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.

Tesla Focuses On One Feature For Success

Tesla is interested in manufacturing its electric cars in China to meet the demand for Model 3

Tesla Motors is setting up its new plant to meet the huge demand for the Model 3, President of global sales of the company Jon McNeil stated while being interviewed by CCTV News. The American EV maker has a plant in California that can manufacture 600,000 automobiles annually, Jon spoke during the interview. The automaker is ready to establish another facility specifically to make sure that it gets ready to sell Model 3 as per schedule.

That factory "could very well be in China," he added. Elon Musk’s organization has almost 400,000 pre-orders for Tesla Model 3, according to April 21 Reuters article. There have been concerns that the EV maker cannot meet that huge demand, particularly considering the Model X SUV, Model S and Roadster all came later for different reasons.

Even CEO Elon Musk waivers a little on whether the mass-market car will meet its target manufacturing date of the late 2017. Jon stated while giving an interview that getting Model 3 ready on time is a major priority for the company and that setting up another facility will help meet its target manufacturing date.

The automaker believes that the higher level of pollution can help it succeed in the region as if one breathes in Beijing, he/she will understand why the electric carmaker is too much excited regarding "bioweapon defense mode."

Provided the well-documented problems in China with air quality, the company is expecting the cabin-filtering feature of the car will be a huge selling point as it grows sales of its electric vehicles here.

Initially, CEO Elon Musk launched the user-friendly feature in Tesla Model X SUV in September, 2015 and it has been speculated that it could be later launched in upcoming versions of the Model S vehicle. The company has not kept its ambitious for China. Following the conversation by McNeil, spokesperson of Tesla, said “600,000 per year” was an error and that “there has been no change” to the planned capacity of the factory.

Tesla will probably attain the whole capacity of the facility in 2 years or around the end of the decade into the beginning of the manufacturing of Model 3. Its factory in Fremont, California is amongst the largest buildings on the globe that has occupied 5.3 million square feet of office and production space.

The company has also continued to attain more space in California to add to its production capacity in the US. It also runs a tool and dyes plant in the state of Michigan and a Tilburg-based final assembly facility. Recent reports indicate that officials of Tesla visited areas in Suzhou and spoke to possible production partners.

Initially this year, Musk confirmed that his company aims to secure a domestic partner and location to set up a production facility in the region in the upcoming months. An announcement will probably take place soon. 

Amazon Vows To Supply Food To San Francisco Residents Within An Hour

Amazon has rolled out its food delivery service in San Francisco to provide orders within an hour to residents

In a region already comically populated with well-financed startups pledging to offer your upcoming meal, today isn’t a happy day: Amazon recently announced its improving its 1-hour Prime Now food delivery service in San Francisco. That is right: the residents of San Francisco who avail unlimited 2-day video streaming and shipping for a price of $99 on an annual basis can currently also buy food from 117 domestic restaurants sold in around an hour.

Offered in 33 zip codes around San Francisco, the facility is the largest rollout of an extensive range of everyday goods, Apart from the Prime subscription charge, food delivery service is offered with no extra fees or markup. The company is also guaranteeing that persons will be charged the exact same price as is mentioned in the menus of the restaurant.

The “price guarantee” is being offered to help the organization capture the market as it enters the crowded industry. The website of Amazon has revealed that the price guarantee will be offered until late next year.

If one finds a good that is offered at a price higher than one mentioned on an online menu inside a day of ordering, the online retailer states it will re-fund the price charge for that order. Initially, rolling out food delivery service in S.F, where the sector is currently crowded with competitors might look daunting. There is Munchery, Sprig, Postmates and Caviar.

Even the company started to enter the food delivery industry; it might have a unique position to win. If its own food delivery facility works like Amazon Prime Now for the rest of goods, the web retailer already has an efficient engine that looks difficult to top.

The Seattle based organization has built its success on logistics; it can just seemingly flip the switch to offer any new product through its delivery infrastructure. In Seattle, the online trading platform operator launched Prime Now restaurant delivery service in Sept 2015.

Today it is live in eight cities around the state, including Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland. While the online trading platform operator has not guaranteed that its new service will always be offered free of charge, currently it is yet another incentive that could make consumers members of Prime.

At the end, getting many people connected on Prime is just what the ecommerce organization wants. The launch in S.F puts the company in direct and immediate rivalry with many established companies, such as UberEats, Seamless and GrubHub, in a market where the consumer base is quite technology savvy and interested in trying new things. 

Facebook Tries To Increase Sharing On Social Network Platform

The company is developing its new standalone camera app which resembles Snapchat

Facebook is building a standalone camera application to persuade its 1.6 billion users to share and create more videos and photos. A prototype of the application built by the “friend-sharing” team of the American social network company opens to a camera, like a disappearing picture application, Snapchat.

Another planned feature allows a user-recording video with the help of an application to start live streaming. The venture might not be fruitful initially, but it reflects that the company is anxious about the highly passive behavior of users on its social platform. Many users check Facebook on a daily basis or even many times daily, but fewer post status updates, videos and photos regarding their lives.

Reversing the pattern is a rising priority within the organization. Spokesperson of the company refused to share views regarding product plans. The spokesperson stated the overall degree of sharing on the network was strong and “similar to levels in prior years.” The people aware of the matter stated the camera-first format is intending to motivate users to create videos and photos.

Compared to that, the flagship mobile application of the networking organization is opened to a personalized feed of advertisements, status updates and articles that persuades users to consume content, but not essentially develop it. The standard also differs from the Instagram-picture sharing platform of Facebook, which has built an image as a network to only post the most well-photographed and best pictures.

Instagram compels users to take many steps before posting an image, including filters. The social network operator has previously also developed an application to encourage sharing. In June 2 years ago, it introduced a Snapchat-like application Slingshot that allows users to trade videos and photos after one day. It previously introduced a picture-editing and sharing application known as Camera. None of them was able to lure users so both of them were later dropped.

The new application would be equipped with different features like the “live streaming mode.” The decline in sharing on the platform has increased as a difficulty in the past year. According to The Information, “original broadcast sharing” on Facebook decreased by 21% as of the first 6 months of the last year, compared with the past year.

In the initial quarter of this year, one third of Facebook users surveyed by market research organization ‘GlobalWebIndex’ said they updated their status in the past month while 37% said they shared or posted their own pictures. A year ago, 44% stated they made a status update in the past month and 46% claimed they shared or posted their pictures. 

IBM tries to rule the cognitive computing worldIBM tries to rule the cognitive computing world

IBM Deep Blue defeated world chess champion to prove that it is competent enough to rule the cognitive computation world

The California research laboratory of International Business Machines Corporation, located near San Jose, after spending many years as a hardware- centric organization selling mainframes, servers as well as personal computers, the tech corporation has progressed dramatically in the field of cognitive computation.

Deep within the application we use, the medication we take, the food we consume as well as the medical diagnosis done by us, one can find traces of the corporation. Like its Calif research lab, there aren’t obvious signs it is there. Look cautiously though, and the work of the organization- especially from its laboratory- is everywhere.

The cognitive computation business of the Corporation –including analytics, algorithms, machine learning and artificial intelligence – contributed to 35% of IBM’s 81 billion is sales revenue in 2015. It is the rapidlygrowing niche at the New York-based organization, where total sales are decreasing.

The work at Calif played a significant part in this. Hundreds of researchers work at the facility establishing algorithms, artificial intelligence and chips to support more powerful and faster self-learning technologies. It doesn’t feel less like the rest of Silicon Valley technology companies, where ping-pong tables and hover boards are popular sights, and more similar to college- campuses, which don’t have students.

The hallways are clean and quiet. The tenured professors, in the present case, the company’s engineers and scientists do coding in their unnoticeable offices.

The Corporation is already a main player in mainframes and servers - its technology is powering the airline reservation and banking systems. It also has people making efforts in sectors like cloud and cyber safety.

However, to comprehend why it views cognitive computation as its future, it takes one to 2011, when artificial intelligence of the organization, Watson, defeated humans in the game show “Jeopardy."

Winning "Jeopardy" is not anything like winning at chess. An initial IBM  artificial intelligence, Deep Blue, defeated the world chess champ 21 years ago by computation of every potential measure and exercising the best option. But for the AI system to even play "Jeopardy",  it needed to understand riddles, learn natural language as well as answer questions in clear sentences. Things human beings do.

The organization had continued to research AI since the 1970s, but the victory of Watson was a huge breakthrough. If the organization could teach Watson anything it required to know to win over a difficult game show, what else could it learn?

Shortly after the "Jeopardy" matches, researchers of IBM, including those working in its Calif lab, taught AI system to peruse medical journal abstracts and patent databases.

In drug research, every given molecule can have at most 100 synonyms-- generic names, various chemical strings and brand names.