet reported that Apple's only all-US product is the Mac Pro, while this tech giant does stipulate that 31 of the 50 US states are used to provide Apple with parts, marerials and equipment.

With TSMC saying that they're looking at hitting 10nm in the next few months, and even 7nm by 2018, news has broken that the Taiwanese firm will open a 5nm fabrication facility by 202.

TSMC is expected to push 5nm in the first half of 2020 but notes that the production of chips using the 7nm process will happen in early 2018. If this happens without any issues, we could see a 50% reduction in current fabrication technology, in the span of only two years. Developing the manufacturing process capable of sub-7nm lithography has been extremely hard, but TSMC says it has hopes in extreme ultraviolet lithography (UAV).

TSMC says that they've made "significant process" in using UAV, where they're expected to use the technology make the 5nm production happen.

If you're someone who uses a VPN, Tor or another proxy network to get around the region blocking on Netflix - you won't be allowed to do that for much longer. Considering Netflix is a powerful player, spending $6 billion in 2016 on original content, you'd think they'd want to keep as many consumers as happy as they can.

Netflix lawyers who write up content licensing agreements with studios and networks think that region blocking makes sense, but to those of us in the real-world, it doesn't. As Boing Boing writes "We just want to be able to watch the stuff we love, wherever and whoever we are".

According to Netflix's Vice President of Content Delivery Architecture, David Fullagar, "If all of our content were globally available, there wouldn't be a reason for members to use proxies or 'unblockers' to fool our systems into thinking they're in a different country than they're actually in". He added: "In the meantime, we will continue to respect and enforce content licensing by geographic location".

Netflix has made huge waves in the last year or so, and especially with gigantic hits like House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, and Marvel's Daredevil and Jessica Jones.

Well, the streaming content giant is committing a huge $6 billion over 2016, which should secure itself as the leader in streaming content. During the Television Critics Association press tour, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said: "Is there too much TV?" he asked, adding "I'll pause for a second", knowing that reporters would want to note down his next quote: "We don't think there's too much TV. And if there is too much TV, someone else is going to have to slow down, because we have big plans for 2016 and beyond".

Sarandos said that Netflix will have over 600 hours of original content in 2016, adding that 2016's budget is huge. He said: "We're going to spend in 2016 about $5 billion dollars on content on a P&L basis, which means about $6 billion in cash. We are running a global network, one that is not easily comparable either in business or cultural terms ... We're not courting advertisers, because we're not targeting a single demographic".

Activision generally makes a good game, though that's always up for debate. Part of that might include a little artistic license when portraying real-world based characters. And now Activision is being sued by the family of an Angolan rebel chief that was portrayed in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.

Three of Jonas Savimbi's surviving children don't agree with how their father was portrayed in Black Ops 2, saying that he was not quite the "barbarian" they showed him as in the game. And as a result of their dissatisfaction with the way that their father's memory was handled, they're seeking €1 million in damages,

In life, Jonas Savimbi was the leader of a guerrilla insurgency against the Angolan government to liberate it. He's the founder, and was the leader, of the National Union of the Total Independence of Angola. Ronald Reagan himself even saw him as a freedom fighter as opposed to placing the other, more extreme, term on his name.

Visiting Cooler Master and seeing what they had on hand was a blast. They really believe in where they're going, and not just in the usual marketing sense you might assume. The people behind the products are passionate, and committed.

They feel such optimism because of how they're consolidating their product lines into more manageable and easier to digest categories. Cooler Master has had a lot of different lines of cases, fans, coolers and a lot of other products in the past. It was a little confusing to some customers. Even enthusiasts could find themselves a bit taken aback by the sheer number of choices.

And that much choice isn't always necessarily a good thing for business either. It can make it hard and even expensive to manufacture so many different things at once. Hence this great effort towards making their products lines more manageable for themselves and manufacturing as well as for us. A business decision this is, but benefit the consumer much, it does.

Chinese telecommunications company Huawei has had a killer 2015, with year-on-year revenue up 35% to 390 billion yuan (approximately $60.1 billion USD). In the third quarter, it passed Xiaomi as the #1 smartphone seller in China and became the #2 Android phone seller in Europe (thanks to its Honor sub-brand).

9 to 5 Google expects 2016 will be even bigger, given the impressive Nexus 6P and Huawei Watch devices, and goes so far as to say it may soon overtake Samsung as the #1 Android phone seller globally. Huawei shipped 100 million smartphones this year versus Samsung's 400 million, and it hasn't even launched the Honor brand in the US yet (it will in 2016). Seeing the massive success in Europe, it's likely to do great there as well.

Microsoft is joining the small list of companies that now inform their users if they suspect that they're the target of state-sponsored hacking attempts.

This policy is in response to an inquiry by Reuters about having not said anything to victims of a hacking campaign by the Chinese government that happened in 2011. Something that has spurred them to go beyond simple notifications with few details to now alert users if they suspect it's state-sponsored or not.

Microsoft will be joining Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and Google as part of a more concentrated effort to evolve methods to keep your information secure. In a statement in a recent blog post they explained that they'll send out these notifications to those they think are targeted and not just if you've been compromised. This way you can take additional measures to keep things nice and secure.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens continues to break records, with its latest record-breaking achievement being the fastest movie to make $1 billion at the box office.

It only took 12 days for The Force Awakens to make its $1 billion, thanks to the holiday weekend seeing the latest Star Wars movie making $153.5 million domestically, and $133.3 million overseas. This brings The Force Awakens to around $1.09 billion in 12 days, making its second weekend bigger than all of the other biggest openings of all time, except nine of them. That's a huge achievement in itself, too.

Jurassic World was the previous movie to have the record, as it reached $1 billion in 13 days. I think we're going to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens break Avatar's box office haul of $2.78 billion - with The Force Awakens, in my opinion, to make between $3 billion and $3.2 billion. The next big movie to compete against it at the box office will be next year's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (which is the most expensive movie of all time, according to reports), which arrives on March 23.

North Korea may have successfully landed a man on the Sun, but it looks like the country is a bit paranoid when it comes to its own Linux distribution, Red Star OS.

Red Star OS has been pulled apart by researchers, showing just how closed off it really is. The Linux distribution watermarks files on USB sticks, so that Pyongyang can track contraband material, and the OS also doesn't like modifications. Red Star OS will reboot the PC immediately if it discovers changes to system files, too.

The built-in antivirus software and web browser both direct themselves to internal servers, with the encryption on Red Star OS custom-developed - most likely to keep the prying eyes of the NSA and GCHQ away. The walls that North Korea has built up within Red Star OS is to keep its citizens unaware of the world around them, so if they did modify the OS, they'd be tracked down immediately - and probably sent off to live on the Sun.

New additions to the European General Data Protection Regulation have been proposed to the European Parliament which seek to further protect the personal data of minors, specifically teens under the age of 16 with some interesting new rules.

These new additions are not yet law and still need to be fully ratified by the greater European Council and European Parliament in early January of 2016 to become official, though they've passed through initial inspection by the European Parliament's Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee.

There are eight separate clauses that EU regulators are trying to get passed that are supposed to provide a framework for modernising data privacy policies. And in actuality, the new proposed rules give greater control of your own data and are better suited to privacy.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is pushing towards $1 billion in worldwide box office sales at lightspeed, taking just 8 days to reach $890 million. The Force Awakens broke single-day box office records when it opened and pulled in $610 million in just a matter of days, as well as being the biggest opening in box office history in the US.

Out of the $890 million worldwide gross, $440 million has been grossed domestically in the US, while $449.9 million has been made overseas. The opening weekend saw The Force Awakens command $247 million in the US alone, but it looks like The Force Awakens will reach $1 billion in the next day or two.

These box office numbers are only up to Christmas Day, so we should expect a huge wave of numbers for the weekend to hit in the next day or so. The Force Awakens made an estimated $49 million domestically on Christmas Day, so we should expect $60 million or more for Saturday and Sunday, pushing the movie over $1 billion.

Out of the $3 billion that Spotify has paid out in the last six or so years, less than 1% has actually reached the hands of artists who have their tunes on the streaming giant's service.

Well, Spotify is sick of this, and has said that it is going to get knee-deep into the music royalty business, noting that different publishers own the rights to the same tracks in different countries. Years ago when physical sales were dominating, this didn't used to be an issue. But with global streaming services, it takes time to find out who to pay, and some royalties end up just sitting there.

Spotify has said: "Today we are excited to announce that Spotify will invest in the resources and technical expertise to build a comprehensive publishing administration system to solve this problem". This is all Spotify is saying on the matter right now, so we can expect more to be said in the New Year.

LG is set to have the biggest CES yet, with the company showing off a slew of new TVs - including its kick-ass 4K OLED TVs, but the company has announced that it is set to launch premium home appliances at the Consumer Electronics Show next month.

LG is calling its premium home appliances brand "LG Signature", but hasn't provided any more details on the new gear. The South Korean giant has formed a team within the company to create the LG Signature products, with input from "leading design experts". LG has teased that its Signature appliances have been "stripped of all features that detracted from the brand's spirits".

During the filming of the latest, and last Resident Evil movie, a crew member has died in a horrific on-set accident.

South African website IOL reports that 34-year-old Ricardo Cornelius was severely injured during the filming of Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, when a US Army issue Hummer fell on top of him on the film's set in Cape Town. Cornelius died in hospital on December 3.

Reports state that the Hummer was standing on a small platform, which then tilted when it was being manually rotated. The vehicle fell, landing on Cornelius. But it gets worse. He was rushed to the hospital and placed on life support, with his wife telling IOL "At the hospital, doctors said they had to take him into theatre as soon as he arrived".