business

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#BreakingNews: Fed raises benchmark rate 0.25%. Fed funds rate range now 1.5% to 1.75%. Fed maintains three rate hikes for 2018.

More Than 11 Million Young People Have Fled Facebook Since 2011 According to iStrategy, Facebook has 4,292,080 fewer high-school aged users and 6,948,848 college-aged users than it did in 2011.

March 23, 2018 - Elon Musk joins delete-facebook boycott, deleted Tesla’s and SpaceX’s Facebook pages on Friday. “I didn’t realize there was one. Will do,” Musk tweeted back. He initially said, “What’s Facebook?” to a prior tweet from WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton urging his followers to delete Facebook because, “It is time.”

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Image courtesy JOEL SAGET / AFP / Getty Images

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ATM dispensing $100 bills instead of $5 bills< /a>
A Kansas woman is facing a pricey lawsuit after a bank accused her of making dozens of withdrawals from a faulty ATM that was dispensing $100 bills instead of $5 bills, a local report said Tuesday.

Cybercrime costs the global economy $450 billion: CEO
In 2016 "cybercrime cost the global economy over $450 billion, over 2 billion personal records were stolen and in the U.S. alone over 100 million Americans had their medical records stolen," said Steve Langan, chief executive at Hiscox Insurance, told CNBC.
"This is an epidemic of cybercrime, and yet 53 percent of businesses in the U.S., U.K. and Germany were just ill-prepared."

Another mega database? Dr. Ron Paul on E-Verification
E-Verify is a (currently) voluntary program where businesses check job applicants’ Social Security numbers and other Information — potentially including “biometric” identifiers like fingerprints — against information stored in a federal database to determine if the job applicants are legally in the United States.

Imagine how much time would be diverted from serving consumers and growing the economy if every US business had to comply with E-Verify. Also, collecting the relevant information and operating the mandatory E-Verify system will prove costly to taxpayers.  read more »

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Queen Jack Dorsey Says There's Value in Twitter Remaining Independent
Twitter Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey said there’s "strength" in the social-media company remaining independent, deflecting renewed speculation that it may again be an acquisition target.

"There’s a lot of strength to our independence because we can work on every device, work through every medium," Dorsey said Tuesday at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco. "We’re not constrained by the particular whims of one platform versus another."

Twitter shares, which rose 8.1 percent at Tuesday’s close in New York, jumped on several trading days last month on takeover speculation. In a January note to investors, BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield predicted that Twitter will be acquired this year, saying it has become too valuable to remain independent. Reports of acquisition talks regarding the microblogging service first emerged in 2016, with potential suitors including Walt Disney Co. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google.

Twitter has made significant improvements since those talks fell apart without a deal. The company’s shares have more than doubled in the past year, driven by stronger financial performance and changes to the app that are bringing users back to the platform more frequently. Earlier this month, San Francisco-based Twitter reported its first revenue growth in four quarters and its first real profit.

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Photo courtesy Bloomberg

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Queen Elizabeth II is banning plastic straws and bottles across the royal estates.
The Telegraph reported that the monarch is behind Buckingham Palace's plans to phase out single-use plastics from public cafes, royal residences and staff dining rooms. Royal caterers will instead use china plates and glasses or recyclable paper cups. Takeaway food from the Royal Collection cafes must be made of compostable or biodegradable packaging.

British lawmakers are also urging for more action to fight plastic pollution. A ban on microbeads came into force in Britain last month. In 2015, a 5p (5 British pennies) fee was introduced on plastic carrier bags, which led to 9 billion fewer bags being used. Many businesses in the UK are getting on board with cutting out plastics. Starbucks recently introduced a 5p disposable cup charge in 20 to 25 central London outlets to encourage customers to switch to reusable cups. And Iceland Foods, a major UK supermarket chain specializing in frozen food, announced that it will eliminate plastic packaging from its own brand of products by the end of 2023.

The Queen was reportedly inspired to take action after working with famed naturalist Sir David Attenborough on a conservation documentary about wildlife in the Commonwealth. Attenborough's "Blue Planet II" documentary that aired last year highlighted the devastating effects of plastic on our oceans and marine life.

The Queen declares war on plastic after David Attenborough documentary  read more »

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The demolition of a historic German church to clear the way for the expansion of an open-cast mine this week has outraged locals as politicians moot giving up their own clean energy targets.

Built in large part by local people and consecrated in 1891, St Lambertus church in Immerath, North Rhine-Westphalia state, was ripped down by diggers' hydraulic arms on Monday and Tuesday, leaving a heap of rubble where the neo-Roman nave and twin towers once stood.

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Photo courtesy Yahoo / AFP

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21 Nov, 2017
Uber Paid Hackers $100,000 to Delete Stolen Data on 57 Million People, to Keep Massive Cyberattack Quiet
Hackers stole the personal data of 57 million customers and drivers from Uber Technologies Inc., a massive breach that the company concealed for more than a year. This week, the ride-hailing firm ousted its chief security officer and one of his deputies for their roles in keeping the hack under wraps, which included a $100,000 payment to the attackers.

Compromised data from the October 2016 attack included names, email addresses and phone numbers of 50 million Uber riders around the world, the company told Bloomberg on Tuesday. The personal information of about 7 million drivers was accessed as well, including some 600,000 U.S. driver’s license numbers. No Social Security numbers, credit card information, trip location details or other data were taken, Uber said.

21 Nov, 2017
Uber concealed massive hack that exposed data of 57m users and drivers
Firm paid hackers $100,000 to delete data and keep breach quiet
Uber concealed a massive global breach of the personal information of 57 million customers and drivers in October 2016, failing to notify the individuals and regulators, the company acknowledged on Tuesday.

Uber also confirmed it had paid the hackers responsible $100,000 to delete the data and keep the breach quiet, which was first reported by Bloomberg.

21 Nov 2017  read more »

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18 Oct 2017 - First floating wind farm, built by offshore oil company, delivers electricity - Anchored, floating turbines allow offshore wind installations in deep waters.
The world’s first floating offshore wind farm began delivering electricity to the Scottish grid today.

The 30MW installation, situated 25km (15.5mi) from Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, will demonstrate that offshore wind energy can be harvested in deep waters, miles away from land, where installing giant turbines was once impractical or impossible. At peak capacity, the wind farm will produce enough electricity to power 20,000 Scottish homes.

The installation, called Hywind Scotland, is also interesting because it was built by Statoil, a Norwegian mega-corporation known for offshore oil drilling. Statoil has pursued offshore wind projects in recent years, using the company's experience building and managing infrastructure in difficult open sea conditions to its advantage.

Hywind Scotland began producing power in September, and today it starts delivering electricity to the Scottish grid.

The five 6MW turbines are the first commercial turbines to lack a firm attachment to the seafloor. The towers extend 176m (577ft) above the water and 78m (256ft) below it. Each tower is capable of pitching its blades to reduce unwanted motion and optimize power output depending on the wind direction and strength.  read more »