FB Stock Facebook Reiterates Parental Leave Policy For Employees

The social media giant is expected to grow more in the market, with policies like the new parental leave it is offering its employees now

Facebook Inc has shown massive strengths recently and shown with its ever increasing share value and quarterly earnings reports that it does not plan to stop its growing process anything sooner. The giant showed figures to its investors regarding its revenue generation which are being considered as enough to give them a good night’s sleep for long time, mainly because of the worth of its stock that has been developed in the last few years. According to reports, the giant receives over 1 billion daily active users on its social media website, which analysts believe is a jaw dropping number to be taken into consideration. All of these successes that the media company has been experiencing are beginning to become apparent in how it treats its employees.

Facebook management has announced that it will be allowing its employees to take a paid parental leave for a period of four months for all the fathers who wish to stay at home and take care of their fatherly responsibilities to serve their infants at home. This policy has been deemed as an important one for even those males which are involved in same sex marriages. Since the social media company already has been offering great options for young mothers to spend more time with their child without having to miss out on their salaries, this new option is believed to be helping the fathers to be there with their infants as well, without having to miss out on the growing processes of their kid.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of the social media company, has himself taken up the parental leave to spend time with his child-to-be-born soon, and analysts believe that this new change being made in the policy for all the employees on the same level is mainly coming from the idea of his own leave. On the other hand, analysts also believe that the employees in the company will now be more satisfied than before, as they know that they are being treated equally irrespective of their designation or positions in the company.

In a recent blog post by the networking company, it was stated by the Head of Human Resources that the reason the parental leave policy has been reiterated is only because of a research that shows that employees are expected to produce better results if they get to spend more time with their families. The more the employees are kept satisfied in different ways, the better the work they will produce.

Apple Acquires Faceshift To Utilize Its Animation Expertise

Apple has acquired Faceshift to benefit from the virtual reality market.

With the growth in the virtual reality equipment market, Apple has made a fascinating acquisition that could improve its role in the sector. As per reports of Techcrunch, it has taken over a Switzerland-based enterprise, Faceshift that has pioneered technology to develop animated avatars and other figures, which are able to capture facial expressions of an individual in real-time.

There were unacknowledged reports earlier in 2015 of the smartphone maker purchasing Faceshift, but without any evidence of the agreement, the company remained silent. Meanwhile, Techcrunch dug up definitive links between the corporation and further sources, and Apple’s official has today acknowledged the attainment with its habitual statement: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”

Many employees of Faceshift are currently working for the consumer electronics manufacturer out of the European region. Apple news informed that it is not clear how it aims to utilize the technology of Faceshift, but there are many areas where the animation application developer’s technology has been validated and is currently being utilized.

As far as gaming experiences are concerned, people could adopt avatars whose faces would change depending on the actual expressions of the players for a more realistic and immediate experience. Apple news today exclaimed that in movie production, the equipment could be utilized to enhance the procedure of animating characters to more closely imitate the facial movements of the actors. Whereas, it is not something that the Faceshift appeared to concentrate on in its lifetime as an organization, there might also be business applications utilizing facial identification or safety purposes.

Its main objective, so to communicate, was on visual impacts in fields such as movie and gaming. In an industry where animation equipment can be time consuming and costly to implement, the company’s device was promoted as a game changer.

According to the Swiss organization, “Faceshift studio is a facial motion capture software solution which revolutionizes facial animation, making it possible at every desk.” Even so, the equipment is also appearing at the highest level of excitement, it is employed in the most recent Star wars movie to make non-human characters more humanly in their expressions.  

Apple Breaking news affirmed that Apple currently has assets and patents across facial identification, augmented reality, and motion capture, partly through the means of three European acquisitions: Metaio, Polar Rose, and Prime Sense. Facelift could play a role in expanding and complementing its capacities in these sectors moving ahead.

IBM Promotes Artificial Intelligence To Grow In The Industry

IBM has improvised the Artificial Intelligence sector to stay ahead in the competition.

IBM Corporation is trying to step up in the field of artificial intelligence. A.I. application programmers attained a new instrument to work with Monday, when the New York based company proclaimed a proprietary plan called SystemML will be freely accessible to modify and disseminate through the means of Apache Software Foundation.

IBM news exclaimed that the alphabets M and L refer to “machine learning”; Silicon Valley’s highly demanded technology that is known for enabling computers to discover common sequences in large quantities of information. ML is used to teach tasks to computers, such as predicting phrases submitted to search engines, tracking unusual changes in share prices, and identifying faces in pictures.

IBM is amongst the three organizations in 2015 to offer proprietary ML under an open-source permit. Facebook launched Torch application’s portions in February, whereas the Google division of Alphabet earlier this November open-sourced parts of its TensorFlow system. 

IBM Breaking news reported that an official, Robin Thomas, stated Machine Learning had attained preliminary acceptance from a reputed open-source organization Apache that is known for managing more than 150 ventures. Adoption carried out by Apache was the first move, he expected, towards the widespread adoption of SystemML.

“It’s an endorsement of sorts that says, ‘This has value’’’ Mr. Thomas stated. SystemML, which was initially pioneered at IBM’s Almaden research laboratory nearly a decade ago, is capable to helping developers to develop tailored machine-learning application. It could prove to be helpful for a bank. For instance, program risk-modeling application that will provide initial warnings of a fraud.

The current edition intends to work with an application called Spark, another Apache venture that plays a role in processing large quantities of information as it is provided by incessant sources like fitness trackers or smart phones.

“It’s a pretty early-stage project, but it’s pretty promising,” stated Dong-Bong “DB” Tsai, who is working as a Spark developer and Netflix’s senior research engineer. He stated SystemML could play a role in helping the video streaming organization to enhance its recommendation system, which is known for ML to make decisions regarding which movies a particular person might want to watch over, say, Thanksgiving weekend.

IBM news today exclaimed that Big Blue took the decision to open the source code of SystemML through the means of Apache Foundation to lure a broader community of program developers and speed up its development, Mr. Thomas stated.

“It’s about speed and innovation,” he stated, Right now, my [research and development] is limited to my R&D budget, unless we’re doing work in open source.”

Facebook CEO Avails Two-Months Paternity Leave

Mark Zuckerberg has proclaimed to avail his paternity leave for his new-born daughter.

The CEO and founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, is about to avail his leaves. He stated on Friday that he would take 60 days of paternity leave after the birth of his daughter, a powerful statement given by one of the most strong and busiest American executives on the significance of family time.

Silicon Valley tech companies have made efforts to extend paternity leave allowances and rest of benefits in a move to retain and hire talent, but most employees do not take advantage, as they fear missing promotional opportunities or failing to work in a competitive manner.

Facebook news today exclaimed that the online social network platform lets its U.S. workers avail a four months of salaried maternity or paternity leave, which could be utilized all at the same time or during the first year of their offspring’s life, a policy that is generous by American standards. Mr. Zuckerberg proclaimed in July that he and his spouse, Priscilla Chan, were about to have a baby.

In 2015, a research conducted by the Society for Human Resource management was able to find out that 21% of companies provided an opportunity for its workers to avail salaried maternity leave while 17% offered remunerated paternity leave. 

Facebook

 news affirmed that Zuckerberg posted on his Facebook page along with a stroller’s picture, a yellow baby carrier and his dog, Beast, “This is a very personal decision, Studies show that when working parents take time to be with their newborns, outcomes are better for the children and families."

The 31-years-old CEO did not mention who will manage his position while he is not serving. The company did not immediately share its views regarding the issue when inquired about it. It is probable that the organization’s COO Sheryl Sandberg, who supervises all of the company’s advertising, would assume leadership. The young CEO largely supervises products, but probably relies on the organization’s chief product officer, Chris Cox, while he is out of office.

Facebook Breaking news reported that his decision is unusual amongst senior technology officials, particularly men. CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, took 14 days off after she gave birth to a child three years ago, and when she proclaimed her pregnancy with identical female twins in September, she stated she would be availing limited maternal leave.

Zuckerberg’s posts succeeded in generating greater than 50,000 likes in 60 minutes and almost 3000 comments. Majority of the comments appreciated his move and stated that it shared an optimistic message regarding parental leave plans. He has proclaimed his leave at a time when Facebook’s users have failed to find an easy way to remove the French flag from their photos.

Verizon Communications Stock Update

The wireless company is offering a strong dividend yield to the shareholders which has been looked at by the analysts in a bullish manner

Verizon Communications has experienced a dip on the stock index with its share price reaching a value of $44.98, falling by 0.75% in the last trading session in the stock market. The wireless giant has been showing signs of growth for some time now and has sustained its position as the largest wireless carrier of the United States throughout the current year, by offering new deals and services to the customers every now and then. On the other hand, as per the guidance given by the company to the investors, the earnings per share for the next full year are to grow by 39.50% as compared to the current year. The cash returns that the giant is offering its investors is expected to be around 13% this time while on the other hand, the gross margin has gone up as high as 60%.

The dividend plan which is being followed by the Verizon business has turned out to satisfying the shareholders quite a lot, as the dividend yield is 4.85%. Since this is almost touching the 5% mark of high dividend yield, analysts believe that the giant seems to be in a good position on the index as it is providing relatively high returns to the shareholders.

Verizon shares, on the other hand, have 52 week high value trading at a value of $51.73 while the lows for the same period are to be recorded around $38.06. As for the movement of the shares, the volatility has been recorded at 4%, which shows that the fluctuation rate of the share value has been much over the higher side.

In other news, it will be seen that Verizon wireless has made announcements of launching a tablet which is called the Ellipsis 10, and it will be running on Android 5.1, according to the details presented by the company, and will be available in the market for $199.99 for a period of two years. The customers of the wireless giant can enjoy benefits of the new gadget including a screen of 10.1 inch with pixel resolution of 1920x1200 and a full HD display. The device has also been designed to work in compatibility with the 4G LTE networking that is one of the services provided by the giant to the users.

The new tablet is another one in the Ellipsis series and is being taken as a competitive gadget in the tablet industry, as it has some interesting features like an anti-print screen, which determines a spotless screen which is also devoid of minor finger prints of the user. 

Samsung Makes A Donation Of $500,000 To Fisher House Foundation

The electronics manufacturer has donated $5000,000 to the Fisher House Foundation to support military members and veterans and has signed a two year partnership with the foundation

World famous electronics giant announced on Wednesday November 18 a partnership with Fisher House Foundation, which is expected to go on for two years. The company made a donation of more than $500,000 to the partner foundation, which recently celebrated its 25 years of service in provision of houses to military official and veterans who are under treatment in the military service.

This announcement came after the Galaxy maker was reported to donate $1 million to the Korean War veteran’s memorial foundation, in Washington. This recent donation of $500,000 to the Fishers Foundation will be utilized to construct houses, and product donations for existing houses, also the commitment of the electronics company’s engagement to the foundation across the nation. The executive vice president of the electronic company, Won-Kyong Kim said, “It is an honor to tangibly demonstrate our gratitude to American service member, veterans, and their families for their sacrifice in defending Korean democracy, as well as the freedom and way of life enjoyed by our American employees, partners and customers. Through this investment, Samsung Electronics remembers your sacrifice.”

The smartphone manufacturer is going to provide the foundation through the partnership by providing finances for building new fisher house in 2016 and 2017 situated in Ft. Hood, CA, Omaha and many other location out of which one is yet to be announced.

Older houses will also be renovated and modified through the provided finances, and will include Samsung’s electronics such as the company’s kitchen with washing appliances, tablets and televisions, and many other electronics. The company will install application and  the electronic compatible with the devices that will help the families to communicate efficiently and with ease to their homes and loved ones, the service members will also be given medical care and education assistance.

The partnered Foundations CEO, Ken Fisher said, “Fisher House Foundation is eager and excited to work with Samsung. Our military men and women should know we have their backs. That the nation is there for them. That their sacrifice will never be ignored. The Company’s efforts to go a long way to achieving those goals.” The electronics company is aiming to build better communications between the military member and their families, it is making this it social responsibility and is doing so to build a strong foothold in USA. It already has 20 years of partnership agreement with American Legion which will provide scholarships to American Korean War veterans.

Samsung stock closed at $1,100.00 on November 5.

Baidu Now Strives To Take On Alibaba With Online Banking

Alibaba is challenged by Baidu's entrance in online banking sector.

Baidu’s entrance in the online banking industry is challenging Alibaba Group Holding Limited. The Chinese banking institution would hold a major proportion of stock in the direct bank, which would offer lending services and investment solutions to clients online.

An enterprise known as the Baixin Bank is a company between China Citic Bank and Baidu, which would prove to be the most populated country’s first lending institution shaped by the cooperation between a conventional bank and internet organization, China’s search engine developer stated in its press release.

As per reports of Reuters even after the establishment of Citic-Baidu joint project, the new organization would yet be required to file an application for attaining a banking permit. The Beijing-based bank, which is known as China’s seventh biggest commercial bank has halted the buying and selling of its shares.

Baidu’s CEO and founder, Robin Li, noted China’s internet giant would probably take a larger stake in the planned project with the Bank than the ecommerce giant, Alibaba, and the Shenzhen-based investment holdings organization, Tencent, own in their private banking institutions.

Alibaba news exclaimed that Mr. Li said, “The establishment of Baixin Bank will mark a milestone for Internet finance in China.” More than 20 mainland-banking institutions have introduced operations that look similar to direct banking, beginning with Bank of Beijing two years ago. Baidu is known for owning mobile software that serves 500 million users and the software’s payment functionality has 45 million activated accounts, Li affirmed.

“Baidu will find a way to build a risk control model by analyzing people’s research requests. Due to its dominant position in China’s search market, it will have an advantage over peers in selling wealth management products online, something that will immensely benefit the new bank”, he said. Alibaba Breaking news reported Alibaba holds 30% of an Internet bank, MYbank’s stock through the means of its financial division, known as Ant Financial.

Alibaba wholesale informed that both organizations would try to utilize each other’s technology. Baidu  would allocate its traffic resources, information analytics and behavioral information on users, whereas CITIC has financial solutions’ knowledge. The behavioral information analytics could be utilized to measure the creditworthiness of a person for instance "better risk management”.

Alibaba news today affirmed that the measure has been taken as China’s government looks to liberalize its banking sector. Previously this year, it started a pilot venture to develop five rather than the state-owned banking institutions, of which Tencent and Alibaba ventures were two. The objective is to play a role in letting medium and small sized businesses borrow loans.

The CITIC bank has proclaimed that from December 1 onwards, clients would make free online transfer service across the People’s Republic of China. 

Alibaba Launches Entrepreneurs Fund for Hong Kong

Alibaba has launched an Entrepreneur Fund to help businesses fuel their growth.

Alibaba has stepped forward for the business community. It proclaimed the formal launch of its Entrepreneurs Fund for the Chinese special administrative region, Hong Kong, with the goal to support the ambitions of businesspersons wishing to benefit from the resources delivered by the its ecosystem in financial services, mobile networks, logistics, cloud computation, and ecommerce.

Alibaba news exclaimed that the Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund is its nonprofit initiative. The objective of this fund is to let businesspeople realize their visions and dreams for the regions to not only become vibrant but also globally and regionally involved. The fund would make investments in qualifying corporations in growth, expansion, and startup phases of the corporate life cycle. Qualifying enterprises would employ the systems in Alibaba’s ecosystem to provide services and gadgets to China and the world.

Alibaba wholesale informed that HK$1 billion has been allocated for the fund. Various accomplished community and business leaders would serve as directors of the fund’s board, including Asia Financial Group and Asia Insurance’s president Bernard Chan, Alibaba’s former president and COO Savio Kwan, and chairman and founder of Lan Kwai Fong Group, Dr. Allan Zeman.

Ms. Cindy Chow would be serving as the Fund’s executive director. Chow joined the online trading company eight years ago and has served in the planning and financial control capacity, most lately as senior director of international finance.

Alibaba news today affirmed that the executive vice chairman, Joe Tsai, stated, “At Alibaba our mission is to make it easy to do business anywhere. We are passionate about fostering entrepreneurial spirit and hope the resources provided by the Fund will help unleash potential for innovation and entrepreneurship in Hong Kong. I am delighted to have the support from the Fund’s directors who share our vision and passion. Together we will help aspiring entrepreneurs realize their dreams.”

The Entrepreneur Fund would involve independent professional organizations who would be held responsible for managing the investment program. The fund has chosen its first investment manager Gobi Partners to carry out the management of a part of the investment project and anticipates to select further investment managers for the residual parts of the venture.

Alibaba Breaking News reported that Gobi Partners was developed over a decade ago, concentrating on local innovation that had emerged from IT, TMT convergence, and the transformation of digital media in the most populated country. Gobi is known for managing six funds with a number of offices across the Asian continent. For a time span of more than 10 years, he made investments in 100 innovative corporations in   Southeast Asia and the second largest economy.

The fund would also be providing 200 internships yearly for final year and graduate students of the local tertiary education institutes to serve for a year at Alibaba Group or organizations in its ecosystem in China.

Alibaba Chairman Addresses The APEC Summit About SMEs Empowerment

Alibaba's Chairman Jack Ma's speech focuses on the need to empower small businesses.

Alibaba wants to strengthen small businesses. Alibaba wholesale informed that the ecommerce company’s chairman and founder urged for the empowerment and support of more than 10 million small enterprises across the globe. On November 18, 2015, during the APEC CEO Summit organized in Makati, Mr. Ma centered his address on how to boost businesses by paying attention to the 1.5 billion people who belong to the Internet generation that is also called post-Millennials.  

Alibaba news affirmed that its founder challenged businesspersons to pay concentration to this generation by thinking how they could amend the means employed by their respective businesses to meet the requirements of the Internet generation. The Chinese billionaire also appreciated entrepreneurs belonging to this generation, while saying, "Young people make business based on technology, innovation, and based on the things they order.”

The Hangzhou-based organization established its enterprise as a mobile and online trading company offering mobile and online markets in wholesale and retail trade. He also stated that 125 million people are purchasing through their cellular phones each day.

Nevertheless, he did not attribute those figures to his organization, but to small enterprises located in different parts of the world. "[That number] was unimaginable 15 years ago", he stated. He suggested small businesspersons to develop their enterprises online first. He then gave his internet giant’s example to suggest means through which enterprises could grow over the internet.

He informed that this year, the Chinese online trading platform has been able to record sales worth $500bn, which equals the earnings of the American retail giant, Walmart.

Alibaba news today exclaimed that Mr. Ma proposed to develop an e-World Trade Organization for serving the interests of small enterprises and developing states, adding that the WTO had played a role in facilitating huge companies in the previous two decades and it is now the time to help those business persons hoping to establish their enterprises.

He acknowledged that small businesses’ entrepreneurs are often the most innovative strategists and thinkers. By emphasizing on the enterprises’ strengths, Jack is hoping that in the coming one to two decades, small businesspersons would turn into big people who would participate in future APEC summits.

He cautioned that by not offering assistance to least developed countries, young entrepreneurs, and small businesses would "create more and more disasters."

"Globalization really helped pump up the global economy. It helped the big companies and developed nations, but the developing nations and small guys did not benefit enough from globalization", he stated.

Alibaba Breaking News reported that Jack also explained that trading is not only concerned about buying and selling items.

"Trading is about the culture, passion, innovation, and creation. No matter wherever country you are, whatever size of company you are, trade is a freedom”, he stated.

Facebook Launches Instant Articles For Android Users In India

Facebook has launched Instant Articles to address the concerns of Indian Android users.

Facebook is launching Instant Articles, previously introduced in May on only iPhones, in the Western European region and U.S, to Android gadgets in India. Android smartphone users would be allowed to access features and rich content from various local publications, including The Indian Express, Aaj Tak, The Quint, India Today and Hindustan Times to introduce it in India, the social media company’s second biggest market.

Mint reported that these five publications are known for representing various publishers, which would let the organization monitor how various categories of published content is read in India. Facebook news affirmed that Instant Articles are known for more rapid loading of articles for specific publications within the organization’s news feeds, along with high-resolution pictures that users could zoom in and discover by titling their devices. It also includes interactive updates like maps, auto-play video, and hearable audio captions.

Facebook news today revealed that in the USA, the feature was introduced in association with various publishers, such as Spiegel, The Atlantic, Buzzfeed, NBC, National Geographic, Bild, BBC News, and The Guardian. The figure has since increased to 20.

Facebook app informed that the social network platform’s selection of India for launching the reader-friendly update is not surprising. It currently has 130 users in the region – a growing market led by inexpensive Android gadgets rather than the more expensive iPhones. Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg views the Indian market as others do and he is quite bullish about it.

It is still not clear when the update would be introduced for users of iPhones in the second most populated country, though it hinted Android’s rollout in October. India looks to be the first wave of that pledge.

Facebook Breaking news reported that Mitchell stated, “We at Facebook are really excited to be rolling out Instant Articles in India on Monday, We are working with a publisher ecosystem that is varied, and we are excited to see how this product will resonate with Facebook users and publishers in India… We have just started our Android beta and are immediately coming to India with great partners, which is a big milestone for us.”

Facebook is introducing the update at a time when it is facing criticism for using its safety update after the attacks that were recently carried out in France, as residents in Lebanon believe that the organization’s approach implies that Western lives are more important than that of Middle Eastern lives.