In Papua New Guinea, shooters kidnapped local academics and an Australian professor. According to media accounts, armed men kidnapped the group on a research trip in the highlands. Officials claim they want a ransom. James Marape, the prime minister of PNG, says that officials are talking to the kidnappers and expect to get the people back “alive and safe.” Reports say several local guides were freed from a bigger group. Australian media reported four or five detainees. Australian archaeologists and PNG professors and students are among them. Mr. Marape told reporters PNG officials had heard from the Australian guy who…
Author: Staff Contributor
The U.S. Virgin Islands is suing JPMorgan for allegedly helping Epstein with his alleged sex trafficking across Florida and the U.S. territory by “channeling cash” to support his operations and hide his conduct. The U.S. territory’s complaint was submitted last month, but it wasn’t until Wednesday that the nature of the claims became known. In the lawsuit, Chase is accused of taking part in a sex trafficking enterprise. The bank declined to comment on the situation on Thursday. Epstein was arrested and charged with federal offenses in 2019 after it was claimed that he had sexually assaulted numerous youngsters over…
P&G or Procter & Gamble (PG.N) bumped up its annual sales forecast on Wednesday, as the consumer goods giant benefits from higher prices and resurgent cleaning products demand amid a spike in COVID-19 infections. The company’s shares rose nearly 2% in premarket trading as strong quarterly sales helped cushion the blow from a bigger-than-previously forecast increase in annual freight and commodity costs. Sales of fabric & home care products, including Tide and Mr. Clean, rose 7% in the second quarter, as the rapid spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant led consumers to buy more cleaning products. A more intense flu…
Metaverse gaming company Animoca Brands raised nearly $360 million in a funding round led by Liberty City Ventures, the company said on Tuesday, valuing the firm at more than $5 billion. Animoca Brands – an Australian company with headquarters in Hong Kong – invests in and builds blockchain-based online virtual worlds, in which assets such as land can often be bought in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). It has invested in more than 150 NFT and metaverse-related companies. In many so-called metaverse environments, users can buy land, walk around as avatars, play games and meet friends. The term became…
Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk has been named Time 2021 Person of the Year. The richest man in the world, Elon Musk, does not own a house and has recently sold off his fortune. He tosses satellites into orbit and harnesses the sun; he drives a car he created that uses no gas and barely needs a driver. With a flick of his finger, the stock market soars or swoons. An army of devotees hangs on his every utterance. He dreams of Mars as he bestrides Earth, square-jawed and indomitable. Lately, Elon Musk also likes to live-tweet his poops.…
After more than a year, meta has released its social virtual reality space, Horizon Worlds, in private test mode. It is the first major such release since Facebook renamed itself Meta and announced its plans to “build the metaverse” of connected digital worlds. The app lets users build their mini-games and activities on top of Meta’s base game – similar to Roblox or other creator-focused apps. There is no way for creators to make money directly from their worlds. Instead, Meta has put $10m (£7.6m) into a “creator fund” to reward community creators who win competitions. That is different from…
Crypto startup Palm NFT Studio said on Thursday it had raised $27 million in an early-stage funding round led by Microsoft Corp’s venture fund M12 with participation from venture firm Griffin Gaming Partners. Palm NFT, co-founded by Joseph Lubin, offers services for artists to establish NFT marketplaces. Lubin was also one of the co-founders of ethereum, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency after bitcoin. An NFT is a digital asset that exists on a blockchain, which serves as a public ledger, allowing anyone to verify the asset’s authenticity and ownership. NFTs have a unique digital signature and cannot be reproduced. Other…
Indian software services exporter HCL Technologies (HCLT.NS) said on Monday it will create 12,000 new jobs in the United States through the next five years as part of a plan to shore up business and enhance client support in a key growth market. Nearly 2,000 of the new jobs will go to college graduates over the next three years, HCL said, adding that the company will focus its U.S. recruitment drive on seven states including North Carolina, Texas and Connecticut. Hiring will be done across roles including in IT consulting, cloud, data analytics and digital engineering. “It’s essentially becoming a…
Bitcoin dropped by almost 5% on Monday as the start of the week offered little respite to the world’s largest cryptocurrency after a bruising weekend when, at one point, it lost over a fifth of its value. The rout sent bitcoin’s price and the amount invested in bitcoin futures back to where they were in early October, before a massive price surge that sent the token to an all-time high of $69,000 on Nov. 10. Since that record peak, bitcoin has plunged 32%. It was last down 1.1% at $48,900. Traders said the weekend fall was connected to a broad…
For years, social media platforms like Instagram and parent company Meta (formerly Facebook) have been criticized for harboring harmful content and fostering anxiety and depression, particularly among younger audiences. Use of these sites has also been linked to negative body image and eating disorders, due to the abundance of filtered and photoshopped images that reinforce unrealistic ideals. TikTok, the ByteDance-owned social video site that’s exploded in popularity, has also been criticized for surfacing pro-eating-disorder videos to teens. The topic will likely receive increased scrutiny next week when Instagram head Adam Mosseri testifies before Congress on Wednesday about how the app…
The sector body said that a surge in coronavirus cases in Germany has led to a disappointing start to the Christmas season for retailers in Europe’s biggest economy. A survey by the HDE retail association showed that only 20% of 350 companies asked were satisfied with Christmas sales so far. November and December are normally the strongest months of the year for retailers. “The retail sector managed to defy increasingly difficult conditions, including higher inflation, rising infection numbers and supply bottlenecks until November,” said HDE Managing Director Stefan Genth. “However, the consequences of the dramatic worsening of the coronavirus crisis…
More than 30 people have been arrested after climate change activists blocked UK Amazon warehouses on Black Friday, the retailer’s busiest day of the year. Extinction Rebellion targeted 13 UK sites, including the retail giant’s largest distribution center in Dunfermline, Fife. It said it was to draw attention to the alleged exploitation of Amazon workers and wasteful business practices. Amazon said it took its “responsibilities very seriously.”The campaign group said blocked multiple entrances using bamboo structures, lock-on, and banners and had planned to stay for at least 48 hours. However, a number of the blockades were cleared by mid-afternoon. The…
Taiwan is looking at cooperating with three Eastern European countries on semiconductors; a minister said on Thursday, a move likely to find favor in Brussels, courting Taiwanese semiconductor firms to manufacture in the bloc. Tech powerhouse Taiwan, home to companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) (2330. TW), has become front and center of efforts to resolve a shortage of chips that have shut some auto production lines around the world and whose impact is now being felt in consumer electronics too. While TSMC is building a $12 billion chip fabrication plant in the U.S. state of Arizona,…
Plans by the Indian government for a new bill that would bar most private cryptocurrencies have triggered heavy selling in the country’s digital currency markets, as investors look to exit positions despite the losses, said, traders and investors. According to a legislative agenda released late on Tuesday for the winter session of Parliament set to start this month, the government will allow only certain cryptocurrencies to promote the underlying technology and its uses. The bill, if passed, would effectively ban citizens in India from transacting in most cryptocurrencies. Read more The dollar-linked stable coin tether (USDT) slumped 25% to nearly…
Ferrari NV unveiled a new limited-run retro model that the storied Italian manufacturer is billing as its most aerodynamically efficient car ever. The Daytona SP3 that debuted Saturday at Mugello Circuit, a Formula One track near Florence, honors the brand’s 1960s race cars. It represents the second leg of Ferrari’s special-edition Icona series, the first being the Monza SP1 and SP2 cars introduced three years ago. Like those Monza models, the Daytona SP3 carries a seven-figure price tag. It will cost 2 million euros (US$2.26 million) in Italy, according to a company spokesman. Ferrari will produce 599 of them, and…
An Australian software developer says he has made thousands of non-fungible token images freely available, calling it an art project that aims to show the absurdity of property-rights concepts in digital assets. Geoff Huntley, the project’s creator, claims to have collected all the images associated with NFTs minted on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains and made them accessible via an accompanying website called NFT Bay, modeled on the infamous Pirate Bay peer-to-peer search service. The effort is compiled into a 17-terabyte “billion-dollar torrent,” Huntley said, because of the vast sums of money people have spent to acquire ownership of the…
On Friday, Apple delivered a message to employees that were striking given its reputation for secrecy: a reminder that workers may discuss wages, hours, and working conditions. The notice came as some employees have been pushing Apple to do more to ensure there are no unfair gaps in pay across the company. In a post on an internal site, Apple said its policies do not preclude employees from “speaking freely” about working conditions, according to a copy of the message viewed by Reuters. “We encourage any employee with concerns to raise them in the way they feel most comfortable, internally…
Paytm (PAYT.NS) dismal stock market debut this week is likely to put a damper on future offerings after the IPO of the digital payments firm ranked among the worst-performing in Indian history, six analysts and bankers said on Friday. Indian companies have raised a staggering $9.7 billion through initial share sales in the first nine months of 2021, for the highest such tally in any of the corresponding periods of the last two decades, said accountants EY. But offerings planned for later this year, such as those by payments rival MobiKwik and hotel aggregator OYO, will face questions after Paytm’s debut plunge…
Starbucks Corp’s (SBUX.O) newest cafe lacks one element most customers are used to seeing: cashiers. On Thursday, the global coffee chain opened its first-ever location in partnership with Amazon Go (AMZN.O), the e-commerce giant’s brick-and-mortar convenience store, where customers can sit at a table with a latte or grab a sandwich from a shelf and walk out. Hit by a U.S. labor crunch, Starbucks and other companies expand labor-saving technology like artificial intelligence, robotics, and digital touch screens. White Castle is testing a robotic fry cook, and Domino’s Pizza Inc (DPZ.N) is experimenting with self-driving vehicles for delivery. IBM (IBM.N) is developing automated order taking for McDonald’s…
The world’s biggest and best-known cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, slipped below $60,000 on Tuesday, taking losses from a record high of $69,000 struck on Nov. 10 to more than 12%. Cryptos aren’t enjoying a good start to the week as we see a further retreat in prices from the recent highs. Of note, Bitcoin fell by over 8% to under $60,000 at the lows (the low today hit $58,644) before sticking around $59,500 to $59,800 at the moment. The $60,000 mark will be one to watch going into the daily close as it holds psychological importance, but the 27-28 October lows around…
Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) has reached a deal to sell virtual medical services to Hilton (HLT.N) in the United States, landing a marquee customer for its nascent healthcare business. The company declined to disclose the financial terms of its agreement with the hotel chain. The world’s biggest online retailer has looked to sign up employers to Amazon Care, its on-demand health offering that lets users message or video-chat clinicians and receives home visits in some cities. Amazon piloted the service for its employees around Seattle in 2019, and this summer, it started marketing Care nationwide to other companies. The deal with Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc,…
A new quantum computer startup born from researchers at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) called QuEra Computing said on Wednesday it raised $17 million from investors, including Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten Inc (4755.T). It’s the latest quantum computer hardware maker to come out of the lab at a time when funding for the nascent technology is booming. While there are various technologies for creating so-called quantum bits or qubits where the computations happen, QuEra’s qubits use neutral atoms in a vacuum chamber and use lasers to cool and control them. “From 2015 when we had an empty lab…
Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) top boss Elon Musk sold another block of company shares worth about $700 million. Filings showed on Friday as the billionaire takes advantage of a meteoric rally that drove the electric carmaker’s value to over $1 trillion. The second round of big stock sales this week comes just days after the world’s richest person and Tesla’s top shareholder tweeted that he would sell 10% of his shares if social media platform users approved the move. Musk disclosed the additional share sale worth about $687 million in regulatory filings after offloading about $5 billion in stock earlier in the…
Two U.S. Senate members have introduced bipartisan legislation that makes it harder for Amazon.com (AMZN.O) and other tech giants to make acquisitions. The office of Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel, said on Friday that she and Republican Tom Cotton had introduced a bill targeting such companies as Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O), Google, and Facebook (FB.O). The bill would make it easier for the government to stop deals it believes break antitrust law by requiring the companies to prove to a judge that the deals are good for competition, and therefore legal. A similar bill, introduced by Democratic…
Urban mobility company Lime said on Friday it had raised $523 million from investors to scale up production of its latest e-scooters and e-bikes, and its top executive said the startup is aiming for a stock market listing in 2022. The San Francisco-based company said the money it had raised from convertible debt and term loan financing included fresh capital from ride-hailing company Uber (UBER.N), which became an investor in 2020. The funding round was “significantly oversubscribed,” Lime Chief Executive Officer Wayne Ting told Reuters. “I think it’s a recognition that Lime is now the undisputed leader in this space,” Ting…
DJI’s latest Mavic 3 drone packs a whole suite of upgrades over its predecessor to make it even more appealing to aerial photographers and videographers. With video capture up to 5.1K resolution, the new Mavic 3 packs two cameras for switching between different zoom levels, upgraded flight time to an impressive 46 minutes, and a variety of smart, automated flight modes. It starts at $2,199 (£1,879) for the base model or $2,999 (£2,549) for the Fly More Combo, including three batteries, a set of ND filters, and a carrying case. That’s quite a step up in price over the Mavic…
More commonly known for sparking discussion on Twitter, Elon Musk was in the middle of speculation on Weibo on Tuesday following the Tesla CEO posting writing on the Chinese site that some took to expand his dispute with the U.N’s World Food Program. Musk and World Food Program (WFP) head David Beasley had been battling a heated dispute since Beasley last week questioned billionaires to give more of their money to end starvation. Musk countered by declaring he’d sell $6 billion in Tesla stock and grant it to the WFP, granted the group disclosed more knowledge about how it used…
Autonomous delivery vehicle maker Nuro raised $600 million in its latest funding round, the Silicon Valley-based startup said on Tuesday, bringing on board Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google as an investor. The funding round, led by Tiger Global Management, lifted Nuro’s valuation to $8.6 billion from $5 billion previously, according to a person close to the deal. Toyota Motor Corp’s (7203.T) Woven Capital, SoftBank Group Corp’s (9984.T) Vision Fund 1, Kroger Co. (KR.N) were among other investors. Self-driving startups are racing to build war chests to develop and commercialize the technology, an expensive and time-consuming process. Alphabet’s self-driving unit Waymo June raised $2.5 billion. read more Nuro, whose R2…
DUBAI, Oct 31, 2021 (Reuters) – Saudi Arabian state oil producer Aramco’s (2222.SE) announced its third-quarter net earnings more than multiplied, boosted by more expensive crude oil rates and volumes sold on Sunday, overcoming analysts’ forecasts. The oil giant’s best quarterly profits since its listing in December 2019 were fed by the strongest quarterly average crude costs since its shares began selling. After the company published its results, Aramco shares were up 1% in initial trade and have grown about 9% this year to a business valuation of just over $2 trillion, an object sought by de-facto Saudi head Crown…
The recently renamed Meta (previously Facebook) has great plans for health and the metaverse. Meta just got one of Oculus Quest’s more well-known subscription-based fitness businesses, Within, which offers an Oculus app named Supernatural. The app joins with Apple Watches to track real-time heart rate, acting similarly to Apple Fitness Plus and Amazon’s future Halo fitness video service. Supernatural was one of the earliest subscription-based services on the Oculus Quest (soon to be named the Meta Quest). The app, which uses video avatars of tutors in combination with motion-tracked exercise methods (boxing was just added), sometimes seems like a ramped-up…
On Monday, LAGOS, Oct 25 (Reuters) – Nigeria became the initial African nation to start a digital currency – the eNaira – a move its heads said will expand the path to banking, facilitate more remittances, and even improve the economy by billions of dollars. In October, Africa’s most populated nation joins the Bahamas, the first to start a general-purpose central bank digital money, known as the Sand Dollar. China has ongoing trials, and Switzerland and the Bank of France have declared Europe’s first cross-border test. But critics and cryptocurrency users in the continent’s biggest economy say the fact that…
Hertz and Uber (NYSE: UBER) today are hastening the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) in the U.S. through a new independent partnership to make up to 50,000 Teslas (NASDAQ: TSLA) ready by 2023 for drivers to rent when working on the Uber network. This partnership is the largest development of electric vehicles on a mobility program in North America and one of the biggest globally, marking another step toward Uber’s zero-emissions purpose. Beginning Nov. 1, drivers can rent Teslas from Hertz through this business in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Washington, D.C. – with a national expansion in…
Oct 27 (Reuters) – Amazon.com (AMZN.O) is foreseen to appear as a winner in the digital advertisement arena, withstanding Apple’s (AAPL.O) privacy shifts better than rivals Facebook (FB.O) and Snap (SNAP.N). The eCommerce giant’s vast trove of shopping data reduces its dependence on tracking info once given by Apple’s iOS mobile operating system. Others, including Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), which also receives a rich set of data from users’ search habits, listed a 41% surge in Google advertising income for the third quarter. Signal that companies that rely less on targeted ads can defeat Apple’s limits on tracking mobile users. Amazon,…
On Monday, Oct 25 (Reuters) – Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) neared $1 trillion in market capitalization as the company founded by Elon Musk received its biggest-ever order — 100,000 electric rental cars for Hertz. Tesla shares were up 7.5% at $978, hitting a new record high Monday, following the order. Shares were also buoyed by news of the company’s Model 3 becoming the first electric vehicle to top monthly sales of new cars in Europe. The news from Hertz comes as Tesla is coping with a backlog of unfulfilled orders for its vehicles and continuing supply chain disruptions. Still, it does…
It’s no surprise that billionaire Elon Musk adores memes. He constantly reposts them on Twitter, where he has 61 million followers. Though some mind his reposting, as he often overlooks to acknowledge the original meme creators, others have benefited from Musk’s habit, including self-named “hobby artist” Eva Beylin. Beylin was moved when Musk reposted her meme on Wednesday. “The ultimate reward of memeology is for the ultimate meme royalty to use your meme,” Beylin, 28, reports CNBC Make It. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1451015695106560000?s=20 Even though Musk didn’t give her any credit, “I am over the moon,” she replies, adding that she’s a…
Twitter co-creator Jack Dorsey weighed in on intensifying inflation in the U.S., saying situations are going to get considerably worse. “Hyperinflation is going to alter everything,” Dorsey tweeted Friday night. “It’s arriving.”The tweet comes with customer cost inflation running near a 30-year high in the U.S. and increasing concern that the difficulty could be worse than policymakers have predicted. On Friday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell admitted that inflation constraints “are likely to last longer than earlier expected,” noting that they could go “well into next year.” However, the central bank chief added that he anticipates the Fed soon to…
Citcon, a smartphone wallet payment startup, has clinched $30 million in investment in a Series C series co-led by Norwest Venture Partners and Cota Capital. Sierra Ventures and Sonae IM also entered the investing, making San Jose-based Citcon’s total boosted since its 2015 beginning to almost $50 million. Citcon’s purpose is straightforward: to allow retailers to accept cash by smartphone wallet and different currencies “with the same comfort as they process regular credit card transactions today,” said CEO and creator Chuck Huang. Before starting Citcon, Huang gave four years as a lead systems engineer at Visa. He managed the system…
NEW DELHI, Oct 22 (Reuters) – Indian fintech unicorn Paytm has got permission from the capital markets regulator for its $2.2 billion stock market listing that is expected to be India’s largest-ever IPO specialist familiar with the affair informed Reuters on Friday. Paytm was preparing its initial public offering for around the close of October, Reuters earlier reported. The company, whose supporters include Ant Group, SoftBank’s (9984.T) Vision Fund, and Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N), narrowed its turning loss to 16.55 billion rupees ($221.00 million) in the fiscal year that concluded in March 2021, from 24.68 billion a year earlier. A source informed Reuters…
NEW YORK, Oct 20 (Reuters) – The dollar dropped on Wednesday as risk sentiment increased and as financiers focused on growing materials costs and when global central banks are likely to start increasing interest rates to resist off persistently soaring inflation. The greenback hit a one-year high versus a bushel of other currencies last week as market participators ramped up odds that the Federal Reserve will hike rates sooner than anticipated to suppress rising price restraints. However, those bets have disappeared while financiers are reducing for even more competitive rate hikes in other countries and as materials-linked currencies, including the…
LONDON/NEW YORK, Oct 19 (Source: Reuters) – Bitcoin cracked a six-month high and was within close range of its all-time peak on Tuesday as dealers bet the listing of the initial bitcoin futures-based U.S. exchange-traded capital could publicize investment progress into cryptocurrencies. On Tuesday, the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF on NYSE Arca, controlled by Intercontinental Exchange Inc (ICE.N), was placed on the title BITO. That followed the conclusion of a 75-day time in which the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission could dispute the listing on the exchange. The new ProShares ETF started at $40.88 and finished at $41.64. ETFs are…
LONDON, (Via Reuters) – Israeli startup AIR on Tuesday revealed its inaugural “easy-to-operate” electric, vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicle that it intends to sell directly to customers in the United States beginning in 2024. AIR has been operating with the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) for two years and presumes to receive certification by the end of 2023 for the AIR ONE, a two-person, 970 kg (2,138 lb) eVTOL, which will boast a flight limit of 110 miles (177 km), Chief Executive Rani Plaut informed Reuters. AIR boosted seed capital of under $10 million last year and has been…
U.S. WASHINGTON, Oct 20 (Reuters) – Delivering on a commitment to supply COVID-19 vaccine shots to Southeast Asia is crucial to the reliability of the Quad group of nations, which made the pledge in March, a senior White House official spoke on Wednesday. A plan led by the grouping of Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S. to provide a billion COVID-19 vaccines over Asia by the end of 2022 was delayed after India, the world’s largest vaccine provider, halted exports in April amid a huge COVID explosion at home. Talking ahead of virtual summits of the Association of Southeast Asian…
Oct 18 (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) announced on Monday it plans to use 150,000 seasonal employees in the United States throughout the holiday season, as the e-commerce giant plans for a shopping season are assumed to be defined by high demand and supply jumbles. Last year, the e-commerce store announced 100,000 seasonal employments, after it had already increased staffing through the pandemic. Amazon’s hiring strategy comes during a significant labor shortage and expanded union activities in the US that has led to businesses increasing salaries to attract employees during the all-important end-of-year shopping season. Last month, Amazon raised its…
Oct 18 (Reuters) – Critics anticipate Apple Inc (AAPL.O) to unveil the latest Mac laptop computers with more strong processor chips at an event that will be streamed on Monday. Bloomberg has earlier reported that Apple plans to launch two new MacBook Pro models with 14-inch and 16-inch displays. The Cupertino, California-based tech giant added some new laptop versions last year that, for the first time, used its “Apple Silicon” chips, which it stated would be phased into the Apple desktop and laptop variants over the passage of two years. Before Monday, Apple’s most convincing laptops still relied on chips…
