More details on Audi’s Tesla Model S competitor emerge

Audi’s upcoming four-door luxury electric car will have a 311-mile range, along with Level 4 self-driving features (essentially full autonomy, for those keeping track) and three separate electric motors, according to a new report from Autocar. The car is set to go head-to-head with the Tesla Model S, based on these new stats, and will likely be called the “A9 e-tron” when it goes on sale sometime in 2020, the publication says.

The range is in line with what Tesla says its new P100D option package will offer for Model S owners, though Autocar says that the Audi A9 e-tron will have a 95kWh battery to achieve that range, rather than the 100kWh version Tesla employs to get 315 miles as measured by EPA standards.  

Sourece : Techcrunch

Yahoo Annual Shareholder Meeting

The CEO of Internet giant didn't give much detail about the bidding process -the point investors were impatient to hear about

Yahoo Inc. is in a middle of selling the company and the board is actively involved in looking into the offers send by multiple bidders. During the company’s annual shareholder meeting held on Thursday, CEO Marisa Mayer opined that the Internet search company is making great progress and that personally Ms. Mayer has been very uplifted by the level of interest people have shown in Yahoo.

The Internet giant has been having sluggish growth for quite a long time now when finally majority of its shareholders demanded the board of the company to withdraw from their position. This however doesn’t happen but the company’s “For sale” sign was put out in the public. In addition, a couple of months ago, Yahoo added Starboard Value –the company actively involved in petitioning against the board –CEO Jeff Smith along with other two provisions on the board.

Publicly, the company announced about its sale plans in February however the bidding process started from the last few months. The prospective buyers of the company belong from a wide spectrum of industries. The bidders range from private equity to media companies. As at mid-June, the company still has three bids from private equity investors. 

These investors include Advent Inventor and TPG Capital, along with a joint bid from Vector Capital and Sycamore Partners. Companies like Verizon Communication, AT&T, and Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert are also actively involved in the bidding race. The Internet titan is also considering on the sale of its patent totaling three thousand.

The CEO of the company, Ms. Mayer refused to go into extensive detail about the sale process.

Earlier, the Internet giant has been planning to look into spinning-off its stake in Alibaba –China’s ecommerce giant –however the thought was short lived and late last year the company abandoned the idea when it couldn’t succeed in getting a green light from Internal Revenue Service that the transaction would be tax-free in nature.

However, during her opening presentation, Ms. Mayer attempted to convince the shareholders by showing a list of metrics that underlined the growth of the company’s new products.

She was reported to have said, “I want to start by stating very clearly, Yahoo’s management team and our board are fully aligned with one clear priority: delivering shareholder value to all of you.”

By whom will the company get bought will probably be known in near future. As of now, at the market which closed on Thursday, Yahoo Inc. stock stood at a price of $37.56. The 52 week range of the stock is $26 to $42.

Amazon's Plans To Fly Drones Suffers A Setback

The US government has restricted drone flights for Amazon as a specific weight can only be hovered from one place to another

Amazon is soon going to launch a flying drone which could deliver a package from a warehouse in the country to a nearby farm. The White House administration too has allowed commercial unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flights but stated it was not prepared to let the American e-commerce giant and Alphabet Inc.’s Google launch automatic fleets of delivery drones out around urban localities.

The Federal Aviation Administration stated commercial UAVs are fine as long as long as the sum of its weight and the UAV is lower than 24.976 kg, flies within US boundaries, stay inside the unassisted sight of the operators as well as pilots pass an exam every 2 years.

Additionally, every UAV should have its own pilot. Whereas consumers have run after the mini aircraft, American businesses state the issue for them isn’t tech. For instance, Google as well as Amazon have shown that prototype delivery could cut down the need to ship through UPS or post. Executives state the obstacle is the web of indistinct rule.

The government stated it’s comfortable with organizations employing drones for rescue, crop inspection and search, aerial photography as well as other infrastructure inspection. But as far as deliveries are concerned, the White House administration stated UAVs are just ready to be taken off in a very confined range of circumstances.

The combined package and UAV yet needs to weigh lower than 24.976 kg. The drones aren’t allowed to hover over anyone who isn’t participating in the transaction and can’t fly out of the observation of the pilot. That is not exactly what the online retailer was thinking in its popular demo video of a UAV landing on a residential drive away.

Last month, the government stated the web retailer had taken particular issue with its need to have a single pilot for every drone. The debate does not seem to be fully regarding security. The government stated lacking data on the security of flying UAVs outside the pilot’s line-of-sight, though it stated operators could file a waiver application on a case-by-case basis.

Commercial UAVs can just hover during daytime and half an hour after sunset and prior to sunset. Speeds should be maintained under 160.934 km and the UAVs cannot fly over 122m(400ft). The government has acknowledged that it does not have the regime to regulate frivolous drone flights the same manner.

It will be noted in the future whether the company’s innovation can be bring together with the limitations and restrictions imposed by the government.

Google Accused of Favoring Hillary Clinton

The US search engine developer has been alleged of favoring Hillary Clinton by manipulating its search results

 Lately, the allegations have surfaced which alleged Alphabet Inc.’s Google for favoring one of the presidential candidates –Hillary Clinton. The search engine giant has been blamed for manipulating its search algorithm which favors Ms. Clinton in the predicted-search feature.

On Thursday, a popular pop culture site, Source Fed published a video accusing that the American tech company’s autocomplete facility is biased in favor of Ms. Clinton, the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. Discovery Communications-owned website SourceFed disclosed that an input of “Hillary Clinton cri” into the organization’s search bar yielded suggested questions related to crime bill, crisis as well as crime reform.

It did not include the suggested search “Hillary Clinton crimes,” although the company’s statistics demonstrate that suggested queries are less common than search. A person aware of the autopilot software stated the word “crimes” is a part of the offensive term list. 

The person also stated the production of suggested queries is done from numerous factors beyond the searches’ popularity including users’ locations as well as searching histories.

The incident focuses upon a growing role played by technology organizations like Alphabet’s unit in influencing the information as well as news. The Mountain View based company has for a long time period claimed that its tool is unbiased, but for years it has been accused of skewing results to favor its facilities over rivals. In May 2016, Facebook changed how its “trending topics” selected news stories feature is assembled after ex- workers stated the social platform was opposing conservatives in a biased manner. The US social networking organization denied that it had any bias.

In the company’s case, SourceFed stated entering “Hillary Clinton ind” resulted in suggested searches regarding Indiana and India but not “indictment” –although the popularity  of the search “indictment” is greater than that of Indiana and India. The latter search refers to possible legal results of her private email server usage while she used to serve as the US secretary of state. Nevertheless, on Friday, a test of that claim showed that “Hillary Clinton indictment for emails” was the first autocomplete suggestion. Hillary has repeatedly stated an indictment would not happen.

Ex- executive of Google Matt Cutts tweeted that the video posted by SourceFed, which got 12 million views on Facebook is “simply false.” He stated often, people use the first name of Ms. Clinton while they are exploring news regarding an indictment. Indeed, entering “Hillary in” resulted in a suggested search of “Hillary indictment.”

“It’s hard for me to believe that Google manually changed autocomplete results .And if they did, it would be completely opposite to their business ethics until now.” 

stated Razvan Gavirllas who is CEO of Cognitive SEO, which helps web marketers enhance their website ranking in Google  results. Discovery Communications’ spokesman representing Source Fed was not available for sharing views.

Amazon's Huge Investment In India

The American online retailer will invest the money to dominate the Indian E-commerce industry

Amazon aims to make $3 billion investment in India –a market which promises growth to the e-commerce titan. On Tuesday, CEO Jeff Bezos met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an official meeting in Washington. The CEO announced the company’s plans for the region and stated that it sees “huge potential in the Indian economy.”

The planned investment now rests at $5 billion following the announcement. Almost two years ago, the e-commerce giant has made an investment of $2 billion in the region. Amazon’s representative turned down the request for giving the disclosure of how finances would be allocated or during which time-period. In compliance with the region’s domestic regulations, Amazon operates a pure market in India and delivers only those items put on sale by third parties through its sites.

Nonetheless, the company has delivery and warehouse tech there that are especially tailored to the domestic market, where internet connections can be non-existent and most consumers do not have credit cards.

Last week, at the tech-focused Code Conference in the state of California Mr. Jeff expressed that the company delivers most of its items to customers in the country. In contrast to that, in the US it heavily relies on United Parcel Service, US Postal Service and other organizations. “We’re adapting to the local model,” Mr. Jeff stated during the conference, noting the online retailer has smaller as well as more number of warehouses than in other markets.

In China, the company sufficiently did not model its business for suiting domestic preferences, he stated, which cost it the region’s market share. Overall, the Seattle based organization’s global segment, which includes every market outside the North American region, is growing at a much more slowing rate than its home base’s. Last year, foreign sales grew by 5.7% to a sum of $35.4 billion, in comparison to 25% in the North American region to $63.7 billion.

The web retailer also recorded an overseas operating loss of $91 billion, compared with an operating profit of $2.75 billion in its domestic market. The organization does not divide results in terms of countries. In summer last year, Amazon stated it aimed to set up a data center in the country to serve a huge number of consumers in the second most populated country of the world. The company faces rivalry in the country from locally based emerging companies such as Flipkart Internet Pvt, which is valued at $15 billion, revealed by The Journal.

The planned investment by the company is particularly huge compared to the country’s still small, but quickly expanding market for online shopping. The future will tell whether adapting to the local market turned out to be fruitful for the e-commerce behemoth or not.

Nestle Relies On Alibaba For Sales Boost

In China, Nestle will offer its more than 60 brands  which are new to the Chinese market

Nestle SA is selling its 67 brands on Alibaba’s popular market place Tmall. The Switzerland food company has collaborated with Chinese giant to come out of the trance of slow growth. On 5^th June 2016, Yinlu peak milk and KitKat chocolate maker started selling on sixty seven such brands –including Damak chocolates and Nido –which it hasn’t previously offered in China.

The experiment is being executed as a part of E-commerce fair which is celebrating the organization’s 150th anniversary. The commemoration features high discounts in over 150 items on the marketplace Tmall.com. The fair will run for the first 6 months.

Nestle will be interested in taking of the online growth  that will find Chinese online sales getting ahead of combined sales of Europe and US by 2018, stated Nestle head of African and Asian businesses Wan Ling Martello. The growth of the Swiss company in China had slowed in the previous few years as the organization did not react rapidly enough to patterns such as healthier eating and E-commerce., which led buyers to reject a number of packaged foods. Its brand Yinlu, which is a maker of rice porridge congee and peanut milk, has been avoided by customers as they move to premium items.

In Greater China, Nestle’s sales increased by 6% to $7.3 billion (7.1 billion francs) in 2015, which turned the region into the organization’s second-largest market. In China, E-commerce sales grew twice, boosting the growth. Nestle does not break the number out for the marketplace. During last year, Nestle’s E-commerce sales were 3.9% of cumulative worldwide sales in the last year.

The managing director of Nestle’s beverage and food business in the Greater China region Reinhold Jakobi stated the company’s E-commerce business in the country has a three digit growth rate and on average is already more lucrative than conventional retail. For the previous 4 years, Nestle has failed to meet is long-term sales objective. It has continued to seek acquisitions and growth in healthcare and skin health nutrition to cut down the reliance of the organization on the struggling packaged food sector.

In other news, as per reports by Korea times, the online retailer is improving its profile in the South Korean region, as its business strategy differs from other organizations whose primary objective is profit maximization. The company wasn’t well-known to Korean consumers before it shocked everyone with its record-making IPO at the NYSE in 2014.

In 2014, the organization entered the country, with Chairman and founder Jack Ma visiting the South Korean Capital Seoul to have a meeting with President Park Geun-hye to deliberate upon business co-operation with local companies. Alibaba and its significant partners have since tied-up with local organizations in what critics state is a measure taken for the diversification of its sales revenue streams, as other international overseas information and communication technology (ICT) companies have done.

AT&T To Test 5G In Middle Town

AT&T is working to offer the fastest internet service to the masses in the competitive world

On 6^th June 2016, AT&T stated Middletown will turn into the second location for using fifth generation wireless tech as a home broadband facility, scheduled for the summer end. The country’s second biggest wireless carrier stated initial tests with the Swedish multinational company Ericsson have generated speeds of 10 gbps, or ten times faster than what is offered by Google Fiber.

Rival Verizon’s fifth generation test runs had a speed of 3.77 gbps, speedy enough to download the whole "Simpsons" series in half an hour. In comparison, AT&T test is close to 3 times faster. Telecoms are boosting up the publicity for 5G, the future wireless technology generation that pledges to bring higher levels of speeds, possibly revolutionize the sector and connect more products.

These tests are another reminder that organizations like the American telecommunication service provider are investing in our future. The reality, nevertheless, is that 5G mass-adoption such as a wireless facility is yet years away, and most of these are merely theoretical top speeds that we might never view in the actual world.

Apart from that, the wireless sector yet has to settle on 5G standards, which probably would not happen until 2020. Until then, organizations like Verizon as well as AT&T are developing 5G-like tech that they hold the belief will finally work into the standards. They also are beginning not with true mobile facilities, but with the help of a fixed version that acts similar to a house internet connection.

The Michigan based company also stated it has got Nokia along with other suppliers for its 5G network. AT&T has taken another step to provide a speedy internet service to its customer base. The city officials and U.S Senator Roger Wicker joined together at Plein Air’s soon-to-be set up Grit restaurant where President of AT&T Missipi announced that Taylor is amongst a number of localities that will be provided access to ultra-fast internet speeds of up to one gbps over the company’s GigaPower fiber network. Extra fiber to the house will be enhanced to the one gbps in the later part of 2016, Flyst stated.

The 1 Gbps or 1 gigabit, will let residents of Taylor watch music videos as well as films online, connect at a more faster speed to the cloud, download 25 songs in a second and video conferencing, a television show in three seconds and a film in a time of lesser than 36 seconds, revealed AT&T.

Facebook finds a way to secure its users communication

The American social network operator may now encrypt its users' conversation on Facebook Messenger

Facebook might be developing its Messenger application encrypted version, a report by The Guardian has disclosed. The publication, after talking to sources near Facebook venture, stated an app opt-in version would be launched in the "coming months". Instead of launching out an end-to-end encryption to 900 million Messenger users, it is reported that the American social networking company will be requiring users to turn on the feature.

That’s because switching on the encryption would stop the working of its artificial intelligence (AI)Messenger bots. End-to-end encryption, which is frequently dubbed ‘strong encryption', tells us that messaging networks as well as their owners cannot read messages sent through their platform; the receiver as well as the sender can only access the content.

Apple’s Face Time and iMessage are already using an end-to-end encryption method and secure messaging applications like Signals and Telegram. If the measure taken by the social networking service provider goes ahead it would contribute to a very high profile encryption launches ever seen. In April 2016, WhatsApp, which was bought by the social network platform operator 2 years ago launched end-to-end encryption for its 1 billion users by default.

The Ex NSA contractor Edward Snowden-backed end-to-end encryption method Open Whisper Systems was used by WhatsApp. In May this year, the US search company Google added an option in its own messenger application Allo that lets users enable end-to-end encryption – also with the use of the method Open Whisper Systems.

As suggested by the networking organization’s development, the Mountain view based organization’s opt-in function is stated, by the Guardian, to be there to ensure that the Messenger’s AI functions are not limited by the organization not getting user data. The search engine operator’s video calling application Duo backs the powerful encryption technique by default.

The reports regarding an encrypted Facebook Messenger encrypted version comes in context of the public battle between FBI and the American smartphone maker regarding the access to the content on terrorist Syed Farook’s locked iPhone.

Up till the FBI, by seeking the help of an anonymous third party, discovered a method to crack Farook’s iPhone 5S, the consumer electronics maker refused to develop new software to permit the smartphone to be accessed.

During that disagreement the Cupertino based organization’s claim that developing a “backdoor” for law enforcers to crack into the iPhone would undermine its encryption techniques was backed by huge tech organizations including WhatsApp, Facebook as well as Google.

The tech industry is highly caught between 2 conflicting patterns. Customers look to be demanding that organizations share less data with them- but are also interested in companies making an improvement in their facility through the integration of more of their private data.

Alibaba's Taobao Marketplace To Implement New Policy

Alibaba's Taobao will ask the luxurious goods' sellers to upload proof of authentication for the luxury items from May 20 onwards.

For years now, Alibaba Group Holding Limited has been fighting against counterfeit goods on its several online marketplaces. It has received complaints from not only customers but the luxurious brand owners as well who think that the fake goods would damage the brand’s reputation all in all. Alibaba’s marketplaces are unique in a way that they offer almost every brand and item at comparatively cheaper rates. Luxurious brands such as Burberry etc. are concerned as their products are available at lower rates than usual.

Platforms such as Alibaba.com and Taobao Marketplace have previously been in the notorious market list of fake goods by the US Trade Group. However, recently Jack Ma and his company have joined hands together with a couple of organizations in an attempt to eliminate fakery from its business. According to Reuters, Taobao has further tightened its control on the sales of luxury items on its platform. The sellers on the marketplace who would be selling the luxury goods will have to show an authenticity proof to prove the originality of the product. This move is a part of fighting sales of fake items on Taobao.

Reuters said that the sellers will also have to upload proof of luxury items such as authorization from the brand itself or an invoice to prove that a particular item is original. This policy will be made effective from May 20. Failure to comply with this policy will result in removal of the good or product and the funds of those sellers will be frozen. Taobao has said to strictly look upon the product and proof before accepting it to be added to the listing.

Alibaba Group told sellers in a note, “To create a healthy shopping environment with a high level of integrity and to protect the legal interests of consumers and brand owners, Taobao is gearing up to regulate sales of luxury brands' products.”

This indeed is a great step from the online retailer as not only it was damaging the reputation of the company and all of its marketplaces but the reputation of the Chinese e-commerce market as well. Therefore the sellers on the platform will now have to act quickly in order to prevent themselves from shop closures and other penalties. Furthermore, the luxury goods will also be removed from listing if there is no proof uploaded at all. Taobao Marketplace has geared up to making its online marketplace a better place for shopping.

Amazon in Line to Rule the Indian e-commerce Industry

The online retailer's share price has increased and its CFO Brian Olsavsky has appreciated its Indian operations

Chief financial officer of Amazon Brian Olsavsky has praised on the operations of the company in India, pledging to boost its investments in the state on every front. The American E-commerce organization has invested over than $2.26 billion in its online trading operations in the Indian region and is seen to be reaching the position of Flipkart, which is the market leader of India.

After the disclosure of the initial quarter results by the online trading organization, Brian addressed an investor call by stating he came back from the Indian region after he spent 7 days with the teams in Hyderabad as well as Bengalaru.  "I had a chance to see firsthand the level of invention going on with both customers and sellers...it's a very exciting time in India and again, the invention is off the charts. We are inventing things in India that do not exist in other parts of the world. And the team there is one of our best,"  he stated.

Brian stated for the second year in a series, consumers chose Amazon India as the "most trusted" E-commerce brand of the company. He noted in the recent quarter, Amazon India launched Taktal program, a studio-on-wheels that reaches merchants to let them log up.

Responding to a question by an investor on margins regarding its global business being lower than its position that it was certain years ago, Brian stated the organization is heavily investing in India. On an Indian regulatory environment and how it has an impact on Amazon Cloudtail, director of investor relations Phil Hardin stated the organization is glad to find the last clarifications.

According to the new instructions, no supplier on the E-commerce market can contribute to more than one-fourth of the total sales on the marketplace. The sales of Cloudtail are assumed to higher in significant manner. Cloudtail is a joint project between the online retailer and investment division of N R Narayana Murthy Catamaran Ventures.

India is the second largest investment market of Amazon, following the United States, and the organization has stated hopes India to go ahead of Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom to turn into its biggest global market in the upcoming few years.

The achievement has prompted Amazon to include its head of Indian operations Amit Agarwal into the CEO and founder of S-team of CEO Jeff Bezos, a group consisting of senior leads that helps make significant decisions.

The overall business of the company is also growing as its shares opened at $665.55 in the morning of 29^th April 2016, up by 10.6% compared to the closing price of $602 on the same day. In other words, the market capitalization of the organization rose by almost $30 billion.

Uber Fights to Survive in Argentina

The authorities of Argentina's city of Bueno Aires are probing the American application based taxi service provider

Innovation is welcomed by wealth-creating economies and then there is Argentina’s city Buenos Aires, where Uber technologies said that it has continued to wait over four months to get a taxi-identification number. Currently, the cab service provider is under probe for setting up its ride-sharing business in an illegal manner. The difficulty of the transporters with the city government is a good news for taxi owners as well as union heads who are interested in keeping the organization out of the cab market.

But it’s a bad news for the city, a state hungering for job opportunities as well as the productivity to maintain higher standards of living. Republican Proposal Party’s Center-right President Mauricio Macri has pledged a financial revival. But if established interests win security from the tech revolution, he will probably fail to deliver. On 12^th April, the transporters lost patience and started offering its ride-hailing services in the city without a tax-identification number or a permit.

A cab union group immediately filed a litigation demanding the government to prohibit the transporters. The city responded by taking a legal action against the organization for the misdemeanor of “improper use of public space for profit.” Spokeswoman of Uber Niki Christoff stated on 15^th April police raided its lawyers’ offices “taking all Uber files and information they found.”Niki states: the upcoming day police broke the door lock of the house of the local general manager of the company, raiding the property and taking some documents and electronic equipment.

From 15^th April to 20^th April, the company provided rides free of charge in the city, expecting to counter the cab union and generate demand for its own facility  , which has launched protests and blocked roads to put city regulators under pressure. The transporter states it’s currently normally running its operations and thinks that its business is shielded in a constitutional manner. It lays emphasis upon that it’s neither a cab service nor a vehicle service and states Argentina requires a new regulatory authority for ride hailing platform operators.

The organization states its application has been downloaded by 250,000 devices in the state, while there were about 175,000 ride requests within the first seven days of operation and 120,000 passengers have set up accounts. The California based organization will also provide jobs. Ms Christoff has claimed that in Mexico City around 50% of its driving partners were earlier unemployed. In Argentina, she states there were 10,000 log –ups in the initial one and a half day of driver registration for launch of Uber in the Latin American region.