Business, Financial & Legal - Page 88

KFC is really making some big moves in China, first by launching their own smartphone, and then launching a VR training app, but now KFC China has introduced a new facial recognition payment system.

KFC China's new 'Smile to Pay' system lets customers pay for their orders by simply smiling into a kiosk, and second later the computer will identify you as it analyzes over 600 facial features in order to match them to the photo ID stored on the Alipay system. KFC China includes a "live-ness detection algorithm" which stops people from scamming the system if they were wearing wigs or heavy make up.

Jidong Chen, Ant's Director of Biometric Identification Technology explains: "Combined with a 3D camera and liveness detection algorithm, Smile to Pay can effectively block spoofing attempts using other people's photos or video recordings and ensure account safety".

Technology giant HP Inc has reported its fourth straight quarter of strong earnings growth driven by its Personal Systems segment.

HP's fiscal third quarter 2017 earnings mark the fourth consistent period the company has one-upped its total net revenues. The company earned $13.1 billion in net revenues in the three-month period ending July 31, 2017, up 10% year-over-year. HP's Personal Systems segment, which includes its lucrative commercial and consumer PCs as well as workstations, thin clients, and tablets, accounted for roughly 64% of fiscal Q3'17 net revenues, or $8.404 billion in net revenues and up 12% year-over-year. Commercial and Consumer segment net revenues increased by 11% and 14% respectively, and Notebook segment revenues were also up 12% with Desktop units down 3% year-over-year.

The tech titan's Printing segment earned $4.698 billion in net revenues in the period, up 6% year-over-year.

Apple is already a force in apps and music. However, they're still a nobody in the world of video. It seems that Apple wishes to change this and to change it pretty soon.

The rumors coming from Hollywood are saying that Apple is prepared to spend up to $1 billion of their own money to buy and create original video content.

Apple's move into the original content video space is mostly a reaction to Netflix's success with original content. Companies like Disney and others are already looking at creating their own streaming services, which will make it increasingly more difficult to fill a large library like Apple is used to having. One way of doing this is through creating original content that people want to watch, which can even be content that already exists and is very popular with viewers.

Netflix co-founder Mitch Lowe aims to provide a similar business model to theater moviegoers by dropping MoviePass subscription to just $10 a month.

Streaming services like Netflix and Hulu are taking a big bite out of movie ticket sales as traditional moviegoers are simply staying home to consume content. This summer was one of the lowest periods in years with movie ticket sales down 12.4%, the Wall Street Journal reports. AMC reported dismal quarterly earnings due to the summer drought, triggering shares of the theater chain to slide dramatically. "The quarter was simply a bust," said AMC CEO Adam Aron during the company's quarterly earnings call.

MoviePass, a subscription service that allows subscribers to watch a film a day across the entire month, may be a solution to boost theater attendance. The service has recently lowered its price tag from $30 to just $10 a month in a bid to attract typical Netflix subscribers. MoviePass holders can watch a showing of a non-3D or IMAX film every day at any U.S. box office that accepts debit cards, and the company will actually pay the theater full price for the tickets. There's a trade-off, however: the company has essentially sold subscriber data to an analyst firm.

With its new Instant Pickup initiative, Amazon has made a big move on convenience stores, big box retailers, and traditional brick-and-mortar stores.

Amazon has rolled out its new Instant Pickup program, which allows customers to pick up select "daily essential" products ordered on Amazon.com. Instant Pickup locations will have orders ready within 2 minutes, Reuters reports, and targets quick impulse buys such as cold drinks, pre-packaged food, and other products like phone chargers. Company execs affirm Instant Pickup aims at bridging the gaps in Amazon's delivery service by offering convenient and fast pickup stations for items that don't translate well to delivery.

"I want to buy a can of coke because I'm thirsty," Amazon's director of student programs Ripley MacDonald told Reuters. "There's no chance I'm going to order that on Amazon.com and wait however long it's going to take for that to ship to me."

NVIDIA has just posted up its Q2 2018 fiscal year results, with the company continuing to pound out money from its success in the gaming market. Revenue reached a whopping $2.23 billion, up by a huge 56% year-over-year.

NVIDIA's net income was $583 million, up a massive 123% year-over-year, which is huge. NVIDIA's success is coming from their gaming market, which is their largest source of revenue. PC gaming is still big business, with NVIDIA's gaming division making $1.186 billion, compared to $781 million this time last year. This is what happens when you're the sole maker of high-end/enthusiast graphics cards.

It's not just the GeForce business that NVIDIA is benefiting from, but it's also the datacenter division - quickly becoming a money generator. This time last year, NVIDIA was making just 11% of their revenue from the datacenter, but fast forward to Q2 2018 (fiscal) and it has jumped by 175% to $416 million. It used to be small, but now the datacenter makes up 19% of NVIDIA's revenue... not bad at all.

Toshiba has reported a substantial $8.75 billion loss of income in the fiscal year ending March 2017, the company today announced.

Embroiled chip-maker Toshiba Corp has today revealed its fiscal year 2016 earnings following approval from auditors, illustrating how far the company's earnings have slid due to the Westinghouse closure. The earnings had previously been delayed three separate times. The timely filings have saved the company from being de-listed from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

The earnings filings show that Toshiba has suffered an $8.75 billion dollar net loss during the twelve-month period ending March 31, 2017. The Japanese electronics company pins the losses on the sizable debt incurred by its Westinghouse Electric nuclear power plant, which filed for bankruptcy in March. Overall the dissolved Westinghouse division incurred a total loss of 1.394 trillion yen, or $12.76 billion, during the fiscal year due to the discontinued operation of the branch.

Disney has announced it will be ending its distribution deal with Netflix, with plans to launch their own streaming service sometime in 2019. This is a tectonic shift for the company, as they own Marvel, Pixar, Lucasfilm, and everything in between.

Netflix secured the Disney deal back in 2012 before the streaming giant was the size it is today, but Disney is making a move for the future as it turns into a streaming content provider. This means that Netflix will be losing Disney content, something that will include Marvel content - think Avengers, and MCU movies. It also means Pixar movies (Toy Story, Finding Dory), and even the entire Star Wars universe.

Disney plans to cut Netflix off with their 2019 movies, but have said that Netflix will be able to keep Disney movies through to the end of that year. This means that Netflix will have their hands-on the next two Star Wars movie, but will miss out on the final movie in the end. A spokesperson for Netflix has said: "We continue to do business with the Walt Disney Company on many fronts, including our ongoing deal with Marvel TV".

Qualcomm just gained a big fighter in their corner for the battle against Apple, with the US International Trade Commission announcing that it will be investigating the claims that Apple has infringed on Qualcomm's patents.

Some of the models of Apple's latest iPhone 7 are using an Intel-made modem and not the one from Qualcomm, and while Qualcomm notes that the modem doesn't violate patents, it's the implementation by Apple that does infringe on their patents.

Qualcomm released a statement not too long ago, where they said:

Apple has recently posted third quarter earnings, showing consistent revenue growth in key areas such as iPhone sales and services revenue.

In the three-month period ended July 1, technology juggernaut Apple generated a whopping $42.4 billion in total revenues, up 7.2% year-over-year, continuing its landmark Fiscal Year 2017 earnings trajectory. The Cupertino-based company earned $10.768 billion in operating income, up 6.56% year-over-year, and $8.717 billion in net income, up 11.81% over fiscal Q3'16. As Apple's earnings grow, so too does expenses: the company saw a mighty 12% increase of operating expenses to $6.720 billion in the quarter.

Apple CEO Tim Cook notes that third quarter growth was driven by record earnings from the company's services segment, which saw a big 22% spike in year-over-year revenues to $7.266 billion. Apple's services branch includes revenues from the App Store, iTunes, Apple Pay, and Apple Care. In fact, the services segment accounted for about 17% of total revenues for the quarter.

Sony Pictures, a division of Sony Corp, today announced that it has agreed to purchase majority stake in popular American anime producer Funimation.

Sony Pictures has acquired 95% of equity interests of renowned animation distributor Funimation for $143 million, the company has announced. Sony Pictures remains an ailing branch for Sony Corp, with the segment recording a $719 million loss in Fiscal Year 2016 operating income, and sales and operating revenue dropping 3.73% year over year to $8.06 billion.

"Sony Pictures Television Networks ("SPTN"), a division of Sony Pictures Television Inc., an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Corporation ("Sony"), today announced that an SPTN affiliate has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire 95% of the equity interests in a Japanese anime distributor, Funimation Productions, Ltd. for approximately 143 million U.S. dollars," reads an official press release put out by Sony Pictures.

For the last 25 or so years, Intel has dominated the world as the biggest chip maker. This is different from manufacturers of chips because many manufacturers are fab-less manufacturers that rely on chip makers like Samsung and Intel to fabricate their chips. There are other companies like TSMC and Globalfoundries that also manufacturer chips, but they don't quite do it at the scale that Intel and Samsung do.

Now, Samsung overtook Intel position and became the biggest chip maker in Q2 2017.

Part of that reason has to do with the fact that Samsung has been expanding their chip manufacturing business and doing so at a rapid pace. Samsung's customers include the likes of Apple, Qualcomm, and Samsung. Between those three companies, it seems logical that Samsung could ship enough chips to overcome Intel's chip shipment numbers. Intel mostly manufactures chips for themselves and does so in PCs and servers, but very rarely for mobile.

Intel reports record second quarter earnings of $14.8 billion in revenues, and adjusts its total year earnings to reflect strong segment growth.

Intel today reported its fiscal Q2'17 earnings of $14.8 billion, up 14% year-over-year with impressive growth in client computing, which was up 12%, and an increase of 16% in data-centric businesses like its Data Center, Internet of Things, and Programmable Solutions Groups. The Santa Clara-based tech titan reported operating income of $3.8 billion, representing a massive 190% jump year-over-year. Earnings per share (EPS) was $0.58 during the three-month quarter, up a mighty 115% YoY.

Intel generated $4.7 billion in operational cash flow during the quarter, and as a result of two strong quarters of revenue growth, the company has adjusted its full-year outlook by $1.3 billion to $61.3 billion, and raised its EPIS outlook to $2.66, up 15 cents over previous forecasts.

Investment firm EagleTree Capital now owns the majority share of leading PC peripheral-maker Corsair, corroborating recent reports from Reuters.

In a transaction valued at approximately $525 million, EagleTree Capital has finalized a purchase agreement with Corsair's current management to purchase a majority stake within the company from its current owners Francisco Partners.

Corsair founder Andy Paul will retain his position as CEO in the company following the transaction, and key execs from EagleTree are keen on expending into new markets for the brand's fleet of premium peripherals and PC components, as well as possible acquisitions in the future. Corsair remains a private company, and it will be interesting to see if the new stakeholders will explore IPO plans in the coming years.

AMD has been enjoying success after success throughout 2017, bringing excitement to the CPU world with the release of not just Ryzen 7 1800X - but the entire Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 family of processors.

The company continued that upward trajectory with Ryzen ThreadRipper teases all year, with AMD's return to HEDT not just some lukewarm release - but a huge ass kicker to Intel who has been dragging their ass along the ground for years now. AMD's upcoming Ryzen ThreadRipper 1950X flagship processor is a 16C/32T beast for only $999, with Intel's closest processor costing nearly DOUBLE that.

Well, this has all turned into AMD making some massive strides on the books and in the market with AMD shares spiking 8.2% to $15.27 in extended trading on Tuesday. AMD is now expected to have an annual revenue increase of "a mid to high-teens percentage" compared to previous estimates that saw low double-digit percentage revenue growth. AMD is expected to push Q3 2017 revenues by 23% over the previous quarter.

One of the biggest insurers in the United States, State Farm, recently sued Apple blaming the company for a fire that occurred after an Apple user that bought an iPhone 4S had their iPhone catch fire and burned their home.

The lawsuit claims that a fire was started in the customer's home and that there was a significant source of heat that came from the smartphone's battery area and that they discovered an internal short inside of the battery that caused the fire to begin with.

This isn't the first time a smartphone has caused a fire, like the Note7, but this lawsuit is one of the few times that Apple has been sued for faulty batteries. Traditionally, other companies have been sued in the past for faulty batteries that have caused fires, but it sounds like the customer, in this case, didn't get a satisfactory response from Apple about their claim and neither did their insurance company, and now both are suing Apple for damages.

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, has announced that he has partnered up with Apple to develop a movie which stars no other than Siri. Because that makes total sense, right? If Steve Jobs got multiple movies, then it's only fair that Siri gets one too!

The movie is named The Rock x Siri: Dominate The Day, and it will be released on YouTube. Very little is known about the movie at this point, and the promotional poster reveals...very little or very much...

We can see The Rock holding an iPhone 7 Plus...then space, a plane, robot, car, and more Dwayne Johnson. Also Chinese lanterns?

Tech titan Microsoft has reported its total yearly and fourth quarter earnings for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2017, showing substantial earnings spikes in all segments.

Microsoft pulled in a total of $90 billion in revenues for Fiscal Year 2017, handily beating Wall Street's predictions thanks to a big tax write-off from its mobile phone business (Microsoft recorded an effective tax rate of 8% of reported GAAP revenues versus the 15% tax rate in FY16) and impressive growth in the giant's four major segments.

The Redmond-based company reported operating income $22.3 billion for the fiscal year, and net income of $21.2 billion. As Business Insider notes, these figures caused Microsoft stock to climb.

Intel has thrown their hat into the ring in the fight between Qualcomm and Apple. The reality is that they are kind of the source of this fight, to begin with, and if you look at Apple's complaints, they sound written from Intel's perspective.

The irony, of course, is that Intel is the chip company in question that is supposed to be the only competitor to Qualcomm. Intel accusing anyone of monopolistic behavior after what they did to AMD in the past is laughable.

Apple and Qualcomm accuse Qualcomm of being monopolistic, but Qualcomm has many competitors including Huawei, Samsung, Spreadtrum, and MediaTek.

With all of the fluctuations surrounding digital currency and more specifically Ethereum, hackers were able to take a huge $32 million of Ethereum from Parity.

The hackers attacked a vulnerability of Parity, an Ethereum walelet that has implemented multi-sig wallets, securing 153,000 worth of Ether, valued at $32 million at the time of the theft. Parity posted a security alert on July 19, stating that the vulnerability had been fixed, adding "any user with assets in a multi-sig wallet created in Parity Wallet prior to 19/07/17 23:14:56 CEST" was still vulnerable to Ether theft.

Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood also founded Parity, with Parity quickly becoming one of the most trusted wallets available. CyberScoop has reported that a bunch of white hat hackers saved Parity users from even more devastation, taking the remaining multi-sig wallets that were filled with $75 million worth of Ether - a huge 377,000 worth. The hackers have promised to return the $75 million worth of Ethereum once the vulnerability has been fixed.