Stimulus Talks Brighten With a New White House-Approved $916 Billion Aid Package | Inc.com

December 11, 2020December 10, 2020 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The chances for a badly needed stimulus bill getting passed as early as next week have improved for the first time since the election.

On Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin unveiled a $916 billion stimulus plan that would reauthorize the Paycheck Protection Program, the crisis-era small-business refundable-loan program, and issue $600 stimulus payments to individuals. It also offers increased liability protections for businesses and funding for state and local governments–yet it fails to offer any support for supplemental unemployment benefits.

Mnuchin announced the plan, which was approved by both the White House and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in a telephone call with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). She quickly decried the plan for its absence of unemployment funding but cheered the offer as a cause for optimism.

Facebook hit with massive antitrust lawsuit from 46 states | TechCrunch

December 10, 2020December 9, 2020 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

A huge collection of states filed an antitrust lawsuit Wednesday accusing Facebook of suppressing its competition through monopolistic business practices. Forty-eight attorneys general across 46 states, the territory of Guam and the District of Columbia are behind the lawsuit, with only South Dakota, South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia declining to join.

The lawsuit, which looks at Facebook’s actions throughout the company’s history, alleges that the company bought competitors “illegally” and in a “predatory manner” in order to grow and preserve its market power. The suit cites Facebook’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp as prominent examples.

Uber Gives Up on the Self-Driving Dream | WIRED

December 10, 2020December 9, 2020 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

IN 2015, THEN Uber CEO Travis Kalanick pulled off a bold talent raid when he poached some 40 roboticists from the National Robotics Engineering Center at Carnegie Mellon. The move reportedly left the world-class engineering university reeling, and it seemed to signal that the world’s hottest startup was on the cusp of making self-driving cars a reality.

Now, that self-driving unit is no more, and the estimated timeline for robotaxi domination has extended well into this decade. Uber said Monday it would sell off the self-driving unit that was the result of that raid, the Pittsburgh-based Advanced Technologies Group. The 1,200-person unit will be acquired by the self-driving-tech developer Aurora. Uber will invest $400 million in Aurora as part of the deal, bringing Aurora’s valuation to $10 billion and tripling its workforce. Uber’s current CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, will also take a seat on Aurora’s board.

Southwest warns 6,800 employees they could lose their jobs | CNN

December 4, 2020December 3, 2020 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

New York (CNN Business)Southwest Airlines warned 6,800 employees Thursday they may be furloughed in the spring, the airline told CNN.

If the layoffs do take place, they would be the first in the carrier’s nearly 50-year history.

The total includes 2,551 ground crew members who handle baggage, cargo, and restocking planes, as well as 1,176 customer service agents, 1,500 flight attendants and 1,221 pilots. The airline said the cuts would take place on March 15 or April 1 for different groups of employees

The Alps are growing taller | Live Science

December 4, 2020December 3, 2020 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The Swiss Alps are going through a growth spurt, according to a new study suggesting that part of the mountain range is lifting upward faster than it is eroding.

The finding goes against the conclusions of two previous studies, which suggested that the Alps were neither growing nor shrinking.

However, an international team of researchers has now found that isn’t the case, after analyzing different isotopes, or versions of an element, in the sand from hundreds of rivers in the European Alps. One particular isotope — beryllium-10 (10Be) — revealed information about erosion rates in different parts of the Alps, the team said.

Walmart beat Amazon on Black Friday by one important metric | Fast Company

December 2, 2020December 1, 2020 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Volumes of future marketing analysis will surely be written about this year’s unprecedented holiday shopping season, but for now we’ll have to make do with industry reports that reveal people’s pandemic-era spending habits in dribs and drabs.

The latest drib (or drab?) comes from analytics firm Sensor Tower, whose new dispatch shows a record surge in new downloads of shopping-related mobile apps. Black Friday alone saw more than 2.8 million first-time installs of shopping apps, the largest ever in a single day, according to Sensor Tower’s preliminary estimates. Year-over-year growth, the report says, was about the same as last year at 8%, but it was more substantial when you look at the entire month of November—with 59.2 million shopping app installs compared to 51.7 million for the same period last year.

It’s Official: Salesforce Buying Slack For $28 Billion, Taking On Microsoft With Benioff’s Biggest Deal Yet | Forbes

December 2, 2020December 1, 2020 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

After nearly a week of speculation, Salesforce confirmed its intent to acquire popular workforce chat platform Slack in a deal valued at $27.7 billion on Tuesday, marking the enterprise cloud giant’s largest-ever acquisition and positioning it to compete more forcefully with the nation’s second-largest tech firm by market capitalization, Microsoft.

Data Surveillance During Remote Work Leaves Businesses Vulnerable | Small Business Trends

December 1, 2020November 30, 2020 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Remote work has enabled businesses to weather the storm of the pandemic and adapt to new work environments while keeping business going. Yet, with employees now working remotely, the line between personal and professional data has been blurred and that comes with significant risk.

While companies focus on matching productivity and collaboration to that of office times, they can lose focus on the growing concern of data surveillance and misuse. Thanks to GDPR and CCPA regulations, businesses are now held to more stringent standards when it comes to collecting and handling data. However with the pandemic to distract focus, the number of data breaches continues to grow and businesses continue to ignore potential vulnerabilities.

Smart doorbells ‘easy target for hackers’ study finds | BBC News

November 25, 2020November 23, 2020 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Major security flaws in popular smart doorbells are putting consumers at risk of being targeted by hackers inside their homes, according to Which.

The consumer group says devices being sold on marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay, could easily be hacked or switched off by criminals.

It is asking the government for new legislation to safeguard consumers.

Amazon has removed at least seven product listings in response to the findings.

‘He used our smart doorbell camera to track me’

Ring logs every doorbell press and app action

The watchdog tested 11 devices which were purchased from popular online marketplaces in the UK. Brands included Qihoo, Ctronics and Victure.

It found that among the most common flaws were weak password policies, and a lack of data encryption.