Facebook Introduces Four-Month Leave For New Parents

Facebook is introducing a 4-month leave for new fathers that can be availed within one year of child's birth.

Facebook has taken an initiative to improve the motivation levels of its employees. It is introducing 4-month paternal leave for every new father days after CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a proclamation that he would take a 60-day long leave for birth of his first child. 

The social network enterprise’s newly introduced parental leave program extends the 4-month leave option that could be currently availed by some workers, such as current head of search, Tom Stock, who availed a 4-month leave after his child’s birth two years ago to any full time worker of the organization, regardless of location or gender.

The extension would affect mostly “new fathers and people in same-sex relationships outside the U.S.,” stated Lori Matloff Goler who is working as the organization’s head of HR.

Goler also stated, “Our approach to benefits at Facebook is to support our employees and the people who matter most to them. We want to be there for our people at all stages of life, and in particular, we strive to be a leading place to work for families. An important part of this is offering paid parental or ‘baby’ leave.”

Facebook news today revealed that when Zuckerberg made an announcement in July that he and his spouse, Priscilla Chan, were about to have a baby, many people doubted if he would avail paternity leave at all in the silicon valley’s workaholic culture. However, four months later, he acknowledged that he would take a two-month leave once the baby arrives.

Facebook Breaking News reported that the company has increased the duration of its global remunerated paternity leave to four months for new daddies, in the aftermath of Zuckerberg’s decision to avail two months leave following the impending delivery of this daughter.

From January 1, 2016, all same sex partners and new fathers, encompassing those who adopted or had their own baby throughout 2015, working as full time employees at the organization would be allowed to avail four months of salaried leave, which could be availed up to a year after the birth of a baby.  

Zuckerberg announced he would take 60-days leave with Priscilla Chan and daughter stating it had been "a very personal decision".

Only 12% of the workers hired by the private sector are offered a remunerated leave through the means of their jobs, stated the US Department of Labor. The leave has been announced at a time when the social network enterprise has launched SDK for Apple television applications. 

Canadian Competition Bureau Recommends Uber Business Model To Canadian Taxi Industry

The offerings of Uber's business model has made the regulator recommend it to the industry.

The Canadian regulatory body has welcomed Uber’s business model. The antitrust regulator of the North American country on Thursday stated the cab industry and local authorities themselves could adopt changes in the cab businesses introduced by entrance of start up like Lyft and Uber.

Municipalities, which to a huge extent are authorized to oversee cab services in the country, require reconsidering existing rules, the Competition Bureau of the country stated. Local authorities must focus on relaxation of regulations to end restrictions and permit more adjustable pricing on the amount of cab permits issued, it stated.

Uber news affirmed that the prohibition of services such as Uber “is a blunt regulatory instrument,” it added, noting that comforting some rules covering the taxi industry would mean ”lower prices, greater convenience and availability, and better quality of service through improved technology.”

The San Francisco based company, which is known for upgrading the conventional taxi hailing business and operates in greater than 300 cities across the globe, has encountered a backlash in several jurisdictions, particularly in Europe. One of the major ride sharing services Uberpop, has been disallowed in several countries.

Canada has also seen protest against the transporter. A Court in Alberta granted the authorities of municipalities in Calgary an order this November that banned the transporter from offering its services in the fourth biggest city of Canada until local legislators take the decision regarding how to govern the facility. Cab drivers in Montreal and Toronto – Canada’s two biggest cities – have protested against the app-based ride sharing organization.

Uber news today reported that Ian Black, who is known for heading the company’s operations in Canada, stated in a phone call interview the findings of the antitrust agency reaffirm a “growing consensus that there is a way forward to promote innovation, competition and still allow for ride sharing,” adding the organization supports the relaxation of regulations on the conventional cab industry. 

Uber is known for operating in approximately five dozen Canadian cities. Lyft, which is also based in San Francisco, does not yet share rides in the neighborhood of the United States.

Local Canadian regulators, such as their peers in the United States have reduced the number of plates or cab licenses, issued over the past times, the Canadian regulator stated. This has lowered down the levels of choice for customers and caused an increase in complains about prices and quality of services offered, it added.

Uber technologies informed that services such as Uber offer a “meaningful source” of rivalry through the means of lower fares, the bureau stated. 

AT&T Urges FCC Not To Ban Text Messaging blocking

AT&T and other telecoms want to stop FCC from placing a ban on text messaging.

AT&T is making efforts to stop the Federal Communications Commission from banning the blocking of text messages. The Texas-based company, Verizon communications, along with other wireless operators, is asking the FCC to dismiss a plea that will impose common carrier rules on messages.

In 2015, the commission reclassified both mobile and fixed internet access as common carrier facilities under Communications Act’s Title II and utilized the new categorization to impose net neutrality regulations that are known for preventing Internet service providers from throttling or blocking traffic.

AT&T news exclaimed that wireless operators are currently facing mobile voice’s Title II common carrier rule, but the text messages’s status has continued to be unsettled, alongside the question that whether carriers could carry out the blocking of text messages. In August, the regulator was questioned by Twilio to make a proclamation that text-messaging facility must face the Title II rule, raising concerns amongst telecoms.

Verizon and AT&T urged the commission to dismiss the petition of Twilio, and so was done by the wireless association CTIA, which is known for representing telecoms in general. The Association filed on Friday that new limits could play a role in preventing wireless carriers from blocking spam. 

CTIA wrote "Twilio frames its Petition as an effort to curb what it calls the 'blocking' and 'throttling' of messaging traffic but in fact, Twilio is asking the Commission to invalidate consumer-protection measures that prevent massive quantities of unlawful and unwanted mobile message spam from reaching and harming consumers.”

AT&T news today affirmed that Verizon and AT&T filed similar claims on Friday. T-Mobile and Sprint did not write by themselves, but were represented by the Association. Twilio, known for developing an application that software developers could utilize to autonomously share text messages, claimed that text-messages must already be considered as a Title II facility as it tends to fall under the telemarketing legislation Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Telecoms are "treat[ing] messaging services as if they are in a regulatory no-man's land," Twilio wrote.

AT&T Breaking news reported that Twilio stated messages shared by its clients were lately blocked by telecoms. "Twilio provides an integrated service that allows businesses to send and receive text messages from the same toll-free number that they publish to field voice calls from consumers," the organization stated.

This provided client service agents another method to field queries from clients. The regulatory body’s net neutrality order issued in March stated that telecoms cannot block messages shared over the web but did not clarify regarding the conventional text messages’ status. The commission already had started a proceeding regarding the issue before Twilio filed a petition, but the request of the organization spurred a new round of petitions from telecoms, organizations that depend on advocacy groups and text messages.

Apple Opens New Store In China

Apple opens its 27th retail store in China to expand its distribution network.

Apple is about to expand its distribution network in the People’s Republic of China. It proclaimed its 27^th retail store in the most populated country and 5^th in Beijing. The announcement was made yesterday through the organization’s Chinese webpage, just a day after the establishment of a brick and mortar storefront in Chengdu.

The Chaoyang Joy City Apple Store is not expected to be a flagship marketplace, such as the Wangfujing outlet in Beijing, but somewhat a satellite that would extend the technology giant’s access to the growing metropolitan city.

The in-mall store can be similar in terms of size to the most recent store of Apple in the city that was opened in the China Central Mall, which began to receive clients in January. As in case of all modern stores, some of the sales floor area would be kept for a hands-on workshops space and a Genius Bar. A small number of classes planned for Sunday, November 29, yet have seats available, encompassing Mac basics, iPad basics, and picture editing on Mac.

The new store would be opened on Saturday. Apple news affirmed that the second largest economy is the most significant growth market of the company, generating $12.5bn in sales revenue over the organization’s last financial quarter of this year, a number up 99% annually.

Apple news today exclaimed that the CEO of Apple Tim Cook is optimistic about the People’s Republic of China. During a recent quarterly earnings conference call, Tim stated he expects that China would surpass the United States as the largest market of the consumer electronics manufacturer thanking largely to a growing middle class. To help speed up the procedure alongside, the company aims to grow its regional selling foothold to 40 Apple distribution centers by the mid of next year.

Apple Breaking news informed that the new store would be following the normal Chinese selling schedule with regular operating hours, which would start from 10 am and end up on 10 pm regularly. A famous inauguration event would probably take place on November 28at 10 am.

Apple’s efforts to strengthen its sales presence in Asia is not only reflected through its decisions to open its new outlet in China as it has previously confirmed that it would open a retail store in Singapore which would be merely electrified by solar power. Solar power supplier Sunseap Group stated it would supply the distribution center with renewable power by connecting its systems across 800 of the city’s rooftops from January 2016. The company nevertheless did not disclose the store’s opening date nor its location.

Alibaba Strengthens International Market Presence After Singles Day

Alibaba's massive sales on Singles' Day shows its power in the e-commerce market.

Alibaba Group Holding just broke its own Singles’ Day record this year. The Chinese e-commerce giant beat the analysts’ expectations by generating sales worth more than $14 billion in a single day. This was a huge day for it as in only 24 hours, it created history.

In the past two to three years, same results have contributed in making Singles’ Day the biggest one-day online shopping festival of the year. The previous biggest one-day online shopping festival was US’s Cyber Monday, which could only generate $1.53 billion last year.

Alibaba Group was quite satisfied with the numbers regardless of falling down on the stock market. According to Business Insider, Singles’ Day was an international success. The company aimed to make it a successful international event and for that matter, it teamed up with more than 20,000 international retailers to sell their items on its online platforms, such as Taobao and Tmall.com. Overall, the one-day event was a phenomenal success and showed the power of Alibaba in the e-commerce market.

Scott Devitt, a Stifel analyst, wrote in a note, “CEO Daniel Zhang noted that cross-border gross merchandise volume (GMV) generated in the first two minutes this year exceed the total cross-border GMV generated during the entire 24 hour period last year, a positive indicator of international traction.”

Jack Ma has been trying for a long time to make the company’s international market presence stronger but has not been effective up till now. Alibaba invested and operated many businesses in the United States but it could not make an impact in the US tech sector, which is currently the biggest tech market of the world.

However, Mr. Ma believes that this might be the other way to turn the tables in his favor. The top countries outside China that ordered the packages from Alibaba’s online marketplace include Australia, Canada, Malaysia, Singapore, and the United States.

According to an analyst at Suntrust, Robert Peck, at least one third of the online shoppers at Alibaba made purchases from international companies. He added, “The real importance is this is the first time they have had a lot of international brands on the platforms. This is their chance to introduce Chinese consumers to these international brands.”  

Therefore, Alibaba proved once again that it is more than just a Chinese organization. It also had a televised party in which various celebrities featured including the most popular character Daniel Craig from James Bond and Kevin Spacey from House of Cards.  

IBM Helps Sports Teams To Benefit From Digital Age

IBM Corporation wants sports teams to enter the digital age for their own advantage.

IBM is striving to employ new methods to generate revenue and its latest measure is concerned with letting professional sports team reform stadium operations and enhances the means by which it interacts with fans. The venture has two folds. The first one is the Sports and Entertainment Global Consortium, a portfolio of corporations joining to drive infrastructural updates at arenas and stadiums.

The second one is the Sports, Entertainment, and Fan Experience consulting practice, developed to let sports team comprehend and improve the means by which fans interact with them. IBM news affirmed that it is hiring Miami Dolphins football team’s Chief Revenue Officer, Jim Rushton, to manage the show.

As Jim elaborates upon it, the first piece is a consortium hiring together 18 to 20 partners to let teams improve the infrastructure in a current stadium (or develop a new one), playing a role to plan it in a manner that adds to the expertise facilitating the operations of the stadium.

This would include ticket areas, big screens, and scoreboard across the stadium, and the access provided to fans through wireless connectivity in a stadium, concession areas, and so on. The collaborators might enter market in various teams, contingent upon the situations, but they aim to share IP to provide a baseline tailored fan experience to the degree possible.

IBM Breaking news reported that the second component involves providing teams an opportunity to bring together different fan interaction points in various parts of an arena. In addition, it is also concerned about improving relationship with fans. 

Server software informed that the Big Blue wants to utilize its powers as an integrator of systems and bring different stakeholders together to find solutions of these problems, which essentially breaks down to the management of the operation’s IT portion and the sales and marketing portions.

When it moves toward that stage, sports teams suffer from similar problems for any business. On the other end, they are working to improve the client relations when a variety of customer relationships exist, making it difficult to comprehend the entire picture.

IBM news today exclaimed that Digital Disruption’s author and Forrester Research analyst, James McQuivey, acknowledges this concept looks unusual for the company, but he states it is justified for the organization to try to develop these strategies.

“Sports is a massive business that is only barely beginning to experience digital transformation. The years ahead will be full of many opportunities to change the way sports are “delivered” as an experience in the stadium, near the stadium, or at home, not to mention outside of actual game time. All of those innovations are digital”, he stated. 

AT&T Introduces Program That Offers Discounts For Data Sharing

AT&T's program would let customers share data with marketers for discounts.

AT&T has found out that its Digital Life automation and home safety clients are ready to share a part of their private information if they are offered discounts for employing that service. AT&T careers informed that the company is proud of the fact that the information its clients are able to generate from Digital Life, which is currently offered in 83 markets across the state, belongs to them.

"Truly free services come at the expense of sharing data and privacy“, Digital life’s official, Stephan Vincent, stated when asked the question that how the organization could battle with free options for smart home information services.

He also stated, "AT&T is very protective of customer data, and we don't share it with anyone else." In accordance to Light Reading, nevertheless, the company has previously tested letting customers of Digital Life share their information with promotion partners on an optional basis in return for availing discounts on the facility. Stephen stated the outcomes up till now have proved to be positive, so "you may see those types of models overlaid as we go."

AT&T news exclaimed that the officials of the telecommunication company have recurrently pushed Digital Life as a possibly $1bn worth business that could help the organization to fuel its growth amidst flattening growth of postpaid subscriber and growing smartphone generation.

Under Digital Life, clients purchase machinery that the carrier fixes and subscribers sign a two-year agreement. All of the facilities provided through the company’s wireless networks. AT&T news today informed that the organization is offering three major Digital Life proposals.

• Smart safety: This proposal encompasses 24/7 professionally supervised house safety with door sensors and window, an in-door siren, a movement sensor and more, and charges $40 for each month with a $50 machinery fee.
• Premium safety and Automation: This more modernized package encompasses the Smart Security and Automation’s features alongside power features such as water detection, light control and temperature to ensure that water damage does not take place. The cost of the facility is $65 for each month and the organization stated the machinery charge would be $100 under the promotional scheme, decreased from $200.
• Automation and Smart safety: The package encompasses anything from Smart safely alongside an in-house touchscreen control and the company’s most famous house automation tools- an outdoor videotape camera and remotely accessed door lock. This facility is offered for $55 for each month and the enterprise is presently offering a promotional scheme that expires on January 9, and cuts down the machinery charges from $150 to $50.

AT&T Breaking news affirmed that Stephan stated clients are concerned about and are quite willing to make payments for employing the Smart safety package, along with locks of a smart door.

Facebook Uses Google App Indexing To Increase Visitors

App Indexing will redirect searchers from Google to the Facebook app.

Facebook has taken a step to increase visitors. It has allowed Google to access a part of its walled garden after a long period of time. The measure was taken to benefit from the search engine’s visitors. Now the social network enterprise is boosting its SEO game by applying the search engine’s App Indexing to ensure that it uses to lure visitors as mobile usage increases.

The social media company has permitted the search engine to carry out indexing of a part of the content it generated from 2007 onwards, when the social platform’s Profile pages were opened for search engines. Facebook News affirmed that “Indexing” tells us about Google’s ability to peruse all the Facebook profile pages’ content.

As a result of the indexing, when users search, these pages might be seen in the results generated by searches conducted through Google  This indexing practice, well known to SEO experts, has proved to beneficial for the two organizations.

The Mountain View based organization offers more content that might be able to satisfy what users are finding through its search engine. Facebook Breaking news reported that the social network lures traffic from Google free of charge. Over a period of time, Facebook has allowed the organization to access more of its content, such as Facebook Comments in 2011. The recent move does not make an addition of more content but intends to make sure that users searching existing content from the social network within Google enjoy an improved mobile experience.

The WSJ recently shared the latest development, stating that Facebook permitting Google App Indexing on Friday. The social network also acknowledged the same development to Search Engine Land.

Facebook news today exclaimed that with the indexation carried out by Google App Indexing, it jumps people from a website registered directly into a publisher’s application, where homogeneous content is loaded.

In Facebook’s scenario, if a user taps on a Facebook listing in Google search, instead of loading a website with that content, in some scenarios the search engine comprehends the means by which a Facebook application could be opened and loaded with content.

This could only be done with content that the social network has already allowed Google to access, like groups, Facebook pages, profiles and events (believing that they have not been blocked by users who are Facebook’s account holders).

Facebook mobile informed that one well known group of pages that have not been fixed with Google Application Indexing is status updates or personal posts that are offered to public. 

IBM Datapalooza Takes Aim At Data Scientist Shortage

IBM's Datapalooza educational event would create one million data scientists with a three-day training event.

IBM intends to increase the number of scientists, as it announced in June that it has embarked on a struggle to add one million new data scientists. It would be making an addition of around 230 scientists. The number of scientific experts would be increased through its Datapalooza educational program this week in San Francisco, where prospective information scientists are developing their first analytics applications.

IBM Breaking News reported that in 2016, it would organize the program in a significant number of cities across the globe, including Tokyo, Prague, and Berlin. The prospects who logged up for the 3-day Datapalooza convened November 11 at Galvanize, the space in the South of Market locality, to participate in instructional sessions, listen to information startup entrepreneurs, and utilize workspaces with accessibility to newly introduced Bluemix cloud services and Data Science Workbench. Bluemix allows them to access IBM streams, IBM Analytics, Hadoop, and Spark.

IBM news affirmed that an official at IBM, Rob Thomas, stated the San Francisco event is a test drive for Big Blue’s 2016 Datapalooza programs. "We're trying to see what works and what doesn't before going out on the road." He further stated that Datapalooza participants were developing out public sentiment assessment systems, deoxyribonucleic acid analysis system along with big information applications. Apache Spark is known for sitting at the hub of its education for future information scientists.

In June, the company made a contribution of its SystemML machine learning technology to the Spark system to ensure that Spark could be employed to conduct an analysis of the received machine generated information. IBM news today exclaimed that Spark could not only be employed as a system for conducting an analysis of information but also as a launch pad for retrieving it from other categories of information repositories for evaluation.

Unlike Hadoop, this depends on information being stored on disk prior to retrieval for evaluation, Spark could work with information placed in RAM, increasing the speed at which it could be utilized and retrieved. IBM’s spokesman describes Spark as100 times faster than Hadoop with information in server memory.

Mr. Thomas elaborated that majority of Machine-Learning Systems are developed on an information system that deploys a single collection of algorithms and one information model, and when information from different equipment or types of equipment event is gathered, it needs a different model. 

SystemML with Spark is a lot more adjustable than other information platforms. With it, current system could be adjusted to study an altered information flow without the need of an entirely new system, Thomas stated.

Microsoft Corporation Stock Update

Microsoft Corporation witnessed large amounts of outflow

High volatility was witness at Microsoft Corporation during the trading session held on Friday. The share price at which the shares were being traded at was $54.98. This was an increase of 0.99%, adding the tech company’s into the gainers of the day.

The trading session commenced with an initial share price of $54.085. Due to high volatility, the share price kept fluctuating between $54.98 and $54.08. The highest level at which the share price of the tech company was seen at was $54.98. The trade was last called at a share price of $54.085 with the number of shares soaring at 32,851,204 shares. The highest share price level that the stock of the company went to one year’s time was $54.37 while on the other hand, the lowest share price in the last 52-week the share price went to was $39.72.

In the short term however the analysts have predicted a target price of $54.58. This consensus has been done by over 19 stock experts. The standard deviation stands at 5.34 which basically means that the target price could fluctuate as much as the standard deviation amount. The target price could hit a high of $63 maximum and a low of $39 minimum.

A number of stock experts have commented on Microsoft Corporation’s stock. Bank of America, being one of the major brokerage firms that cover the stock of the multinational tech giant. The analysts have upgraded their rating on the stock of the company giving it a current rating of “Buy”. Initially, the experts had given the stock of the tech company a rating of “Neutral”. This rating by the brokerage firm was issued on October 23, 2015.

In the last seven days, Microsoft’s stock has risen by 4.33% while a rise of 16.58% was witnessed in the past four weeks. The shares have however in the last seven days managed to outperform the estimates of S&P 500 by as much as 3.35%. It has also managed to outperform the index in a month’s time by as much as 11.9%. Currently, the stock is being traded at a share price of $54.66 per share and has managed to gain 0.51% during the intraday trading. The upticks in the last trading session were $47.93 million while $75.67 million in downticks.

The earnings per share reported by the tech company are 1.49 and a profit to earnings ratio of 36.79. The company has witnessed an exceptionally good fiscal year this year as the shares are being traded on a 15 year high currently. Since the company’s cloud service demand remains strong, Microsoft clearly appears to be in demand and be doing quite well in the market. Additionally, Windows 10 has been off to a good start as well. In the present quarters, the company’s Surface business have come a long way and broke the sales record of $1 billion mark which was made last year.

Ford Deals With UAW While GM Faces Critical Week

Ford Motors Company would sign a deal with UAW.

Ford Motors Company is about to sign an agreement with a union. The United Auto Workers (UAW) is acting rapidly to sign a sellout deal with the Michigan-based company. Local executives from across the state are gathering in Detroit to approve a contract today, pursued by voting at facilities soon this week.

Ford News affirmed that the UAW announced a contract with the company this Friday, though the agreement with General Motors remains disapproved. Whereas, the union is claiming that a thin majority of 55% of automotive workers supported the contract overall, skilled trade employees dismissed the deal by almost 60%. According to the union’s bylaws, both skillful trades and manufacturing workers must support the deal if it requires to be approved.

A widespread disagreement could be witnessed among the automotive giant’s employees, who hold the belief that UAW has lied, composed PR campaign, and lies to sign the agreements at Fiat Chrysler and GM. In the previous week, employees serving at the company’s Flat Rock Assembly plant gave votes in a proportion of 55% to 45% to dismiss a local agreement, with skillful trade employees dismissing the contract by 80%.

In this week, UAW would also talk to skillful trades employees at GM’s facilities to find out why 59.5% of them voted “no” on the GM agreement. Contrary to that, 58.3% of GM manufacturing staff voted and the entire 55.4% of the workforce voted to ratify the deal.

Ford News today reported that the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter talked to employees at the enterprise’s Dearborn Assembly (Rouge) truck assembly plant located in Dearborn, Michigan and at the Chicago Assembly Plant. A young worker at the Dearborn’s facility stated, “I read your newsletter and I agree with a lot of it. The UAW has been in negotiations since July—five months—and they haven’t come to us with any proposals, or a plan of action. It’s upsetting.”

Ford Breaking News exclaimed that an employee with an experience of four years stated, “I’m voting ‘no’”. The agreement is being discussed at a time when the company has targeted the Trans-Pacific Partnership contract, which does not let 12 states manipulate their exchange rates for seeking competitive advantage in the market.

Ford tries to cover the issues due to its goodwill in the market. The organization knows that any failure in negotiations might injure the credibility. This is a problem that many huge companies consider.