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☆ Leaked documents show Amazon paused activities like social marketing and recruiting 'out of respect' for laid off employees
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Eugene Kim | Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Amazon has suspended a number of work activities or services on Wednesday amid layoffs. Amazon suspended several work activities and services on Wednesday to be more mindful of the employees let go as part of the company's largest layoff in history. Additionally, Amazon suspended some AWS content streams on Twitch, another person said. Amazon will also pause some recruiting activities on Wednesday and Thursday, according to a person familiar with the matter. Still, many Amazon employees were upset about the ambiguity and lack of communication in the overall layoff process.

☆ December inflation data: Here's how it could move markets
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

"Like we saw following November's CPI report, markets rallied and then pulled back," Conzo explained. The central bank remains "worried about the overheating labor market," and the CPI report is "unlikely to quell those concerns." If the inflation data shows further cooling today, how does that impact your economic outlook for the year? Along with CPI data, investors are also bracing for the release of the number of US jobless claims. Coinbase stock price on Jan. 12, 2023 Markets Insider10.

☆ ‘Sonic Logos’ Struggle to Get Heard at U.S. Checkouts
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Katie Deighton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +8 min

A spokeswoman for American Express said the company’s sonic logo plays on marketing channels such as brand videos, but not at any credit-card terminals. PREVIEWPayments firms say sonic logos at cash registers can also communicate to customers that they are transacting with a trusted merchant, making the sounds akin to the stickers of credit-card logos that often appear in store windows. Visa’s spokeswoman said the company doesn’t share figures on how many businesses play its sonic logo due to the complexity of tracking rollouts. To that suggestion, Mastercard said the value of sonic logos for merchants “comes in through consumer trust and reassurance.” Visa declined to comment. But some retailers want no part of sonic logos.

☆ CIOs Contend With Pushback on AI Rollouts
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Isabelle Bousquette | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +6 min

Overall enterprise adoption of AI has grown threefold since 2019 as algorithms grow in scale and sophistication, according to International Data Corp. That left executives underwhelmed by the results and disillusioned, according to Todd Lohr, KPMG LLP’s U.S. technology consulting leader. Newsletter Sign-up WSJ | CIO Journal The Morning Download delivers daily insights and news on business technology from the CIO Journal team. In 2022, organizations spent on average 4% to 6% more on AI than the previous year, according to IDC. Other emerging technologies are more likely to be cut than AI, given its cost-savings potential, she noted.

The 2023 budget includes 4.47 trillion lira ($239 billion) in spending and sees a deficit of about 3.5% of GDP for this year and next. "The annual salary burden is likely to reach approximately 150-180 billion lira, whereas the severance pay burden that will be shouldered by both the public and private sectors may exceed 300 billion lira," he said. A total of 142.9 billion lira has been earmarked for 2023 spending in the farm sector on support programmes and investment payments. SOCIAL AID, OTHER SPENDING:Spending on social aid in the 2023 budget was raised to 258.4 billion lira. Spending on education will be 650 billion lira, while 145.4 billion lira was set aside for support to the real sector.

☆ Elon Musk says Twitter will let people turn off view counts after users immediately complained the new feature looks messy
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk says Twitter users will be able to switch off new view counts. View counts appear next to retweets and likes on tweets. Similar to a count already in place for video, the new view counts display the number of times a tweet has been seen alongside the number of likes, comments, and retweets. Some Twitter users have been complaining about the new feature, with one describing it as "useless" and "distracting." Twitter did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the view count feature made outside working hours.

☆ 'Glass Onion' director Rian Johnson jokes that Netflix secretly funded Twitter's takeover as his fictional idiot billionaire draws comparisons with Elon Musk
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Ryan Hogg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

"Glass Onion" director Rian Johnson joked that Netflix might have funded the Twitter takeover. Johnson said this wasn't intentional, saying the character reflected general tech billionaire foibles. I hope there isn't some secret marketing department at Netflix that's funding this Twitter takeover," Johnson said. Johnson told Wired that Norton's character was originally based on an amalgamation of tech billionaire personalities. Asked if he would ever write a sequel about the downfall of Twitter, Johnson responded: "Didn't I just do that?"

☆ Ericsson profit margin to reach low end of target range by 2024
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SummarySummary Companies Company to reach lower end of 15-18% EBITA range by 2024Accelerating cost cuts of 9 bln SEK by end of next yearSTOCKHOLM, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson (ERICb.ST) said on Thursday it was committed to reaching the lower end of its long-term target of a profit (EBITA) margin of 15-18% by 2024 as it outlined strategy to investors. Ericsson reported an EBITA margin of 11.2% for the third quarter as higher investment in technology, selling expenses and one-off costs weighed on profitability. Ericsson forecast the 5G radio access network (RAN) market would see annual growth of 11% over the next three years while the overall market was seen flat. "Ericsson is planning for a flat RAN market and is structuring its cost base and operations accordingly," it said. Reporting by Niklas Pollard, editing by Terje SolsvikOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Ericsson sees margin at lower end of target; pushes for cost cuts
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

SummarySummary Companies Company to reach lower end of 15-18% EBITA range by 2024Accelerating cost cuts of 9 bln SEK by end of next yearSTOCKHOLM, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson (ERICb.ST) said on Thursday it would reach the lower end of its long-term target of a profit (EBITA) margin of 15-18% by 2024 as several of its more profitable markets show signs of slowing down. While U.S. and other markets are slowing down, Ericsson is hoping newer markets such as India would help it balance some of the lower demand for 5G equipment. The company is now accelerating plans to cut costs by 9 billion crowns ($880 million) by the end of 2023. While demand for 5G equipment has been strong, the early stages of rollouts tend to have lower margins, meaning telecom groups such as Ericsson and Finnish rival Nokia (NOKIA.HE) rely on patent royalties to boost profits. On Wednesday, Ericsson said U.S. regulators had extended its monitoring of the company for compliance following the 2019 settlement for one more year.

☆ Top Wall Street analysts say buy these stocks during a market downturn
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-27 | by ( Tipranks.Com Staff | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

This means investors need to shift their focus toward longer-term prospects instead of fixating on near-term gyrations in the market. See below for five stocks picked by Wall Street's top pros, according to TipRanks, a platform that ranks analysts based on their previous performance. However, after the company posted its quarterly results, Susquehanna analyst Christopher Rolland noticed that Nvidia is "getting back on track." This prompted him to reiterate a buy rating on the stock and raise the price target to $185 from $180. (See Marvell Stock Chart on TipRanks) Looking beyond the quarter, Rolland sees several upsides to Marvell.

☆ Elon Musk Picks a Bad Time to Test Twitter’s Necessity
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( Dan Gallagher | Laura Forman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Elon Musk could succeed in making Twitter Inc. both bigger and smaller. His new rivals certainly wouldn’t mind the latter. The voluble billionaire’s first two weeks running the social platform he spent $44 billion to buy have been predictably messy. Half the workforce has been canned, several top-level executives have either quit or been fired, new subscription plans and verification changes have seen hasty and problem-riddled rollouts, and policies around key topics like content moderation have seemingly been made by tweet and discarded the same way.

☆ Orange launches first African 5G network in Botswana
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

JOHANNESBURG, Nov 11 (Reuters) - French telecoms group Orange (ORAN.PA) launched a new 5G network in Botswana on Friday in a first step towards rolling out the high-speed data offering to other markets in the Middle East and Africa, company executives said. Following the initial Botswana launch, Orange's 5G coverage will extend to 30% of the southern African nation's population, including those living in Gaborone and Francistown, the two largest cities. Instead, Orange is mainly focusing on 5G as a way of providing fast internet in Africa, where low population density makes rolling out fibre-optic infrastructure uneconomical. "For us the main use case is fixed wireless access, meaning internet at home," Nene Maiga, CEO of Orange Botswana, told journalists ahead of the launch. Orange's Middle East and Africa CEO Jerome Henrique said the company was targeting 5G rollouts in around half a dozen countries in 2023, most likely starting with Jordan.

Mandatory credit Kyodo/via REUTERSSummarySummary Companies Oil prices rise to highest levels since late AugustWSJ: China weighs gradual Zero-COVID exit without timelineChina's crude oil imports rebound amid refinery rolloutsNEW YORK, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Oil prices fell on Monday, paring gains after rising to more than two-month highs, on mixed signals over China, the world's top crude importer, potentially relaxing its strict COVID-19 restrictions. Brent crude futures fell 65 cents to settle at $97.92 a barrel. Earlier in the session, they rose to a session high of $99.56 a barrel, the highest since Aug. 31. However, weighing on futures, Chinese health officials at the weekend reiterated their commitment to strict COVID containment measures. Meanwhile, China's imports and exports contracted unexpectedly in October, but its crude oil imports rebounded to the highest level since May.

☆ Fact Check-UK newspaper report on non-COVID deaths from 2020, not 2022
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Some social media users are misrepresenting a 2020 report in a British newspaper on non-COVID deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming it is from 2022, as well as falsely implying the headline concerns vaccines. Users heavily imply the deaths are due to COVID-19 vaccines. However, the newspaper article is from Oct. 20, 2020 – well before Britain’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout, which began in December 2020 (here). The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), the UK’s independent newspaper regulator, said the article only referred to the displacement of deaths from hospitals to people’s homes on continuation on page 6 of the newspaper. The headline is from 2020 and pre-dates COVID-19 vaccine rollouts.

☆ Mobileye goes public, raising millions for Intel
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Washington, DC CNN —Intel spun out its driver-assist subsidiary Mobileye Wednesday and raised $861 million in the initial public offering. Intel had purchased Mobileye in 2017 for $15.3 billion, but announced in Dec. 2021 that it would spin out Mobileye. Mobileye, founded in 1999 in Israel, was an early leader in emerging driver-assist technology that can perceive the road and steer accordingly. Mobileye says being a public company again may help it draw attention to its products. “It’s important for us to amplify attention and a public company platform really allows you to do that,” Mobileye spokesman Dan Galves told CNN Business Wednesday.

☆ Compass employees question the real-estate brokerage's cost cutting, saying it threatens the startup's tech ambitions
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-10 | by ( Kaja Whitehouse | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

This is Kaja Whitehouse reporting to you from New York City, where real estate isn't just a profession — it's an obsession. But you don't have to be preoccupied with real estate, or located in the Big Apple, to known about Compass, the fast-rising real-estate brokerage that IPOed last year. When Compass IPOed in April 2021, it garnered a $7 billion valuation — the highest price ever for a residential real estate brokerage. In other news:Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon moonlights as a DJ, and is now set to play at the Lollapalooza music festival in July. It's no secret that Goldman Sachs' CEO David Solomon has been under pressure over his burgeoning consumer banking division Marcus.

☆ 'Avatar' re-release shows franchise's overseas strength while pulling in $10 million domestically
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-25 | by ( Sarah Whitten | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Disney is expected to snare $30 million in ticket sales globally from its theatrical re-release of 2009's "Avatar." While domestic ticket sales, which will reach $10 million, according to projections, are in-line with analysts' projections, it's the international tally of $20 million that has box office analysts buzzing. "Avatar: The Way of Water," the first of four sequels to the original film, is slated for release in December. There's clearly still audience interest for "Avatar," box office analysts agreed after seeing Sunday's projected figures. However, it's still up in the air as to whether that interest will translate to ticket sales in December, particularly for 3D showings.

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