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Facebook announced today that it is no longer pursuing its plan of developing its own high-flying drones for delivering internet, an initiative within its Aquila project that was started four years ago. The news was tucked away in a blog post titled “High altitude connectivity: The next chapter,” penned by Yael Maguire, a director of engineering at Facebook.

Initially, Aquila was Facebook’s bold stratosphere internet project that imagined gigantic drones running partially on solar power that could remain in flight for long periods of time and beam down LTE service to remote parts of the world. In broad terms, Aquila was one of many ways, alongside Internet.org and other initiatives, that Facebook is trying to help the developing world...

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• Amazon introduced its "Pivot" program for underperforming employees last year. Now, some employees are resentful that the program process is unfair.
• Workplace experts say it's concerning that the peer jury that evaluates underperforming employees isn't necessarily familiar with that specific employee's work — or experienced in HR decisions.
• One workplace expert said the program is beneficial because it gives employees more of a chance to improve than if they were simply let go.

Last year, Amazon launched a program called "Pivot," designed to help underperforming employees improve their work.

It's been eighteen months since Pivot was introduced and, as Bloomberg's Spencer Soper and Business Insider's Prachi Bhardwaj reported, some employees are protesting that the hearing process isn't fair.

Under the Pivot program, employees who are put on a performance-improvement plan have three options, Bhardwaj reported:

1. Quit and receive severance pay

2. Spend the next couple of months proving their worth by meeting certain performance goals set by the manager

3. Face a panel of peers in a courtroom-style videoconference, in which the employee and his or her boss present arguments about whether the employee should stay in the Pivot program

An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the panel is made up of global coworkers who have similar jobs at Amazon.

Seventy percent of employees lose the trials, meaning they must choose between the first and second options above. If the employee wins the trial, they are removed from Pivot and have the choice to return to their current team or be placed on another team.

Business Insider spoke to three workplace experts about the value and potential implications of the Pivot program. All three agreed that the program was "innovative" in the world of people management.

Yet the experts were also concerned that these panelists, possibly unversed in the world of HR decisions, would get to shape the future of someone's career.

Under the Pivot program, employees choose either one manager or three non-managers as their jury, Bloomberg reported. They're also allowed to dismiss some panelists if they think the panelists will be unsympathetic to their case, according to Bloomberg. But overall, the employee doesn't get to select the jurors.

"Someone's career is such a deeply personal thing," said Jaime Klein, founder and CEO of Inspire Human Resources. "It is such a massive responsibility to determine the fate of someone's career."

Klein added, "You have to be really trained to be able to assess the current performance and the trajectory of whether someone can work through that performance issue."

Jodi Glickman, CEO of GreatontheJob.com, said it was "bizarre" to have three jurors who may have no previous experience interacting with you. The case might easily become a "popularity contest," Glickman said, with jurors who owe the employee's boss a favor deciding against the employee.

It would make more sense, she added, to select the jurors from among the employee's (and boss') team members, so that they know what the employee's work really looks like and whether the boss' complaints are valid.

The peer-jury process gives employees more opportunity to improve than if they were summarily dismissed

Still, Lynn Taylor, a national workplace expert and the author of "Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant: How to Manage Childish Boss Behavior and Thrive in Your Job," said she thought the Pivot program could be beneficial for employees.

Taylor cited the 30% of employees who win their cases, which is more than the 0% of employees who would get to stay if no one had the opportunity to defend themselves.

Taylor said it's also important to keep in mind that the manager of the employee being evaluated is also under review. If the jury decides the manager's complaints were unsubstantiated, that doesn't make the manager look very good, she said.

One confusing part of the Pivot program, according to Klein, is the option for employees to quit and receive severance pay. Severance pay is typically offered, Klein said, when it's "not your fault."

"It's odd to offer severance as an option if the individual does not want to pursue a performance program."

SEE ALSO: 18 months after being deployed, Amazon's program for underperforming employees may be doing more harm than good

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NOW WATCH: What it means to be 'fearless' at work and how you can get over your fear

It’s tough to stand out in the premium smartphone world, but LG may have a solution for its upcoming V40 flagship. There’s a rumor from Android Police that says the company is throwing caution to the wind and putting five cameras on its new phone, a device that will surely succeed where last year’s V30’s (and its V35 variant’s) paltry three cameras did not.

According to Android Police’s source, the V40 will feature three cameras on the back of the device. It’s similar to the Huawei P20 Pro, which was the first major smartphone to offer a triple-camera system. The V40 will also feature dual cameras on the front of the device (like the HTC U12 Plus), in what’s rumored be a stereo system to...

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• Facebook shareholders with nearly $3 billion invested in the company are trying to topple Mark Zuckerberg as chairman and tear up the company's governance structure.
• Business Insider has spoken to six prominent shareholders who said there is an unprecedented level of unrest among Facebook's backers following a series of scandals.
• They are in open revolt about Zuckerberg's power base, which gives him the ability to swat away any shareholder proposal he disagrees with.
• One investor compared him to a robber baron, a derogatory term for 19th century America tycoons who accumulated enormous wealth.
• Facebook says its governance structure is "sound and effective" and splitting Zuckerberg's duties as chairman and CEO would cause "uncertainty, confusion, and inefficiency."

Facebook investors boasting nearly $3 billion (£2.3 billion) in shares are making moves to topple Mark Zuckerberg as chairman and tear apart his power base at the company.

Business Insider has spoken to six prominent shareholders who are growing increasingly restless about the way Facebook is run, and ever more vociferous in their demands for change.

All agreed that anger among investors has never been more pronounced since Facebook went public in 2012. They have watched in frustration as the firm has embroiled itself in a series of scandals, from election interference to the Cambridge Analytica data disaster.

These crises were in part manufactured by the way the company is run, rebel investors said, and have not been properly addressed because Facebook's corporate governance structure means Mark Zuckerberg is basically untouchable as both CEO and chairman.

"We have concerns about the structure of the board that the company doesn’t seem ready to address, which can lead to risks — reputational, regulatory, and otherwise," said New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, who oversees around $895 million of Facebook shares through city pension funds.

Investors are openly campaigning for radical change on many fronts, but there is clear consensus around two particular issues, which came up consistently in interviews with Business Insider:

• They want Zuckerberg to step down as chairman and an independent executive to be hired in his place.
• Shareholders also want Facebook’s dual-class share structure to be abolished because they believe it concentrates too much power into the hands of Zuckerberg and his top team.

A majority of independent shareholders voted in favour of proposals to achieve these aims at Facebook's past two investor meetings. Anger boiled over at this year's meeting, where Zuckerberg was accused of running the company like a "dictatorship," while another shareholder was thrown out of the event for venting her displeasure.

Some shareholders have also called for Facebook's audit committee to be given more teeth, but this was largely addressed this month when the firm bolstered the responsibilities of the committee to encompass social impact, privacy, and cybersecurity.

Facebook played down the idea that this was a response to external demands. But stockholders took comfort in the fact that it was a sign that the firm is, on some level, listening. And even if it was a victory, it was a battle, not the war. Now investors want progress on the other issues.

Facebook declined to comment on investor unrest. A spokeswoman pointed Business Insider to past statements in which it says that its governance structure is fit for purpose. 

It has certainly proved a pretty safe bet for investors. Facebook's stock has grown more than 400% since its IPO in 2012, revenue has soared nearly 1,000% to $40 billion, and it has 2.2 billion monthly active users, or around 30% of the world's population. All the while, it has seen off challenges from rivals including Twitter and Snap.

At many other companies, shareholders would be praising Zuckerberg's stewardship. But instead, they want to weaken his influence.

Zuckerberg answers to no one

Michael Frerichs, the Illinois State Treasurer, who has around $35 million invested in Facebook, said shareholders want to remove Zuckerberg as chairman for a simple reason: "He is not accountable to anyone, not the board or the shareholders, which is a bad corporate governance practice. He's his own boss and it has clearly not been working."

Frerichs has been coordinating with four other shareholders, with combined interests in Facebook worth around $2 billion, to lobby for change. The efforts have been spearheaded by activist investor Natasha Lamb, a managing partner at Arjuna Capital, who said there is "very little confidence" in the job Zuckerberg is doing.

The likes of Apple, Google, Oracle, Twitter, and Microsoft have all divided the role of chairman and CEO, pointed out Jonas Kron, a senior vice president at Trillium Asset Management, which manages about $10.5 million of Facebook stock on behalf of philanthropic organisation Park Foundation.

Kron said Zuckerberg should look to his role model and mentor Bill Gates for guidance. Gates split the role of chief executive and chairman when he quit as Microsoft CEO in 2000.

When you combine the roles of chairman and CEO, plus that chairman and CEO owns a majority stake, that's a toxic brew

But Zuckerberg's power is compounded by his voting rights. Facebook divides its shares into two classes: Class A and Class B. The latter has 10 times the voting power of Class A, and it just so happens that Zuckerberg owns 75% of this stock. It means he has more than half of the voting power at Facebook, and therefore near-complete control.

"When you combine the dual roles of chairman and CEO, plus that chairman and CEO personally owns a majority stake of that company, that's a toxic brew. It means there's very little room for any kind of dissent," said Michael Connor, the director of Open Mic, an organization that helps shareholders campaign to improve governance at some of America's biggest companies.

Zuckerberg's power to swat away investor concerns has been evidenced in the past 13 months. A proposal to oust him as chairman was laid down and swiftly crushed at last year's investor meeting. Analysis by Connor, however, shows it was supported by 51% of independent shareholders.

History repeated itself in May at Facebook's 2018 shareholder meeting. Investors tabled a proposal to abolish the dual-class share structure and, again, it was voted down. But scratch a little deeper and the data shows that the proposal was supported by a whopping 83% of independent investors.

Put another way, if Zuckerberg disagrees with shareholders, he always has the trump card.

Patrick Doherty, director of corporate governance at the office of the New York State Comptroller, which looks after more than $1 billion in Facebook stock, said it's a set-up that belongs in the past.

Doherty explained: "The idea that there should be an autocrat in charge of a gigantic public company, which has billions of dollars of shareholder money invested in it, is an anachronism. It harks back to the 19th century when you had these robber barons who were autocrats and dictators."

The idea that there should be an autocrat in charge of a gigantic public company is an anachronism. It harks back to the 19th century when you had robber barons

And Lamb has direct experience of Facebook's reluctance to engage. She has been campaigning on issues, including gender pay, but was dismissed by outgoing communications chief Elliot Schrage at last month's investor meeting as "not nice." Lamb said it was a "sexist" remark, indicative of Facebook's failure to listen to shareholders. Schrage later apologised.

But she can see a simple reason why Zuckerberg would be reluctant to do away with the dual-class structure: Because he would be "signing a contract on his own demise."

In a statement last month opposing the investor proposal to abolish the share structure, Facebook said the two classes of stock have been in place since 2009 — three years before the firm went public.

"We believe that our capital structure is in the best interests of our stockholders and that our current corporate governance structure is sound and effective," Facebook continued.

On the prospect of removing Zuckerberg as chairman, the company said this would cause "uncertainty, confusion, and inefficiency in board and management function."

A number of shareholders told Business Insider that these justifications conflict with the substance of Zuckerberg's apology tour after Cambridge Analytica weaponised Facebook data for political ends.

Specifically, the CEO said "we didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake" in reference to fake news, election meddling, and data privacy. The shareholders we spoke to unanimously agreed that a different governance structure would have opened Zuckerberg's eyes to the pitfalls of his "move fast and break things" mantra, which Facebook has now ditched.

"When you open yourself up to more opinions, more independent voices, you're more likely to make better decisions. It's more likely that someone with independent governance would have spoken up about some of these things," said Illinois State Treasurer Frerichs.

Investors will continue throwing grenades

Investors are not about to stop reminding Zuckerberg of his responsibilities. They will continue tabling proposals at annual shareholder meetings, writing strident letters to Facebook directors, engaging with management through meetings and other correspondence, and making their frustrations known to the press.

But Dylan Sage, the managing director of Baldwin Brothers, thinks it will take something significant for Facebook to engage. A substantial drop in revenue or users could prompt board unrest, he suggested, or the issue could be taken out of the company's hands.

"If you continue to see more Cambridge Analyticas pop up on the platform, or Facebook skewing elections, or create hate crimes and ethnic cleansing around the world, then you will see social unrest to the point that regulatory bodies come in and mandate change," Sage added. He dumped a lot of his Facebook stock after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, but still has around $2.8 million invested in the company.

Ultimately, all the investors agreed that they want the best for Facebook.

"We have the best interests of the company at heart because we are a major investor," said Doherty. "We have over $1 billion invested in Facebook at the moment, so we and the other investors coming forward believe that Facebook continues to be a good investment, but there are very serious problems that have to be dealt with."

People think companies like Facebook are bulletproof, and they're not

"As long-term investors in Facebook, we want to make sure the company is strong," added Stringer. Frerichs continued: "It's about making sure the long-term viability of the company, and with changes in corporate governance, we can reduce some of the risk. "

Connor, who does not have a stake in Facebook, reminded Zuckerberg that tech companies are not invincible — even if they sometimes appear untouchable.

"People think companies like Facebook are bulletproof, and they're not," he said. "You had companies like AOL and Yahoo come and go. You've had people like Travis Kalanick, who was the cofounder and CEO of Uber, who has come and gone. These things can self-destruct."

SEE ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg is acting like a man who can’t be fired — and the unique way his stock is structured could be why

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NOW WATCH: Here's why coating our streets white could help lower temperatures in the summer

The world of automated surveillance is booming, with new machine learning techniques giving CCTV cameras the ability to spot troubling behavior without human supervision. And sooner or later, this tech will be coming to a store near you — as illustrated by a new AI security cam built by Japanese telecom giant NTT East and startup Earth Eyes Corp.

The security camera is called the “AI Guardman” and is designed to help shop owners in Japan spot potential shoplifters. It uses open source technology developed by Carnegie Mellon University to scan live video streams and estimate the poses of any bodies it can see. (Think of it like a Kinect camera, but using 2D instead of 3D data to track people.) The system then tries to match this pose...

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The Wi-Fi protection protocol includes improved network resiliency, protective management frames for critical workloads and 192-bit cryptographic strength.

• Apple is working on over-ear headphones that could launch as soon as next year.
• It's also working on next-generation AirPods with water resistance and noise-cancelling, according to a Bloomberg report. 

Apple could launch a pair of over-ear headphones as soon as 2019, according to a report from Bloomberg citing people familiar with the matter.

These headphones are designed to compete against models from Bose and Sennheiser, according to the report. These high-end headphones could be sold under the Apple brand, instead of the Beats brand that Apple bought in 2014 for $3 billion. 

Bose's top-of-the-line wireless, noise-cancelling headphone, the QuietComfort 35, costs $349. 

Apple has increasingly turned to pricey audio accessories to boost revenue and profit. Apple's AirPods, which cost $159, have been popular with consumers. But HomePod, a high-end internet-connected speaker, has been less warmly reviewed. 

Apple is likely to continue to offer new versions of both 'Pods, according to the Bloomberg report. The next generation of AirPods could include noise-cancellation and water resistance, as well as a longer wireless range and a higher price. Apple has considered adding additional health features, as well. 

There are lots more details about Apple's audio strategy in Bloomberg. 

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NOW WATCH: What having a dog does to your brain and body

As industry competition heats up, platforms are opting to team together rather than fight it out. But what does that mean for the profession overall?

• A new Survata survey seen by Business Insider shows that people are massively polarized about whether they trust Facebook or not.
• That's after months of scandal over Cambridge Analytica's use of Facebook data.
• The survey showed that Facebook ranked lower on trust than Google, YouTube, and eBay — but higher than Instagram.
• Survata CEO Chris Kelly said people had stronger feelings about Facebook than about Instagram, whether negative or positive.

Facebook has been making a lot of moves to show it's more transparent in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, but people are wildly polarized about whether they trust the company.

A Survata study, seen exclusively by Business Insider, asked US consumers to rate big tech companies from one (most trusted) to five (least trusted). Survata surveyed more than 2,600 people in April and May. It's the first time Survata has carried out the survey.

The results show that Facebook is nowhere near as trusted as Amazon, PayPal, or Microsoft — but that people do trust it more than Instagram. Instagram, of course, is owned by Facebook.

Here's the top 15 in order of most to least trusted:

1. Amazon
2. PayPal
3. Microsoft
4. Apple
5. IBM
6. Yahoo
7. Google
8. YouTube
9. eBay
10. Pandora
11. Facebook
12. LinkedIn
13. Spotify
14. AOL
15. Instagram

Survata CEO Chris Kelly said in emailed comments to Business Insider that Facebook was "a curious case altogether."

"[We] found that it was very much polarizing on this question," he said. "This study found that Facebook's most common ratings were the extreme ends — either "1" for most trusted or "5" for least trusted. In the end, it seemed that a bit more people were extremely likely to trust Facebook than extremely distrust, so it ranked higher [than Instagram]."

Kelly also said people were more familiar with Facebook than with Instagram. So while there was more polarized opinion about Facebook, the sheer number of people who are familiar with the platform means it ranks higher than Instagram on trust.

Curiously, WhatsApp was absent from the top 15. Kelly said WhatsApp is much more popular outside the US as a messaging platform. SMS remains popular because it's essentially free.

Asked why Amazon ranked so highly, Kelly said it was probably the firm's focus on good customer service.

"Even though the company uses data to personalize experiences like many others, it goes to show you that having an exceptional experience can have a spillover effect into other brand impressions of your business," he said.

"That, and you really haven't heard of any major data scandals involving the company. And, a lot of companies trust Amazon Web Services to hold their data, so it's definitely proven it has the tech in place for security."

SEE ALSO: Trust in Facebook has spectacularly nosedived after its enormous data breach

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NOW WATCH: What having a dog does to your brain and body

• A food-tech startup called Apeel Sciences has landed a $70 million funding round led by Viking Global Investors, Andreessen Horowitz, Upfront Ventures, and S2G Ventures. Previously, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had invested in Apeel.
• The company has created an invisible, edible coating designed to be sprayed on produce to extend shelf life. The company says its avocados last twice as long as nonorganic avocados. 
• The coating slows the decaying process.
• In June, Apeel introduced its avocados at Costco and Harps Food Stores locations throughout the American Midwest.

Avocados are known for their short shelf life. By the time the beloved fruit hits a grocery-store shelf, it will last about a week before it gets too ripe.

A Santa Barbara, California-based startup called Apeel Sciences has invented an edible coating that it says will double an avocado's shelf life. Food suppliers spray the product on the produce before it ships to grocers.

So far, the startup has developed products for more than three dozen crops, including asparagus, peaches, lemons, pears, and nectarines.

Before this week, Apeel had attracted at least $40 million in venture-capital funding from several high-profile investors, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

On Tuesday, the company announced it received an additional $70 million in a funding round led by Viking Global Investors, Andreessen Horowitz, Upfront Ventures, and S2G Ventures. Walter Robb, Whole Foods Market's co-founder and former co-CEO, will join Apeel's board as well.

In June, Apeel debuted its longer-lasting avocados at Costco and Harps Food Stores locations throughout the Midwest. This is the first time the startup has sold its produce. (Harps Food Stores, a regional grocery chain, has 87 locations. Costco is much larger, with more than 500 wholesale locations across 44 states and Puerto Rico.)

Harps reports that, over the past two months, it has seen a 65 percentage-point margin increase and a 10% lift in sales across the Haas avocado category. This may be due to Apeel's claim that it helps food retailers reduce food waste, since its avocados can last longer than traditional ones.

Made of leftover plant skins and stems, the coating acts as a barrier designed to slow the decay process. After the coating dries, it locks in moisture and acts as a shield against natural gases (e.g., oxygen and ethylene) that make avocados ripen.

Slicing open an Apeel avocado will break the shield, and at that point it will brown just as fast as a normal avocado.

"Refrigeration has been used to increase produce quality during transportation and storage, but you lose the benefit of refrigeration when a fruit sits on a grocery store shelf or on a kitchen counter," CEO James Rogers told Business Insider. "With our technology, we're able to dramatically reduce the rate that clock is ticking."

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Apeel's first products as "generally recognized as safe," meaning they're OK to eat and sell. In 2017, the company received approval to use the coating on organic produce, though the avocados at Costco and Harps will not be. They'll also cost the same as any other conventionally grown avocados.

Last year, Apeel moved into a 105,000-square-foot facility, and at least six farms in Southern California, Kenya, and Nigeria are now using Apeel's products. In the past several months, the company finalized negotiations to work with over two dozen packing houses and several farms in Mexico, Peru, and Chile to prepare for its commercial rollout.

Farms and food-packing houses have been able to buy Apeel's products since early last year. It's usually sprayed on produce during the wash cycle, before it's sorted and packed to go to retailers.

The coating is made of discarded materials from organic produce — anything from pear stems to leftover grape skins to grass clippings. But the formula differs for each fruit or vegetable.

The company is also working on a second product called Invisipeel that is designed to keep insects away. Invisipeel is not yet widely available.

Below is a time-lapse comparison the company created to show Apeel's effect on a variety of fruits and vegetables.

The coating could help stores and farmers reduce waste from produce that has ripened too quickly. Since Apeel's plant-based product controls the rate of decay, the company offers Costco and Harps a less costly way to preserve produce (the idea being that grocers will discard fewer spoiled avocados and thus save money). This is one major reason the locations will offer Apeel's fruit at the same price as other nonorganic avocados with a shorter shelf life, Rogers said.

If Apeel starts selling more types of produce at Costco, it could also give the chain an advantage over its competitors, including BJ's Wholesale Club and Whole Foods. Costco is known for its low-cost produce, but as Whole Foods lowers its prices following its sale to Amazon, the wholesaler may be looking for ways to differentiate its fresh food.

Rogers plans to expand the types of produce Apeel sells and to grow geographically, too. Asparagus could be next.

SEE ALSO: BJ's Wholesale Club just filed to go public — we compared it to rivals Costco and Sam's Club to see which bulk retailer does it best

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NOW WATCH: Sneaky ways Costco gets you to buy more

• Microsoft has purchased Bonsai, an artificial intelligence startup based in Berkeley, CA. 
• Microsoft was actually an investor in Bonsai, through its M12 corporate arm. 
• Notably, Bonsai's tech is built on top of TensorFlow — an AI technology originally developed at Google. Microsoft doesn't seem to mind very much.

First, Microsoft invested. Then, Microsoft acquired. 

On Wednesday, Microsoft announced the acquisition of Bonsai, an artificial intelligence startup based in Berkeley, California.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. All told, Bonsai had raised a relatively modest $13.6 million since it started up in 2014. 

There are a few notable things about this acquisition. First, Bonsai was an investment from Microsoft Ventures, which has since renamed itself M12. Plus, Bonsai CEO Mark Hammond is himself an ex-Microsoft employee, working on Windows 95 and the first-ever version of Internet Explorer. 

Second, Bonsai's whole business is built on TensorFlow — a free, open source artificial intelligence technology originally created at Google, which has gone on to become mega-popular with software developers. TensorFlow is actually an alternative to Microsoft's own CNTK toolkit for AI developers.

Still, when Bonsai raised its last funding round in 2017, Hammond told Business Insider that Microsoft didn't consider the fact that it was powered by Google to be a dealbreaker. Microsoft is more interested in serving its customers than pushing any one technology, Hammond said. 

"The barrier for them is the objective," he said at the time. "Microsoft's vision and messaging match with ours surprisingly well."

Specifically, Bonsai specializes in what Hammond has called "machine teaching," which is basically technology for training AI and other autonomous systems, figuring out how to fine-tune them for better performance. Late last year, Bonsai beat Google's DeepMind in training a robot arm how to stack up blocks. 

In doing so, Bonsai says that it can help developers build more AI, faster. 

This jibes with Microsoft's overall push into artificial intelligence, as it tries to make its Azure cloud platform the premiere home for developers building smarter apps for consumers and businesses. Indeed, Hammond and the entire Bonsai team is expected to stay on through the acquisition. 

As far as working with Google's TensorFlow goes, this isn't the first time that Microsoft has purchased a startup in a similar boat. In 2017, Microsoft purchased Deis, a startup building on Kubernetes — a software tool that was, again, created by Google and that became an open source phenomenon. Last we heard, Deis is still at it, helping Kubernetes run better on Azure.

SEE ALSO: Microsoft just invested millions in a startup based on a key Google technology

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NOW WATCH: Gaming while black: How racist trolls are still dominating video games

Because of hysteria around Alexa's privacy, there will be parts of the market with a continued "perception or misconception that Alexa is always listening."

Oracle shares shot up 4% in after-hours trading Tuesday, following a major beat for the company in its fourth quarter 2018 earnings. The share price has since sunk back to a slight gain of just 0.6%.  

"Last year, I forecast double-digit non-GAAP earnings per share growth for FY18 and we delivered 14% growth this year, largely driven by strong growth in our cloud businesses," said Oracle CEO Safra Catz. "Looking ahead to FY19, I expect revenue growth will enable us to deliver double-digit non-GAAP earnings per share growth once again."

Here's what Oracle reported:

• Revenue for the quarter (GAAP): Oracle reported $11.26 billion, up 3% from the year before, which beat analysts' expectations of $11.19 billion. 
• Earnings per share for the quarter (Adjusted): Oracle reported $0.99, up 11% from the year before, which beat analysts' expectations of $0.94. 
• Revenue for the year (GAAP): Oracle reported $39.8 billion, up 6% from 2017. Analysts expected $39.8 billion. 
• Earnings per share for the year (Adjusted): Oracle reported $3.12. Analysts expected $3.08.  

SEE ALSO: Cisco is buying an Intel-backed startup that uses WiFi to track people as they move around malls and airports

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NOW WATCH: Trump pitched peace to Kim Jong Un with this Hollywood-style video starring Kim as the leading man

• Indian will put a production version of its flat-track-dominating FTR750 on the road in 2019.
• It will be based on the FTR1200 Custom concept bike the company unveiled last year.

Indian has been laying waste to the insane sport of flat-track motorcycle racing with its Scout FTR750 bike since 2017.

Fans wanted a street version, and Indian has made their wishes come true. Based on an FTR1200 Custom concept revealed in Italy in November, a production FTR1200 will arrive in 2019.

Indian didn't provide details on pricing, but the Polaris-owned brand rolled out the FTR1200 Custom with an 1,133-cc motor that could make 100 horsepower.

The company said in a statement that the FTR1200 would "embody a flat tracker style, housed in a trellis frame and powered by a new V-twin engine."

More austere bikes like this have become a bigger deal in the US market since the Ducati Scrambler arrived in 2015. They offer a down-and-dirty alternative to screaming sport bikes and hefty, rumbling Cruisers of the sort that Indian's historic rival, Harley-Davidson, is known for.

"Riders definitely have spoken and the response has been overwhelming," Indian President Steve Menneto said in a statement. "We're proud and excited to announce that we will be putting the FTR 1200 into production."

Indian is so sure that prospective riders will want to get their hands on the new bike that it's running a contest to win an early example.

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NOW WATCH: Ford has built a plug-in hybrid cop car

Google plans to release a patch sometime in the next few weeks to fix a bug in its Home smart speaker and Chromecast TV streaming stick that lets a website collect precise user location data, according to a report from security reporter Brian Krebs. The bug, disclosed by researcher Craig Young at security firm Tripwire, works by exploiting a loophole in Google’s systems to cross-check a list of nearby wireless networks with Google’s precise geolocation look-up services.

Essentially, by using the location gleaned by nearby Wi-Fi networks through a Google Home or Chromecast, a malicious website can triangulate a user’s location. And because those devices rarely require authentication from third parties to receive data on local networks,...

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• Apple is making a change to the way iPhones call 911.
• For users, nothing will change on the surface. But behind the scenes, your iPhone will provide location data from cell towers, GPS, and Wi-Fi to the 911 call center over a new internet-based path. 
• Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said it could "dramatically improve public safety" in a statement. 

Starting later this year, the way that iPhones reach contact 911 will subtly change in a way that could let emergency assistance find the caller faster and more easily.

Apple is teaming up with RapidSOS to include a new way to transfer location data to 911 call centers over the internet, building on the current system which was developed for landlines and uses older, phone-based data. The data provided to 911 centers includes information on location from cell towers as well as data from GPS and Wi-Fi networks. 

Now, when an iPhone calls 911, location data within 50 meters will be routed to a RapidSOS dispatch center, which will pass it on to the local 911 center. User data can't be used for any non-emergency purpose, Apple said. 

For users in the United States, nothing will change on the surface: If you're in trouble, dial 911.

But behind the scenes, the new feature could reduce response times in emergency situations, Apple and RapidSOS said. The change is included in iOS 12, the newest version of the iPhone software, which will be released this fall. 

“This new functionality is an example of how companies and first responders can use technology to dramatically improve public safety,” former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a statement. 

RapidSOS is the same system that Uber is using to offer 911 calls inside of its apps. 

Apple included an emergency calling feature in recent versions of the Apple Watch, and has updated its 911 systems earlier this year to give additional location information in Europe, with a system called "Advanced Mobile Location." 

Apple has also faced issues with locating deactivated devices in its repair factories that accidentally called 911. 

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Last week, Verizon and Nokia fulfilled two industry firsts on the path to 5G commercialization, per FierceWireless. First, they completed the world’s first outdoor test of a 5G connection using New Radio (NR) standards set by the international wireless standards body 3GPP. Second, the two successfully used multicarrier aggregation to hit throughput speeds of up to 1.8 Gbps.

The tests offer a realistic understanding of how 5G will be deployed by carriers and networks, and used by consumers when it hits the market. Verizon previously completed a series of 5G data sessions in the lab, but its recent achievements open the door to actual 5G deployments, as the tests explore real-world variables in an outdoor environment.

In the outdoor data sessions, Verizon and Nokia successfully transmitted numerous live, interactive VR sessions and simultaneous 4K streaming video on the network's 28 GHz millimeter wave spectrum with latencies of just 1.5 milliseconds. For context, this is 150 times faster than the blink of the eye — and nearly seven times faster than 4G's latency (10 milliseconds), the current standard.

The news comes on the heels of T-Mobile and Nokia’s 5G milestone achievement last week. The duo announced on Thursday that they successfully executed the nation’s first 3GPP-compliant, bi-directional over-the-air data session. The test was completed with a user equipment simulator and Nokia’s 3GPP-compliant high-capacity 5G solution in the 28 GHz band. 

The successful completion of these 5G tests sets the stage for emerging technologies to reach the mainstream. Along with increasing usage of old capabilities, such as streaming, 5G will enable a host of new technologies to move into the mainstream.

Emerging technologies require faster speeds and lower latency to function, and 4G LTE's capabilities are often insufficient to adequately power them. For instance, 5G will enable more VR and AR processing to be completed at the edge of the network, thereby reducing latency.

The low latency of 5G networks will also power automated cars and enable them to react to situations in real time. And the efficiency and far-reaching abilities of 5G networks make it ideal to handle the trillions of IoT devices that will surface in the network over the next 10 years.

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The Rubik’s Cube was invented back in 1974, and in that time, there have been many variants on the classic puzzle, with new shapes, sizes, dimensions, and basically every other twist (pun intended) that you could think of on the classic puzzle.

Of course, that’s never stopped Kickstarter before, which has once again risen to the challenge of making a smart device out of something that probably didn’t need to be a smart device with the GoCube, a Rubik’s Cube with Bluetooth.

And while the GoCube might not be necessary, here’s what to like about the idea. The connected app can tell exactly how the cube is configured at any given point, so it can help you learn how to unscramble the cube on your own. And once you’ve learned the finer points...

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Vendors have "stepped up" to meet the demand, but the ones that did not improve "aren't getting work from us anymore," said CEO Dion Weisler.

It's surprising that keyboards aren't getting the same kinds of beautiful designs that some computers have these days. 

The only company that's clearly giving attention to its keyboards is Apple, which gives its accessories the same sleek, modern, metallic look as its computers. 

While sleek and modern is cool, retro designs are making a comeback, and the classic look is now coming for your desk and office setups. 

Accessory company KnewKey has made a keyboard that looks absolutely stunning. It has a modern flair that will look right at home among your modern computers and mobile devices. 

Check it out:

SEE ALSO: I accidentally ran over the Samsung Galaxy S9 with my car – and it's still as good as new

The Rymek is a beautiful keyboard with a typewriter design.

It also comes in a creamy off-white color with orange keys, too.

The Rymek keyboard is made of plastic, which could disappoint those who were hoping for the ultra-sturdy metallic feel of an old-fashioned typewriter. With that said, the Rymek is also designed to be somewhat portable; a metal build would make the keyboard far too heavy to carry around. 

Unlike an old typewriter, the Rymek connects to your modern computer, and even your tablet or smartphone.

You can connect the Rymek to your computer with a USB cable, or to mobile devices like tablets or smartphones via Bluetooth. 

Let’s read 170 pages of dunking on Professor Carl Shapiro together

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One of last year’s most talked about Chromebooks is getting an update this month. Samsung announced the second generation of its Chromebook Plus today, which will include a few upgrades like a second camera and new processor.

The Samsung Chromebook Plus (V2) doesn’t stray too far from the size and style of the original model that came out in early 2017. The device can still switch between laptop and tablet modes, and comes with a built-in pen that doesn’t require any charging for sketching and note taking on the go.

The biggest change you‘ll see is to the processor, which is switching from an ARM-based chip to an Intel one. The original Chromebook Plus used an ARM-based chip to help it...

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• In order to compete with streaming giants like Amazon and Netflix, AT&T and Time Warner won their bid to merge on Tuesday.
• After the deal, AT&T will own HBO and Turner Broadcasting Systems, which includes a number of television networks, CNN, and Warner Brothers Studio.

One of the arguments AT&T's lawyers made before a judge deciding the fate of its proposed merger with Time Warner was that joining forces was the only way it could compete with the likes of Netflix and Amazon.

Due to declining television ad dollars — a result of cord-cutting and the rise of Google and Facebook, they said — merging was the only way they could survive. With AT&T's broadband infrastructure and Time Warner's production chops, a merger made sense.

The judge bought that argument, and approved the historic merger between the companies on Tuesday. As a result, AT&T will own a number of additional properties, including HBO, Warner Brothers Studio, CNN, and several other television networks.

The merger was somewhat unusual. It was a so-called vertical merger, meaning that AT&T — a content distributor — doesn't compete directly with Time Warner — a content producer. After the merger, AT&T looks more like Netflix and Amazon, who both do double duty: they both produce and distribute media on their own platforms. 

Here's a graphic of the major properties AT&T will own:

SEE ALSO: The creator of Firefox is making a voice-controlled browser that will read the entire internet to you out loud

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Microsoft is reportedly planning a big redesign to the Surface Pro next year. ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reports that the Surface Pro 6 (or whatever it will be called) isn’t arriving until mid-2019, but will be “heavily redesigned.” It’s not clear what this design will entail, but Microsoft is also reportedly readying a refresh for this fall with Intel’s latest 8th-generation processors. Separately, Thurrott.com reports that the Surface Pro 6 is codenamed Carmel.

ZDNet speculates that a Surface Laptop might arrive this fall with Intel’s latest processors, but there’s no confirmed reports of the addition of USB-C on the refreshed Surface Pro or Surface Laptop. It would make sense for Microsoft to refresh both devices with USB-C, especially as...

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After continuing to build out its podcasting presence over the past few months, Google finally looks ready to roll out an app dedicated solely to podcasts.

According to a snippet of code spotted by 9to5Google, the latest version of the Google app has a hidden prompt asking users to “Get the Google Podcasts app.” Google built out a full podcast interface several months ago inside the app, which will likely be accessible via a home screen and app launcher shortcut. Longtime Android users might remember that Google used to have an app called Listen, its first attempt at a podcasts player. But the company shut down Listen in 2012. That same year, Apple debuted its own Podcasts app for iOS, which has proven to be hugely popular.

Google has...

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From new mobile apps for both customers and employees to robots on the store floor, Walmart is using tech to best the competition.

The FCC has approved new rules expressly banning unauthorized charges on phone bills, a practice that was already illegal under federal law but never formally codified within the agency. It’s the first time the commission is adopting an explicit rule.

The new rules ban unexpected phone bill charges, also known as “cramming” many services that a customer didn’t ask for onto a bill. The rules also ban the practice of tricking a customer into switching phone carriers. From now on, if a company is found to have used deception to obtain your consent to switch carriers, your consent will be deemed invalid.

Changes are also being made to how third-party verification...

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Google’s been delivering a bunch of overdue updates to Gmail over the past few weeks, and one more arrived in the latest update on Android: the ability to customize what happens when you swipe an email to the left or right. The addition was spotted by Android Police.

Previously, swiping an email in your inbox would archive it, no matter what. That was useful, but not nearly as useful as it could be, since swipe gestures can really help you clear out your inbox so long as their actions fit with the way you work. Swipes have been a fixture of mobile email apps for several years now, and many of them offer users the ability to customize what they do, so it’s an overdue addition from Google.

Gmail’s swipe...

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