Business, Financial & Legal - Page 76

The US box office has experienced its worst weekend in 25 years, which coincidentally just so happens to be the year that Outbreak was released: 1995. Just in case you don't remember Outbreak, I've got the trailer embedded below:

It looks like all that social distancing with cinema chains like AMC Theaters implementing new procedures, along with advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommending social gatherings of over 500 people end, with CDC's new guidelines recommending just 50 people or less now.

COVID-19 coronavirus has forced US box office numbers into worrying lows, with the top 10 movies combined making just $50.3 million. This is the lowest for weekend 11 of the year since March 17-19, 1995 -- the year Outbreak was leading the US box office.

Starbucks has joined the growing list of companies implementing procedures to enable social distancing over COVID-19 coronavirus, with the retail coffee shop giant temporarily enabling a "to go" model in all of its US and Canadian stores.

The company will end seating in all of its US and Canada-based Starbucks stores, which will include both indoor and patio areas for the next 2 weeks. In its place, Starbucks will use its own app for ordering ahead of time -- and then depending on the store, walking up to the counter and picking it up, delivery, or drive thru.

Starbucks will physically close its stores in places like schools and shopping malls where "high-social gathering" occurs. Starbucks EVP Rossann Williams explained in a statement: "As we all know, the situation with COVID-19 is extremely dynamic and we will continue to review the facts and science and make the proactive decisions necessary to protect our partners, customers and communities. Every community's needs are incredibly different. We want to make sure we play a constructive role by taking responsible actions, in partnership with the CDC and local public health authorities, so we can continue to do what's right for our partners and customers".

Bill Gates has just announced he is stepping down from the board of directors at Microsoft, with co-founder and ex-CEO of the company pushing more into his philanthropic efforts.

Back in 2008, Gates walked away from his full-time position at Microsoft in order to pursue his philanthropy wishes, but has now stepped down from the board of directors in a similar way. In a press release over the news, it stated Gates will "dedicate more time to his philanthropic efforts".

Bill Gates will stay on with Microsoft as a "technology advisor" to the current CEO, Satya Nadella.

Pornhub has stepped up for Italians that are currently in lockdown throughout the country over COVID-19 coronavirus, offering Italians free premium subscriptions for free.

Yeah, Pornhub knows that millions of Italians are sitting on their hands right now -- and wants those hands elsewhere. They won't even need credit cards to get the Pornhub premium goodness, while the company will also be donating some of its proceeds from Modelhub, which is Pornhub's subsidiary that helps creators sell content, to local hospitals.

Pornhub explains: "Pornhub has decided to donate its Modelhub March revenue to help Italy overcome the emergency. To keep you company at home during these weeks, you'll be able to access Pornhub Premium for free for the whole month, with no need for a credit card".

Bitcoin has dropped by a very dramatic 40% overnight, from its 2020 highs of over $10,000 down to 2020 lows of under $4600 -- but so too is the stock market, and here: Apple.

Apple (APPL) stock has dropped by 11% down to $243 at the time of writing, down from its 2020 high of $327. This means that Apple has dropped from its huge share price highs of $327 on February 12 and a huge $1.432 trillion ($1,432,000,000,000) market cap, to now just $243 and a market cap of $1.065 trillion ($1,065,000,000,000).

Apple isn't the only one experiencing huge drops in their share prices, with most tech giants including Microsoft and Amazon experiencing huge drops and hundreds of billions of dollars wiped away. No tech company is safe, with travel companies and the travel industry in general bottoming out in slow motion right now with most people not wanting to travel over COVID-19 / coronavirus fears.

Google has just asked all of its US-based employees to work from home if it's possible in their roles, effective immediately and through to April 10 over the current coronavirus / COVID-19 outbreak.

Business Insider has confirmed the news with Google itself, with the search giant asking staff based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Dublin, and Seattle to work from home over the last week or so. Google staff that are required to be physically present at their jobs will be okay, as Google will keep its offices open.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai tweeted out that people should "contribute" to "social distancing" if you are able to as it "helps the overall community spread and most importantly, will help offset the peak loads through critical healthcare systems and also saves it for people in need".

It looks like coronavirus / COVID-19 is making waves in the delivery market (I'm surprised it took this long), with delivery startups like Postmates now offering customers a "non-contact delivery option" for those worried about contracting COVID-19.

It's not just Postmates though, with Instacart also implementing a similar non-contact strategy. The company saw a 10x increase in sales this week compared to the week before, as customers were concerned over coronavirus / COVID-19 so the company offered its customers a "leave it at my door option" instead.

Postmates explained the move to TechCrunch, with a spokesperson from the delivery startup saying: "Community health and safety is paramount at Postmates, and we have shared precautionary CDC guidance with our Postmates. Customers have an option to designate the drop-off of item without contact; and we'll continue to encourage employees, merchants and consumers to follow preventative measures. While we are operating with business as usual, we are tracking the situation closely and will help provide the resources necessary to mitigate increased risks".

Apple has joined the growing list of tech companies asking its employees to work from home over coronavirus outbreak fears, with Bloomberg reporting that Apple has asked its staff to work from home for now.

The iPhone giant has asked its employees to work from home as an "additional precaution", but it's not forced -- it's a recommendation from Apple, and not a requirement as there are staff that simply can't pick everything up and just work from home. The news joins other companies that are asking their staff to work from home amid coronavirus spreading throughout the planet.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has tweeted: "Apple is encouraging employees in Silicon Valley to work from home today if they can as an "additional precaution." Its local retail stores remain open". Interesting that Apple retail stores are still open, and I wonder how long it'll be until we see those stores possibly being closed if the coronavirus / COVID-19 situation gets worse.

Google has reportedly ended all in-person job interviews over coronavirus fears, with the everything giant moving its job interviews through Hangouts.

The company has told potential candidates that all interviews will be done through video calls "for the forseeable future", after it restricted employee travel after a Google employee at its Switzerland office was tested positive for COVID-19. This is a big move by a big company, and with no end in sight for coronavirus / COVID-19 and its spread across the globe, it is worrying.

The Verge reports it has seen an email from Google staff, which read: "In light of the coronavirus (COVID-19) and to protect our candidates' and interviewers' health and wellbeing, we will be conducting all Google interviews globally virtually via Google Hangout (or BlueJeans for applicable countries) for the foreseeable future".

Back in 2017, Apple admitted that it slowed down older generation iPhones on purpose, now the company is set to pay out a massive $500 million.

According to a new report by Reuters, Apple is set to pay out $500 million to settle a massive lawsuit regarding how the company decided to intentionally slow down the performance of older generation iPhones. The lawsuit covers US iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, 7, 7 Plus, and SE models that were running iOS 10.2.1 or later. The suit also covers iPhone 7 and 7 Plus if those phones were running iOS 11.2 or later before December 12st, 2017.

Consumers can take part in the lawsuit and even get some money back from doing so. It's estimated that consumers could get $25 per phone, and in total, it's estimated that Apple will have to pay back $310 million to consumers. Reuters also mentioned that lawyers are seeking $93 million in legal fees with an additional $1.5 million in expenses. Lawyers also said that settlement for consumers is "fair, reasonable, and adequate" and that payment of $25 per phone is "considerable by any degree".

The COVID-19 virus is hitting numerous markets in the technology industry, and one of those markets is the PC market. Analysts are now stating their expectations for how much it will fall by the end of this year.

According to analyst firm, Canalys, the global PC market is expected to shrink by a whole 3.4% in total by the end of the year if shipments continue to be hindered by the outbreak. The analyst firm also says that if the state of the outbreak worsens over time, the global PC market is expected to take a larger hit of around 8.4%.

The country that suffers the most from this outbreak if obviously China, and in the event of the worst possible scenario, Chinese sales will fall by 12.2%. In the best-case scenario, analysts predict it should only be 3.8%. Here are some numbers that make it a bit easier to understand -- in 2019, around 396 million PC's were sold, and in 2020 Canalys predicts it could be anywhere between 362-382 million units.

A new report by the Department of Defence has revealed that the United States has failed to account for $715.8 million dollars worth of weapons and equipment while in Syria.

Members of the Special Operations Joint Task Force-Operations Inherent Resolve (SOJTF-OIR), which is apart of the United States' Combined Joint Task Force in Syria, purportedly "did not maintain comprehensive lists of all equipment purchased and received". These weapons and equipment were supplied to the United States and allies during the years of 2017 and 2018. Not only were weapons and equipment not accounted for, but some of the weapons and equipment that were accounted for suffered rust due to them not being correctly stored.

The report says that this rust happened because of "SOJTF-OIR personnel did not divest or dispose of CTEF-S equipment, which led to overcrowding at the BPC Kuwait warehouse". The Department of Defence report doesn't state if the 'lost' weapons and equipment ended up in the hands of Daesh and Al-Qaeda affiliates, but according to the Military Times some of it did "battlefield losses by partner forces and as a result of Islamic State [Daesh] fighters plundering the armories of U.S.-backed groups in early 2014 as the jihadi group surged across Iraq and Syria".

Seventeen members of a German parliamentary group have nominated whistleblowers Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize.

According to the full letter, which was published on the Courage Foundation's website, these seventeen members of the parliamentary group believe that Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Chelsea Manning have shown extraordinary efforts towards deserving a Nobel Peace Prize.

The group believes that Assange's efforts to expose "the extent of harm and illegality behind the Iraq and Afghanistan wars", Snowden's revealing of "illegal mass surveillance, in defence of the liberties", and Manning's disclosure of 750,000 "classified, or unclassified but sensitive, military and diplomatic documents" to WikiLeaks represents enormous sacrifice for these individuals. The group also believe that a Nobel Peace Prize would more than honor the actions of these individuals, and represent their own sacrifice of liberties.

NVIDIA shareholders would be smiling right now, with stock reaching a new all-time high for the company -- hitting $314 with a market cap of $192 billion.

The last time NVIDIA was on this trajectory was back in September 2018 as it launched its new Turing GPU architecture and the GeForce RTX brand. NVIDIA stock was hitting close to $280 at the time, but cratered just before Christmas 2018 reaching the lows of around $129.

NVIDIA didn't have quite the success that it expected with the GeForce RTX 20 series graphics cards, but the shift down to 7nm and the upcoming Ampere GPU architecture that should be unveiled at its GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in March will help that. We can expect the launch of the next-gen GeForce RTX 3080 and GeForce RTX 3070 graphics cards this year, which will mark for an even more successful year for NVIDIA.

Warren Buffett has just offloaded $800 million worth of his Apple shares in the last quarter, according to SEC filings secured by Business Insider.

Berkshire Hathaway, where Buffett is the CEO, offloaded 3.7 million Apple shares between the months of October and December 2019 when Apple share prices increased by over 30% from $219 to $294. Even with the offloading of 3.7 million shares and securing $800 million, Berkshire Hathaway still holds $72 billion worth of Apple stock -- or around 5.6% of Apple.

In saying that, the $72 billion worth of Apple stock represents over 32% of Berkshire Hathaway's entire portfolio. The investment firm purchased its first loads of Apple stock in 2016, when Apple stock was sitting at around $100 -- Buffett's company spent $1 billion on 9.8 million shares at the time.

Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos has announced via his personal Instagram account the is launching a new fund to battle climate change - the Bezos Earth Fund.

Bezos took to his Instagram to announce what is called the Bezos Earth Fund, and this fund will be dedicated to fighting the effects of climate change. Bezos says that he wants to work alongside others that are fighting climate change, and to kick things off for the Bezos Earth Fund, he will be donating $10 billion that will go towards grants that will be issued out this summer.

Bezos says that the Bezos Earth Fund will fund scientists "scientists, activists, NGOs - any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world". He also says that to save the Earth it will require collective action from "big companies, small companies, nation states, global organizations, and individuals." It should also be noted that the Bezos Earth Fund is separate from Amazon's own initiatives and that the $10 billion came from Bezos' personal account.

The court for Berlin-Brandenburg has officially ordered Tesla to stop all forest clearing and building preparations for their coming gigafactory.

According to a recent report from Reuters, U.S electric car manufacturer, Tesla has been ordered to stop all forms of preparation for their planned construction of a gigafactory. The court has ordered this after it gave Tesla the green light to remove 92 hectares of forest for the construction of the building.

This decision by the court has come after environmental activists (Green League of Brandenburg) have expressed their concerns over the de-forestation being a threat to wildlife and water supplies. It should be noted that Tesla was only three days away from completing the forest clearing, but the court states "It should not be assumed that the motion seeking legal protection brought by the Green League lacks any chance of succeeding." At the moment, Tesla has two gigafactories, one located in the United States and the second in Shanghai, China.

Apple and Nuvia are in the headlines over the weekend, with a former Apple chip executive being sued for 'betraying' Apple by launching a new startup and poaching Apple employees... while Apple is also reportedly trying to poach his new staffers. But the story is a lot juicier than that.

Bloomberg is reporting that Gerard Williams III, who left as the lead chip architect at Apple and co-founded Nuvia, says that Apple is stopping his new company from hiring engineers, all while hiring Nuvia staff from under him. Bloomberg reports that Apple's new lawsuit was made to "suffocate the creation of new technologies and solutions by a new business, and to diminish the freedom of entrepreneurs to seek out more fulfilling work".

But where this gets interesting is that Williams said he is maintaining a distant relationship with Apple and his former colleagues, but AnandTech founder Anand Shimpi -- who left his site to work for Apple, has "sent him numerous texts after Williams left the company, including material marked "Apple Confidential" in an April conversation. Williams said he told Shimpi this was "inappropriate and unwelcome," according to the filing. Apple didn't immediately respond to a query about Shimpi", reports Bloomberg.

Phishing scams are currently one of the most common ways to scam someone, and while you'd probably think that it would never happen to you, it just happened to the Puerto Rico government.

In a new report by the Associated Press, the Puerto Rico government transferred funds equating to over $2.6 million dollars to a phony bank account through a phishing scam. The incident was discovered just this past week, and at the moment, government officials are working with the FBI to recover the stolen funds.

So how did this happen? According to Ruben Rivera, who is the finance director of Puerto Rico's Industrial Development Company, the department received an email that said that a bank account that was tied to government payments needed changing. In response to the email, officials transferred the funds into the changed bank account, which they later discovered was fraudulent.

Amazon is extremely upset over losing a $10 billion dollar Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud computing contract to Microsoft. So, as any good business would do, they claim it bias.

According to a new report from CNBC, Microsoft's contract with the Pentagon is has now been paused because Amazon believes that President Trump has a bias towards Microsoft. Amazon's argument is that President Trump personally doesn't like Bezos or Amazon, and through his supposed dislike, he influenced which company would get the contract.

Now, the judge that is ruling the case has put the contract on pause to hear out Amazon's beliefs. Here's Amazon's statement, "The question is whether the president of the United States should be allowed to use the budget of the DoD to pursue his own personal and political ends." CNBC also says that Amazon has said it would pay out $42 million for any "costs and damages" that are resulted from this contract being put on pause.