Mark Zuckerberg built one of the most powerful companies in the world. Now he says he needs help running it. In a Washington Post op-ed, the Facebook CEO is calling on “governments and regulators” around the world to help rein in the internet, and his own company. “By updating the rules for the Internet, we
Month: March 2019
Tucked away in President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cut was a little discussed provision that allows investors to potentially save big on capital gains. By investing in underserved rural and urban communities called “opportunity zones,” investors can defer or even avoid capital gains taxes on asset sales. These risk zones represent a potential windfall for
Pinterest Co-founder Evan Sharp was added to the company’s board of directors this month, according to a company filing on Friday. The addition comes in an update to Pinterest’s IPO paperwork with the SEC, exactly one week after the company’s first public filing. It means the company now has two insiders on its board —
The US government says Facebook’s ad business creates housing discrimination. On Thursday, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) filed charges against Facebook, arguing that the company’s ad platform allows advertisers to unlawfully exclude people from viewing housing ads based on characteristics such as race, national origin, and religion. Google and Twitter, meanwhile, have
U.S. stock index futures were slightly higher Friday morning, amid renewed optimism on the progress of trade talks between Washington and Beijing. At around 03:40 a.m. ET, Dow futures rose 65 points, indicating a positive open of more than 72 points. Futures on the S&P and Nasdaq were both seen marginally higher. Market focus is
When shares of LYFT begin trading on the floor of the Nasdaq on Friday, it will symbolically usher in the end of an era that has kept ordinary people from capitalizing on Silicon Valley success (or cursing its failure). Lyft is the first mega-IPO of 2019, a year that is expected to be the biggest
Facebook has a $55 billion annual advertising business in part because it lets advertisers pick and choose, with precise detail, who they want to target their advertisements to. That’s great if you’re Coca-Cola, and historically it’s been great for Facebook. But the Department of Housing and Urban Development, commonly referred to as HUD, said Thursday
For our eyes, reading is hardly a smooth ride. They stutter across the page, lingering over words that surprise or confuse, hopping over those that seem obvious in context (you can blame that for your typos), pupils widening when a word sparks a potent emotion. All this commotion is barely noticeable, occurring in milliseconds. But
European shares are set to begin Thursday’s session in the black after a report said the U.S. and China are making swift progress in trade talks. Britain’s FTSE 100 was seen 26 points higher at 7,206, Germany’s DAX 5 points higher at 11,418 and France’s CAC up 11 points at 5,312, according to IG index
Tech news you can use, in two minutes or less: Facebook moves against white nationalist content After months of grappling with its stance, Facebook has finally decided to ban white nationalist content on both Facebook and Instagram. Starting next week, US users who attempt to search for or post this type of content will be
In a move that’s months in the making, Facebook announced Wednesday that beginning next week, it will take down posts supporting both white nationalism and white separatism, including on Instagram. It’s an evolution for the social network, whose Community Standards previously only prohibited white supremacist content while allowing posts that advocated for ideologies like race
In the past year, Bustle Digital Group bought Gawker, the pioneering blog that ended up in bankruptcy court, and Mic, a publisher aimed at millennials that ran out of money. Now it has a new asset: the Outline, a tech/culture site launched by veteran journalist Josh Topolsky more than two years ago. Part of this
The US government says a Chinese gaming company’s ownership of the gay dating app Grindr poses a national security risk, according to a report from Reuters. Beijing Kunlun Tech acquired a 60 percent stake in Grindr in 2016 and bought the rest in 2018. But, Reuters reports, the Chinese firm didn’t clear the acquisition with
In the late 1980s, Canadian master’s student Yoshua Bengio became captivated by an unfashionable idea. A handful of artificial intelligence researchers was trying to craft software that loosely mimicked how networks of neurons process data in the brain, despite scant evidence it would work. “I fell in love with the idea that we could both
EU nations will be required to share data on 5G cybersecurity risks and produce measures to tackle them by the end of the year, the European Commission said on Tuesday, shunning U.S. calls to ban China’s Huawei Technologies across the bloc. The aim is to use tools available under existing security rules plus cross-border cooperation,
Check out the companies making headlines after the bell: Shares of KB Home jumped 2 percent in extended trading Tuesday following the release of the homebuilder’s mixed first-quarter earnings. KB Home posted earnings per share of 31 cents on revenue of $811.5 million. Wall Street estimated earnings per share of 26 cents on $831.8 million,
Some of the basics about Apple’s high-profile video plans are still unclear. The company’s unveiling of its new video services today, hosted at their Cupertino headquarters, didn’t amount to much more than a “high-gloss version of hand-waving,” writes Peter Kafka. Big stars like Steven Spielberg, Reese Witherspoon, and Oprah Winfrey spoke at the event about
Emily Pickett, a doula in Louisville, Kentucky, is used to hearing hard truths from expecting mothers. Her job is to guide women through pregnancy, acting as confidante and supporter; understanding their deepest stressors—an abusive partner, a struggle with drugs—is important to ensuring healthy pregnancies. In the largely poor and black neighborhoods of Louisville’s West End,
Uber has reached a deal to acquire ride-hailing competitor Careem for $3.1 billion, the companies announced Tuesday. Dubai-based Careem, founded in 2012, claims more than 30 million registered users and sells car-hailing services in 120 cities across North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, from Morocco to Pakistan. The companies characterized the deal as
The new Apple credit card the company announced on Monday does more than give its users cash back and cool iPhone features. It also pits Apple against the same big banks it needed to get its Apple Pay service off the ground more than four years ago. The Apple Card, backed by Goldman Sachs, carries
Government usually isn’t the place to look for innovation in IT or new technologies like artificial intelligence. But Ott Velsberg might change your mind. As Estonia’s chief data officer, the 28-year-old graduate student is overseeing the tiny Baltic nation’s push to insert artificial intelligence and machine learning into services provided to its 1.3 million citizens.
The Asia Pacific CEO of Credit Suisse is bullish on Asia’s growth. “I’m very excited about the region … the entrepreneurs are very resilient, the people are resilient — hardworking, and I think that’s the biggest asset that the region has to continue to grow,” Helman Sitohang told CNBC at the Credit Suisse Asian investment
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft apologized to his family, friends and fans and vowed to regain their confidence and respect in his first public statement since being charged with two counts of soliciting prostitution as part of a human-trafficking probe in South Florida. His statement, below, comes after prosecutors offered Kraft a deal on
Apple plans to reveal new products on Monday and there might not be enough to go around to satisfy everyone, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Friday. “Apple could announce something totally mind-blowing and I bet its stock would still go down because the bears are spoiling for a fight, and after the recent run, I think
Pinterest’s business is growing steadily, but not at the same clip as other big advertising–driven tech IPOs from the past decade. According to new IPO paperwork filed Friday that offered the most detailed look yet at Pinterest’s business, Facebook, Twitter, and Snap were all showing faster pre-IPO growth. Pinterest reported revenue of roughly $756 million
Facebook employees had access to the passwords of hundreds of millions of users. It’s another damaging revelation about the social media giant, which has faced sustained criticism over its privacy practices in recent years. The security publication Krebs on Security first reported that Facebook had stored personal passwords of users on unencrypted company servers in
A couple of years ago, I fell in love with a color scheme: off-white text accented with a buttery yellow-orange and a neutral blue against a deep gray, the “color of television, tuned to a dead channel,” to borrow a phrase from Neuromancer author William Gibson. The colors were part of a theme called “Solarized
U.S. stock index futures were lower Friday morning, amid jitters sparked by the Federal Reserve‘s cautious outlook for the world’s largest economy. At around 03:25 a.m. ET, Dow futures slipped 38 points, indicating a negative open of more than 14 points. Futures on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were seen mixed. The U.S. central bank
Microsoft’s programming language TypeScript has become one of the most popular languages among developers, at least according to a report published by the analyst firm RedMonk this week. TypeScript jumped from number 16 to number 12, just behind Apple’s programming language Swift in RedMonk’s semiannual rankings, which were last published in August. Microsoft unveiled TypeScript
Public investors are doing something counterintuitive: They’re valuing unprofitable companies higher than they are profitable ones that entered public stock exchanges last year. Those are the findings from a new PitchBook report on the stock performance of US unicorns. The study looked at the median stock-price change for startups valued at more than a billion