Facebook Inc. Managed To Outperform All The Estimations

The social media giant had a wonderful 2015 despite of the slow economy.

As the social media giant Facebook Inc. reported better than expected earnings report on Wednesday, the stock of the company rose by 9.8%. For the fourth quarter, it managed to outperform the estimations of analysts at Wall Street.

For the quarter, the social media network reported revenue of $5.84 billion with earnings of 79 cents per share – the highest any Wall Street analyst had predicted the earnings to go was 75 cents with revenue of $5.67 billion, as mentioned in the data collected by Thomson Reuters. Additionally, a number of analysts had just predicted for the networking website to report earnings 68 cents and revenue of $5.37 billion.  

The chief executive officer, Mark Zuckerberg stated that 2015 was an incredible year for the social media as it continued to grow and the business managed to thrive throughout the year. In the after-hours trading, Facebook stock rose by as much as 12%. Additionally, the Silicon Valley giant was not the only social media that performed well on Wednesday, LinkedIn as well as Twitter Inc. performed well as their shares saw an increase.

The earnings reported by the company indicate the EPS to have raised by as much as 46% as during the same quarter in the previous year it was 54 cents however the revenue managed to show an increase of 52% - while back in 2014 it was around $3.85 billion. In 2015, the total revenue was $17.93 billion indicating a year over year growth of 44%.

Additionally by the end of the quarter, the company witnessed an increase in its monthly active users to over 1.59 billion whereas the analysts at the Wall Street were expecting the social media network to report an increase in monthly active users of nearly 1.58 billion. They had also expected the organization to report monthly active mobile users to be 1.43 billion but according to the earnings report it grew to 1.44 billion. So the social media managed to outperform the analyst’s expectations every point.

Facebook reported that over 90% of the monthly active users were on from their smartphone – which is a first for the organization. The CEO stated that Facebook users spend over 100 million hours watching videos on the platform every single day, and because of that reason the company is working on giving a separate platform to its users to view videos daily. This news by the CEO says a lot about having a new potential competitor for YouTube, in the market.

Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer stated that users are moving towards using the website on their phones so they are moving their focus towards providing advertisement on it. She added that despite of the fact that the macroeconomic conditions of the market are bad and are affecting all the businesses in the market – but she believes that their platform has a stronger positioning and knows how to take advantage of whatever the market situation is. She further added that to keep the customer retained the company has a lot of hard work ahead.

Uber Now Monitors Drivers and Passengers For Behavior

Uber keeps a track of its drivers' movements through the accelerometer installed in many smartphones.

Uber has quietly started to monitor some drivers’ movements in an experimental pilot project based in Texas, in efforts to flag dangerous driving. Abrupt movements in the accelerometer, movement sensor installed in many smartphones, is capable of showing when a driver hits brakes and accelerates too quickly – consistently driving too near of vehicle in front, or tailing.

Uber did not explicitly informed drivers about tracking their movements, but it told its users just when it feels the need for accessing data, after a company complaint is filed. Selected Houston based drivers were monitored for testing since it began last year. 

Uber technologies informed the Guardian it is planning or currently running many experiments designed for influencing the behavior of passengers and drivers in its automobiles, which are operated and owned by freelance contractors. Taken together, the efforts made could contribute to a subtle type of quality control.

The car-sharing business told it is considering sending dashboard phone mounts to driving partners alleged of texting while driving. It has also installed passenger-facing mirrors in the backseats of drivers on evidence it makes passengers to self-moderate their behavior.

The company has put the sound toy of children, known as ‘Bop It’ in the back of vehicles across Charlotte, North Carolina, for dissuading intoxicated riders from disturbing drivers. Uber app is offering on-demand rides employing an unregulated drivers’ network. It succeeded in spreading to 300 cities across the globe and placed amongst the most powerful companies based in Silicon Valley, with a number of supporters, including Benchmark, Greylock and Google Ventures.

Transporter’s application is downloaded many times and it has claimed to provide services to over 1 billion rides. Founded 7 years ago, the organization has turned into the successful technology startup’s platonic ideal and has succeeded in replacing the conventional cab for a large number of consumers. It was finally privately valued at $62.5 billion, which is over the market capitalization of Michigan-based automakers, General Motors and Ford.

Behind all its success, a major stress factor for Uber is that it has to rely on human drivers, which differ from computers in the sense that they are difficult to monitor and unpredictable. The company is looking to resolve this difficulty through its autonomous automobile laboratory based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Carnegie Mellon University’s former roboticists have been hired.

Preventive measures by company are expected to bring a positive change in attitudes of passengers and drivers alike. 

Apple Might Have Hired a Top VR Brain

Apple has hired  Doug Bowman to benefit from his virtual reality expertise which could contribute to the tech giant's growth

Apple Inc. has reportedly succeeded in hiring a leading thinker on augmented and virtual reality (VR) in the United States to serve it. Technology professor of Virginia, Doug Bowman has joined the smartphone maker after availing a paid leave given by the university.

According to his Virginia technology profile found on the internet, Doug has worked as a computer science professor and Center for Human-Computer Interaction’s director. His expertise is in benefits and design of 3D interfaces, the subject of a book co-authored by him. His research interests have been AR and VR. The technology giant has not talked about VR, but the recruitment of Doug can signify that its interests has reached heightened levels, even if for the purpose of  exploration in a significant new field of computation technology.

Maybe one day one would be using glasses colored by Apple to see the earth. The technology world has backed that the upcoming big shift in computation centers on VR, in which persons wearing handsets could be viewing and frequently interacting with a computer-generated 3D world. Games developers, theme parks and film studios are developing dedicated experiences of virtual reality and this technology could finally be playing a role in various walks of life from medicine to education to design.

Most of the largest technology organizations are already making aggressive efforts for pursuing AR and VR. Facebook is about to release the long-awaited Oculus Rift handset, whereas the flat cheap pack Cardboard goggles of Google have been offered in the past 2 years. HTC, Samsung and Sony have also heavily invested in this technology.

In the meantime, Microsoft Corporation’s HoloLens of aims at AR, which has added 3D computer-, generated scenes to people’s view of the actual world. Earlier this January, Apple took over the emotion-reading and face-tracking company Emotient.

The company has clearly steered some of the major tech markets including TVs and game consoles, but it is not content for selling iPads, iPhones and Macs only. For example: in 2015 Apple Watch was launched by the company and many reports have indicated that it is interested in making an entrance into the automotive industry.

The enterprise did not give a response to a request for sharing its view on the recruitment of Doug and efforts made for reaching out to Doug failed. His profile on LinkedIn was deleted soon after the reporting of the news took place.

Alibaba's Ant Financial To Conduct Second Funding Round

Alibaba's finance arm, Ant Financial, will be conducting a second funding round prior to its IPO launch this year.

Alibaba Group Holding’s finance arm which is more commonly known as Ant Financial is all set to launch its first initial public offering (IPO) in the foreseeable future. The financial wing is expected to conduct and finish a second round of funding before its reports its IPO. Ant Financial is hoping to raise at least $1.5 billion (10 billion Yuan) in a new funding round prior to its Initial Public Offering. As reported by Bloomberg, the finance arm is currently in talks with several financial institutions that would help it to raise the funds.

The finance wing’s spokesperson, Miranda Shek, has already confirmed about the second funding round to Bloomberg in an interview. Ant Financial previously completed a funding round back in June after which its value became $45 billion. In its first ever funding round, the financial firm sold its 12.4 percent of stakes to external investors which include China Development Bank Capital Co. and China’s national social security fund. The financial wing of Alibaba Group has solid plans to establish an IPO in this year. However it is still unclear whether Ant Financial would launch IPO after the second funding round or it will go for a third funding round as well.

Ant Financial has locked eyes on making its debut in the stock market but no exact time duration is given as to when it plans to launch IPO and make its way to the stock market listings. Several anonymous sources familiar to the matter have reported that the Jack Ma’s Zhejiang Ant Small & Micro Financial Services Group Co. will soon issue shares to the current and prospective investors.

On the other hand, Ant Financial owns and operates the biggest and largest mobile payments service of China, Alipay. Apart from backing Alipay, it is also known for operating the China’s biggest money market fund called Yu’E Baothat. Yu’E Baothat is popular for managing its portfolio which is worth at a massive 600 billion Yuan.

According to a source it is believed that the finance arm of the firm will use these funds to raise a new round which will further help in acquiring new companies. This was also reported by Bloomberg. Ant Financial currently hold stakes in India's One97 Communications Lyd. and Postal Savings Bank of China.

Alibaba is quite active in the market these days. It will be exciting to see how the IPO of its finance wing goes by. BABA currently holds the record of posting a record breaking IPO of $25 billion.

IBM Works With Wi-Next as Artificial Intelligence Comes To Factories

With the help of artificial intelligence,International Business Machines Corporation would help factories perform their functions

The internet of things enterprise Wi-Next would be equipping its IBM analytics to its systems for quality control and constant maintenance.

The systems would be equipped with a number of abilities including some powered by artificial intelligence to let consumer product manufacturers and processing organizations run production lines in a smooth manner despite what is sometimes a swift pace.

The tie up must play a role in helping deliver a very significant benefit pledged by the industrial internet of things; stopping unexpected shutdowns. It also plans to ensure that any product that is rolling off the production line remains the same.

Industrial machineries have had means to converse with each other for several years, but often with limited, proprietary tools. With the help of industrial internet of things, the options to analyze and gather data are increasing.

Wi-Next manufactures software and devices for gathering data from industrial gear, especially in consumer goods and food service industries. For instance sensors working on a bottled war production line could check the amount of time taken for filling a bottle. Wi-Next Wi-Fi node on the floor of the factory would let the sensors send that data to Wi-Next gateway software. The IOT organization could play the role of a bridge between legacy machinery to machinery systems and analytics and modern networking.

Businesses could route those details into ERP systems and conventional databases or send it through APIs to cloud facilities. Then they could conduct an analysis of it, in real time or after the fact for understanding what’s happening in their facilities in a better manner.

The partnership of International Business Machines Corp.  with Wi-Next provides users an opportunity for tapping into powerful analytics capacities in the Blue Mix Cloud platform of IBM, including its quality and predictive maintenance software.

The Corporation’s investments of billions of dollars in advanced analytics are more than the amount of money a startup is capable of bringing in the equation, CEO of Wi-Next Armando Pereira stated.

The AI of the New York based tech giant is capable of learning how machinery behaves in a period of time and make a prediction regarding what adjustments need to be done, Armando stated. Cognitive computation features are capable of sifting through various data points for the detections of quality failures in real time.

Business could employ those tools in IBM cloud or get them integrated with the Wi-Next gateway software on the systems owned by them. The second option is critical as a large number of customers of the California based organization do not want details regarding their operations for leaving the premises, Armando stated.

Alibaba To Offer Data Asset Technology In China

Alibaba would be introducing a big data cloud platform  for offering data asset technology throughout the most populated country

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is introducing a big data cloud platform; it has plans to offer data asset technology throughout the China.  According to Alicloud, the cloud big data platform will be offering an initial 20 solutions or products and facilities, which will be covering every aspect of the so-called data development chain.

This includes visualization products and data services that help analyze and process data and offer a computing engine equipped with abilities required for machinery learning. In technology, Big Data is referring to extremely complex or large data sets of unstructured and structured information produced by companies’ information’s by-product and can include data unlike video clips, text messages, webpage comments, photos and conventional SQL structured data gathered from databases.

“The Big Data Platform fulfills our vision of sharing our vast data troves that will create immense value to our users,” Simon Hu, AliCloud President said during the launch in Shanghai. “What we want to do at Alibaba is turn the data-processing capacity and data-security capabilities that we’ve accumulated over the last decade into a product, so that data becomes a resource and a service that we can provide our clients.”

In other news, Coin telegraph reported that Alibaba financial has made an announcement that it will possibly be employing block chain in its newly introduced cloud facility platform. This was discussed at the Yunqi Assembly Shanghai summit held in Beijing on 20^th January 2016.

Moreover, in a review conducted last year, Ali Financial cloud has explained the possible advantages of employing the Block chain. In the conference, the Hangzhou based enterprise also launched an entire chain of devices for the collection, analysis and processing of data, including the cloud service provider Alicloud platform.

An official of Alibaba’s cloud computation division Aliyun ChangLiang  Xu holds the belief that these technologies have led the industry for a time span of at least 3 years.

Shanghalist has reported that the Chairman and founder of Alibaba threw a dinner party on the sidelines of the Davis Economic Forum. The party was attended by many high profile people including celebrities, heads of companies and political leaders.

These include Canadian newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who was appreciated by women, Prime minister of United Kingdom David Cameron, ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Kevin Spacey, Leonardo DiCaprio, Bono, CEO of Cisco John Chambers, CEO of Coca-Cola Muhtar Kent, CEO of UPS David P Abney and ex-Prime minister of Australia Kevin Rudd.

In the event, the Chinese entrepreneur assured made political leaders realize that they do not need be concerned about the second largest economy’s sluggish growth and turbulent markets which are amongst the significant issues that they are thinking about.

660 news has reported that Jack had a meeting with Trudeau in which the two discussed upon the means by which Alibaba could play a role in boosting SME’s in Canada.

Apple has admitted the battery meters of its smartphones are misleading

Apple has conceded that the battery meters of its smartphones are  misleading  its customers

Apple Inc. has accepted that the battery meter of smartphones has a bug that is capable of making iPhone 6S plus or 6S show higher level of charge than it actual has. The fault means that the meter of the battery fails to update the actual percentage, leading to the shutdown of some iPhones apps whereas showing that the battery has been fully charged.

Apple believes that the bug seems when users shift from one time zone to another or manually make changes to the time displayed by their iPhones, something a user may do while travelling or making changes to daylight savings.

The California based company mentioned that it was fixing the error, but in the meanwhile users must first get their iPhones restarted, and then enable the automatic time setting found in the “Date & Time” settings.

The company has a past of bugs linked to its date and time settings. For many years, a bug with the automatic daylight savings broke alarms of smartphones has got people late at work. Savings of daylight were also to be blamed for don’t disturb bug in 2013, whereas  a bug in the text handling of iPhone found in 2015 meant anybody could be instantly crashing the smartphone with a text message.

Currently, Apple is conducting tests of its iOS software’s new version that could resolve the issue. The iOS 9.3 update, launched to testers in public beta, would fix bugs and add some new features including the capability to pair a single iPhone with a multiple number of Apple watches.

In other news, Cnet has reported that the presidential candidate of the Republican party Donald Trump has solemnly promised that "We're going to get Apple to build their damn computers and things in this country instead of in other countries."

At the moment, Apple is only manufacturing MacPro in the United States( specifically in the state of Texas). On its jobs generation webpage the company has insisted that it has created and supported 1.9m jobs in the largest economy, as in the later part of the last year. It has also claimed that "thirty-one of the 50 states provide parts, materials, or equipment to make Apple products."

The optics nevertheless are not optimum. It might well be that the cardstock for the beautiful letter press of Apple is brought from Wisconsin, but the picture of a large number of Chinese workers working in different conditions in the People’s Republic of China to manufacture iPhone is quite powerful.

One could not say how Trump will strong arm  CEO Tim Cook.

Amazon has got the license to ship from China to US

Amazon has got the ocean shipping license which would let it ship from China to the United States

The American e-commerce giant has attained an ocean shipping license in China, as it extends its reach to the logistics operations across the globe. The newly issued license permits the online trading giant to sell and purchase space on vessels, a potential measure towards the provision of large scale shipping facilities to enterprises that sell through the organization’s online marketplace.

“This could allow them to go direct to the factories in China to sell to consumers in the United States, It fits so naturally with their network,” stated CEO of American freight forwarding organization Ryan Petersen.

Amazon has heavily invested in logistics, introducing 1 hour delivery in over 20  cities in 2015 and conducting a test of an air cargo shipping program in the United States.

The electronic commerce company, which has lost around $1 billion per quarter on costs of shipping, has expanded its reach across the logistical system, especially in China.

In 2015, it procured its first fleet of Amazon-branded truck trailers to play a role in helping transport items between warehouses. Analysts have revealed that  the enterprise also began to run a pilot program for air cargo operations from Wilmington, Ohio.

Retail giants in the USA like Walmart usually purchase space from shipping service providers, making Amazon the one and only main American retailer that took the unusual measure of attain its own license.

People aware of the matter have revealed that ocean shipping volume of the company is lesser than 10% of that of Walmart. Walmart only does shipping of the goods which have already been bought by it in the People’s Republic of China, while the license of Amazon would permit it to sell shipping area to outside parties it it’s wishing to do so and ship its own items as well.

The license which Amazon China is holding help its purchase area from owners of vessels and sell it to the masses. Its registration was done with the American authorities in November, and was not noticed until it was found in an electronic database yesterday by Flexport.

Nevertheless, analysts have questioned whether the online retailer will employ the license to offer shipping facilities for outside parties.

 “I haven’t seen their forays into transportation as being a business they want to provide for others, as much as a way to secure capacity for their own network,” stated official of IHS Maritime, Peter Tirschwell , referring to the air cargo programs and trucking of  Amazon as examples.

He also stated that selling shipping area was “not a growth business, and not a profitable business”.

Ford Pays Additional Dividends To Investors This Year

Ford modifies cars to improve efficiencies and test them in harsh weather conditions.

Ford and General Motors are paying an additional $1.1bn in 2016 to investors. Both giants recently made an announcement of additional dividends worth an additional billion to be disbursed this year. GM on Wednesday announced that it is boosting its quarterly dividend by almost 6% to 38 cents per share. This boost would be adding $124m to GM investors’ pockets in 2016.

GM’s move came in after Ford said that it would make a payment of a special one-time dividend to investors in 2016 of 25 cents per share. Though it is not a recurring increase in dividend, such as the one offered by GM, but it is a faster and bigger bonanza for investors. The additional dividend offered is worth $992.2 million and will be disbursed to investors who own the stock as of January 29, 2016.

Both automotive organizations are taking measures as their stock suffers even as their profits grow. GM and Ford stock is down 13.4% and 19.5% respectively in the past one year, which is a bit puzzling as the companies’ profits are growing rapidly. It is expected that both would post 56.7% and 44.9% higher adjusted profit per share in the past year.

Both businesses make significant payments of dividends, both disbursing over $2.4bn per year in terms of dividend payments. GM is currently yielding 4.8% - well over the market’s dividend yield of approximately 2% - and Ford has yielded 4.7%.

In other news, Auto Express has reported that Ford disclosed its plans to make its vehicle even more efficient. Talking to the Detroit Motor Show recently, Ford’s official Bob Fascetti disclosed big plans of the brand to manufacture more economical and lighter cars as it rolls out its successful Eco Boost engine by 2020.

The 1.0-litre 3-cylinder EcoBoost has already succeeded in winning the International Engine of the year thrice, but engineers further launched a new concept employing carbon fiber to reduce weight and enhance efficiency.

Ford’s prototype engine would differ to a little extent from its gleaming concept vehicles. By employing injection-molded carbon fiber for objectives, such as the oil pan and sump, the new 3-cylinder is 13 kilograms and 15.5% lighter when compared to the engine installed in the current Focus and Fiesta. It takes advantage of the extensive aluminum usage to cut down some important component weight. 

The company is now conducting test of driverless automobiles in  adverse climatic conditions at University of Michigan facility, which covers an area of 32 acres and stimulates an urban environment of the real world. 

Tesla Driverless Automotive Technology Is Safer Than That Of Rivals

Tesla's technology is safer than most of the rivals, according to safety report.

Tesla driverless automotive technology proved to be much safer than its rivals. Seven driverless carmakers have posted data regarding possible accidents on public roads for the first time, disclosing Tesla might be going ahead of its competitors when safety comes into consideration.

Of the major developers of autonomous technology, including Delphi and Google, Tesla was the one automaker to report zero “disengagement” accidents, which means that a human was never required to manually control the car for security reasons.

Manufacturers testing cars on California’s public roads is required by legislation to report accidents to the Department of Motor Vehicles of the state, compelling Volkswagen, Mercedes, Nissan, Tesla, Delphi, and Boschi to reveal test results.

The search engine developer’s 32-page long report detailed tests conducted over 15 months, which covered more than 424,000 miles, during which 341 important disengagements were witnessed. Subsequent computer simulations were indicative of 13 experienced incidents, which would have led to a crash if a human had not taken over controls.

Delphi, which demonstrated an Audi Q5 autonomous driving from San Francisco to New York in April last year, listed 405 disengagements during tests that covered 16,662 miles. Google noted in the introduction of the report that disengagements help to analyze and is essential for the enhancement of its algorithms.

In its report, Google has written, "Our objective is not to minimize disengagements; rather, it is to gather, while operating safely, as much data as possible to enable us to improve our self-driving system. As we continue to develop our technology, the rate of safety disengagements has fallen even as we drive more autonomous miles on public roads.”

Full driverless cars are yet not legal in California, although the American state is trying to become one of the first regions across the globe to have a law to regulate the technology. In December 2015, a first proposed regulation draft for using autonomous cars was publically called as “gravely disappointing” by the spokesperson of Google.

The proposals that might be setting a precedent for other American states require cars to have a brake pedal and steering wheel, neither of which features in Google’s two-button autonomous vehicle.

Google also disclosed most details regarding the factors responsible for the occurrence of the disengagements. 272 disengagements were experience when the vehicle detected a sort of abnormality and was not able to reconcile – these include objects such as broken wire, abnormalities due to GPS readings or accelerometer, or "anomalies in the monitoring of key functions like steering and braking.”

According to BBC, CEO Elon Musk initially thought that the chance of SpaceX and Tesla to succeed might be 10% and that Apple would probably succeed in developing an electric car soon.

Google Invites Developers To Submit App Ideas For Project Tango

Google has asked developers to generate and submit their application ideas for Project Tango, in return for engineering support.

Google now finances the best Project Tango ideas and provide developers with engineering support so that they could introduce their device to the market. The search engine company wants application developers to generate ideas for gaming apps and utility based on the emerging computer vision technology of Project Tango.

Developers who succeed in submitting app ideas that successfully draw the attention of Google would receive engineering support and funding to expeditiously launch their devices to the market, the organization announced on January 8. As an additional bonus, the chosen apps would be featured on the recently announced Project Tango smartphone of Lenovo when it would be offered this year, says Project Tango’s technical project lead, Johnny Lee, in a blog to announce the application incubator program.

"All you need to do is tell us about your idea and explain how Project Tango technologies will enable new experiences," Lee wrote.

Google wants application developers, who want to share their proposed ideas, to include a venture schedule, storyboards, smartphone app screenshot, their ideas’ visual mock-ups, and other information. It is also interested in influencing developers to disclose their past app development experience and company details.

The deadline to submit ideas is February 15, and the company would be responding to developers by March 15, Lee stated. As it has described, Project Tango would provide a method to smartphones to find its physical location in relation to its surroundings at any particular time. The technology, for example, uses motion-tracking to the monitor orientation and movement of the device so it could identify in which part of a room it may be or whether facing down, up, or sideways.

Similarly, Project Tango product uses area-learning notions to notice the important physical features surrounding it so it is able to identify the place again. A depth sensor installed in the project’s products would enable them to detect an environment’s shape or objects found in it.

The perception-depth capacity would provide an opportunity to the project’s users to interact with their surroundings through new methods, such as the creation of their surroundings’ digital 3D mode or interactions between virtual and real objects, according to the search giant.

Lee gave a number of examples of apps that benefit from such capacities. One of those is an app made by home enhancement retailer Lowe’s that would let smartphone owners to visualize how a new refrigerator might become a part of their kitchen.