Business, Financial & Legal - Page 118

Rumors are flying that Google will soon shut down, or at least dismantle its Google+ service. The rumors suggest that Google would remove Google+ as a product, but continue it flowing in the background as a service instead.

TechCrunch has said: "What we're hearing from multiple sources is that Google+ will no longer be considered a product, but a platform - essentially ending its competition with other social networks like Facebook and Twitter". According to one of TechCrunch's anonymous sources, Google+ would no longer compete directly against Facebook and Twitter, and would end the forced integrations of Google+ into Google services like Gmail and YouTube.

Another source, as well as the Financial Times' anonymous source has said: "One person familiar with Google said the company planned to refocus its social media efforts soon. Its Hangouts messaging and video-chat app will be given greater prominence, alongside photos, while the Google+ branding may take a back seat, this person said".

Amazon has made no secret over the years that it wants to earn all your business. You can get just about anything you can think of from Amazon and you can now buy your groceries there. Amazon has announced Prime Pantry, a grocery delivery service available anywhere in the lower 48 states.

With Prime Pantry, you can go and find all the snacks, dinner stuff, drinks, toiletries, personal hygiene, and other items you need. Add them to your cart and Amazon keeps a running total of how full your Prime Pantry Box is.

Once the box is full, Amazon will ship it to you for $5.99. The box will hold up to four cubic feet of items or 45 pounds. You will still have to go to the store for some of your items since Prime Pantry only has non-perishable items. This service could save you most of your trips each month. It seems that the prices are higher than local stores (at least my local stores) but the convenience f not having to go to the store may be worth it for some folks. You do have to be an Amazon Prime member.

In just four days, one of the biggest names in mobile communication will cease to exist as we know it for ever. Today Nokia announced that it would be finalizing the acquisition deal with Microsoft on April 25th. This deal began back in September of 2013 when Microsoft announced that it had begun the acquisition of Nokia's Devices and Services division for $7.2 billion, and would take over Nokia's mobile phone business in 2014.

"The completion of this acquisition follows several months of planning and will mark a key step on the journey towards integration. This acquisition will help Microsoft accelerate innovation and market adoption for Windows Phones. In addition, we look forward to introducing the next billion customers to Microsoft services via Nokia mobile phones," Microsoft said in a statement.

Microsoft says that in the deal, it will acquire all of Nokia's Devices and Services division, the Nokia.com website, all of Nokia's social media assets, and Microsoft will take on all the employees in Nokia's Chief Technology Office as well as 21 employees in China. Microsoft will not take possession of Nokia's South Korean manufacturing facility though despite previous reporting that it would. The new Microsoft owned entity will most likely be called, Microsoft Mobile.

Throughout the course of modern day history, companies have paid billions to lawyers to come up with elaborate plans to prevent consumers, workers, and other companies from having the right to file a lawsuit against them. Today we have learned that cereal maker, General Mills, has quietly slipped in a clause within its privacy policy that bars consumers from bringing forth litigation on the company if that individual uses a coupon offered by the company, enters a sweepstakes, or even "Likes" the company on social media.

The new policy states: "Anyone who has received anything that could be construed as a benefit and who then has a dispute with the company over its products will have to use informal negotiation via email or go through arbitration to seek relief, according to the new terms posted on its site." This is also known as "forced arbitration."

General Mills is clearly trying to avoid costly lawsuits such as one last year over packaging of a product that resulted in $8.5 million in settlement fees. The new policy is forcing consumers to enter into arbitration which means that your lawyer and their lawyer will meet in a room somewhere, and hash out how much compensation, if any, will be given to you. With companies sneaking in clauses like this into their privacy policy and forcing US citizens to give up rights, it may be time to rethink who you give your money too.

This week, BlackBerry's CEO Jon Chen, announced that his company had purchased a minority stake in a privately held healthcare IT firm called NantHealth. Chen said that he sees healthcare as one of the business sectors that BlackBerry can do very well in due to its enterprise security concerns.

"BlackBerry's capabilities align closely with NantHealth's," said Chen in a statement on Tuesday. "This investment represents the type of forward-looking opportunities that are vital to our future."

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but we do know that the investment was small enough to be considered a minority investment, and BlackBerry is not as wealthy as it once was. I do see this entry into such a niche market as a good move for BlackBerry, and if the company continues to make smart investments it could pull itself out of the big hole it currently resides in.

The Galaxy S5 is here, with millions already enjoying their new flagship smartphone from Samsung, but just how many Galaxy S5 handsets does Samsung expect to ship in the next couple of months? 35 million - that's how many.

According to The Korea Times, Samsung shipped 1.3 times as many Galaxy S5 smartphones in the first 24 hours of sales than the South Korean giant did with the S4 launch. Both investors and analysts are impressed with how well the S5 is selling, removing the fears they once had about market saturation or a shift away from Samsung.

One Senior Fund Manager spoke with The Korea Times, saying: "Against earlier expectations, the S5 was well-received by consumers in the global market. We don't have any plans to advise our big clients to unload their Samsung stock". According to insiders at Samsung, the company is hoping to ship over 35 million Galaxy S5 units by the end of Q2 2014.

Tesla is a company that makes electric vehicles that are some of the best EVs on the market today. Tesla got its start with a small sporty car called the Roadster that was more of a targa top car than a real convertible. Buyers can now get an unofficial convertible version of the Model S EV from a company called Newport Convertible Engineering.

Newport says that it is working with a Chinese investor to make 100 Model S convertibles. The exact steps it takes to turn these cars into convertibles is unknown. The process would involve cutting and lots of bracing for the chassis.

If you want a Model S and want it turned into a drop top, you can buy your own. The cars will be built-in one of three Newport facilities located in California, Dubai, or Barcelona. There are two versions available to purchase with one offering a soft tonneau cover and costing $29,000 and the other offering a hard tonneau cover and selling for $49,000.

The Netherlands is testing out a new technology on a 500m, or 0.3 miles, stretch of highway - using light-absorbing glow-in-the-dark road markings. These markings have replaced streetlights on the stretch of highway.

Rewinding back to 2012, Studio Roosegaarde proposed the design, and after much jumping through the usual government hoops, the finished product is shaping up incredibly well. The studios founder and lead designer, Daan Roosegaarde, said: "One day I was sitting in my car in the Netherlands, and I was amazed by these roads we spend millions on but no one seems to care what they look like and how they behave. I started imagining this Route 66 of the future where technology jumps out of the computer screen and becomes part of us".

The future of this new roll out will include weather markings, where snowdrops would appear when the temperature would hit a certain level. The glow-in-the-dark stretch of highway at the moment uses a photo-luminescent powder that is integrated into the road paint, something that was developed in conjunction with Heijmans, a road construction company.

If your boss walked up to you today and offered you $5000 to quit your job and never look back, would you take the offer, or would you realize that $5000 is just a drop in the bucket over the long-term? Many Amazon employees are experiencing that exact scenario right now. Amazon says that it is offering its warehouse workers $2000 to quit their jobs, and increases the price by $1000 every year to those who refuse until the amount reaches $5000.

Amazon says that it makes this offer to employees as an effort to see who really wants to work for Amazon, and to weed out those who are just there for the job. The idea is not new though, and was pioneered by Zappos who made similar offers to its employees. In his earnings call to investors Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, elaborated on the idea behind offering employees rewards for quitting their jobs.

"The second program is called Pay to Quit. It was invented by the clever people at Zappos, and the Amazon fulfillment centers have been iterating on it. Pay to Quit is pretty simple. Once a year, we offer to pay our associates to quit. The first year the offer is made, it's for $2,000. Then it goes up one thousand dollars a year until it reaches $5,000. The headline on the offer is "Please Don't Take This Offer," Bezos said "We hope they don't take the offer; we want them to stay. Why do we make this offer? The goal is to encourage folks to take a moment and think about what they really want. In the long-run, an employee staying somewhere they don't want to be isn't healthy for the employee or the company."

If you own a Sony VAIO Fit 11A notebook computer, you need to be aware that a battery issues has been identified. This issue, like most battery problems on notebook computers, can result in a fire. The big problem for users of these Sony notebooks is that the battery inside the machines isn't removable.

That means you will have to return the entire notebook for repairs. Sony wants people to stop using the machines, unplug them, and return them to be repaired or replaced. There are 25,905 machines affected by this issue globally.

Sony doesn't call this a recall; rather it is a request to stop using these notebooks. Sony is also keeping the option open to refund the purchase price of the machines to the owners. The catch I see with this is if you have data on the notebook you need, it's unclear if you will get the machine back.

You can walk outside, look up at the sky, and see propeller aircraft flying around on any given day. The thing all those propeller aircraft have in common is that they need some sort of fuel to burn in their engines. Some gliders can fly without a motor, but most aircraft still burn fuel of some sort.

An electric airplane called the Solar Impulse 2 is getting ready for a voyage that will see it travel around the globe using no fuel. It looks a lot like a glider with long and thin wings and it does have propellers. Rather than spinning them with fossil fuels this plane uses solar power.

Inside the fuselage are some sort of battery packs that store the energy from the solar panels on the tops of the wing surface. Those batteries store enough power that the airplane can fly at night. It will hold two pilots who will fly the aircraft around the world.

The US military has been working on directed energy weapons, which is a fancy way to say laser, for a long time. A successful test of a laser about a year ago showed that a weapon aboard a ship could be used to down a drone aircraft. The Navy has announced that its laser weapon will be deployed on a ship later this summer.

The prototype laser weapon will be installed on the USS Ponce for at sea testing in the Persian Gulf. Military leaders are touting the laser weapon for its ability to engage targets at the speed of light and for having an unlimited magazine.

Previous tests have shown that the laser weapon can be used against targets on the water as well. The targets in recent tests have been tracked with a Phalanx Close-in Weapon that can hand tracking data over to the laser. Sailors control the laser with a video game like controller and have the ability to stop a threat or destroy it.

Yahoo has made no secret of its desire to compete in the video streaming market. It tried to buy DailyMotion last year, but failed to close that deal. Rumors continue to circulate that Yahoo will launch its own video streaming platform. Whether it will buy an existing service or roll its own remains to be seen.

Sources that claim to be familiar with the goings on at Yahoo are claiming that the company is looking to land four TV quality shows to help its streaming effort. According to this source, Yahoo wants a quartet of half hour comedy shows written and directed by people that have TV experience.

The budget for these programs is tipped to be in the range of $700,000 to a million dollars per episode. Each of the shows will have ten episodes making for a lot of money spent. There is no word at this time indicating if Yahoo is negotiating on specific shows.

The bitcoin cryptocurrency has hit a few bumps in the road, but consumers now find it easier to make purchases and spend their bitcoins online. Silicon Valley startup companies are going beyond simply trying to mine and own bitcoins, and want to focus on apps and services for consumers to use.

The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently ruled that bitcoins are property, not a real currency, while other countries are struggling how to deal with the digital currency.

"It's all about to change over the next 12 to 24 months," said Marshall Hayner, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur hoping to bank on bitcoin with a QuickCoin app. "We are going to see all kinds of people adopt it. It's going to power transactions on the Internet."

If this release had been published on April 1, I would have thought it was a joke. I see no indication that TigerDirect's latest announcement is anything but real. Tiger has been a place where PC enthusiasts could go to buy hardware since before there was an internet.

TigerDirect has now announced that it plans to expand its product offerings. This appears to be an effort to better compete with Amazon. TigerDirect has announced that it will begin selling home décor, furnishings, pool supplies, and luggage.

This means you can soon buy a new mainboard and video card and add a new comforter for your bed n a whim at checkout. This is the first time that the online and catalog seller will offer these product types. The new product offered will be from some of the big names in those industries. As long as they don't get away from the core tech products that we know them for, all is good.

The European parliament has voted on a very important step for the European Union, where it would see roaming fees completely wiped away between EU member states - something that is being bundled as telecom reforms.

The new package was originally proposed by EU lawmaker Neelie Kroes, where it would see Europe move toward being a single market for the mobile world. This news comes on the heels of 4G LTE roaming agreements between European carriers. If the law passes with ministers from member nations, citizens of the EU could see roaming charges being a distant memory.

We could see this pushed in as early as the end of next year. The EU telecom reform package includes stronger protection for net neutrality, which will make it illegal for network providers to block or impose speeds on data based on the sender, or recipient.

The former Creative Director of Naughty Dog, the studio behind the immensely popular Uncharted series, has joined Visceral Games. Amy Henning will work on a new Star Wars project over at EA.

Visceral's Vice President and General Manager, Steve Papooutsis, announced the news through EA's The Beat blog, where he said: "Amy has long been recognized as one of our industry's top visionaries, and is coming off an amazing run as the Writer and Creative Director of the Uncharted franchise. But her contributions go beyond the games she helped create at Naughty Dog and at Crystal Dynamics, where we worked together many years ago".

"As both a colleague and friend, I've always admired her approach to creative development - focusing on nailing down the soul of a game first, and then making sure the writing, the gameplay, the design and the art comes together to form a unified, interactive experience for the player. This fits in perfectly with what we're trying to do here at Visceral and Amy's going to help us continue in our pursuit to make the most thrilling, immersive games in the world".

If you frequently order things from Amazon, you know that it can be a worrisome process if a package has to be left by the door of your house with no one there to get it. There are some products that you might not want to go to your house even if someone is there to receive them, gifts are a good example. Amazon started rolling out its Lockers delivery service a few years ago.

Early on, the lockers could be found in Staples and other locations. Staples has since cancelled the deal and no longer has Lockers in its locations. Originally, all you could do was pick up the items you ordered at the Lockers location, but Amazon is now taking returns at the same Lockers.

The lockers return service works much like the delivery service. Amazon will send the person making a return a code to unlock the locker. Boxes up to one square foot in size can be placed inside. By taking returns at the Lockers location, Amazon can presumably save money on shipping since the delivery driver will be there dropping off packages for delivery.

HP has taken a beating on its purchase of WebOS from Palm. The sell off of WebOS left many investors in the computer maker upset. They were angry enough that they filed a class action suit against HP. That suit now has a settlement offer on the table.

HP has agreed to a $57 million settlement that will be placed into an interest-earning escrow account. The money will sit there until the judge presiding over the case decides whether he feels that the deal is good enough. The suit was filed by some major investors of HP after the company talked up its major WebOS plans only to back out and sell the asset off later.

The plaintiffs are a number of institutional investors that are angry about what HP said publicly and planned privately to do. The suit that was filed lists information given from unnamed HP employees that claims while HP was saying it would flood the market with WebOS devices; it didn't plan to launch the first devices using the OS until 2013.

Philips has unveiled an interesting new product for the people out there that are into smart lighting and the ability to create custom light scenes. Philips already has a complete line of hue bulbs that can be controlled with a smartphone or tablet.

The company has now rolled out a high-tech light switch called the hue tap. The switch is powered by kinetic energy and needs no battery or hard wiring to connect. The hue tap has four buttons that you can bind light scene creations for times when a tablet or smartphone running the app isn't available.

The tap of a button can change between those light creations and turn the lights off as well. The tap gets its power by gathering the energy from the tap of your fingers on the switch. The switch does require the hue bridge that is found in all starter kits to work. Philips will launch the tap in Europe and the US this summer for $59.95.