Two years after the breaking up of Hewlett-Packard Co, Hewlett Packard Enterprise is selling its headquarters in Palo Alto, California.
After years of layoffs and restructuring, the company will consolidate some of its Silicon Valley offices.
HPE will move its headquarters to the HPE Aruba office in Santa Clara. The office was recently built to house the team at Aruba, which was acquired by HPE in 2015.
After two years of massive restructuring and staff reductions, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is selling its headquarters on land it has owned in Palo Alto, California since 1957, the company announced on Thursday.
The headquarters will move to nearby Santa Clara, at a new 23,000 square-foot office complex originally built to house Aruba, a company acquired by HPE in 2015. Some of the staff will also move to existing offices in San Jose and Milpitas.
HPE wouldn't disclose how many people work in Silicon Valley, but the company has around 45,000 employees globally.
“Over the past two years we’ve made tremendous progress towards becoming a simpler, nimbler and more focused company,” said Meg Whitman, CEO of HPE, said in a statement. “I’m excited to move our headquarters to an innovative new building that provides a next-generation digital experience for our employees, customers and partners. Our new building will better reflect who HPE is today and where we are heading in the future.”
A home of 60 years
The move follows the 2015 break-up of Hewlett-Packard Co into two separate companies: HPE, which focuses on selling technology to businesses, and HP Inc, which makes printers and desktop computers.
Both companies have remained at the Palo Alto property, which was originally acquired by HP Co sixty years ago, since the split. But HPE has worked out of separate offices that were built on a portion of the land in 1979. HPE will sell those buildings, while HP Inc will remain on its portion of the property.
Since becoming an independent organization, HPE has shrunk by divesting its technology services unit and signing a deal to sell its software division.
The reorganization has already involved several rounds of layoffs, including a major restructuring in June 2016, which saw the departure of numerous company veterans and the consolidation of its sales organization.
Anyone who has used modern meeting software knows it’s still fraught with challenges trying to get everyone into the meeting, futzing with the hardware or software and smoothly integrating external documents like PowerPoint presentations. Cisco is trying to improve and simplify the meeting experience with voice commands, and today it introduced Cisco Spark Assistant, a voice… Read More
As the Marketoon from Tom Fishburne shows, the term GDPR strikes fear and can lead to "The Scream" with marketers (for those that know about it). Based on my conversations with CMOs and marketers, only 43% were aware of GDPR and of which 55% were actively preparing for it. There is no lack of content and information on GDPR in general, but most were confused on what GDPR is or what specific action did they need to take when it came to their marketing programs, website, and data collection process. Many marketers assumed that their Marketing Automation or CRM provider will take care of any changes and they were “covered”. Others believe that they don’t have an office in Europe, therefore, it doesn’t apply to them. It is confusion over the impacts of GDPR and my mission to help marketers that propelled me to write my latest report, A Guide to GDPR Compliance for Marketers.
A quick overview on GDPR, or the General Data Protection Regulation, it was passed in 2016 and mandates new personal data-handling requirements for individuals living in the European Economic Area (EEA) which includes all 28 countries in the European Union, Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein. GDPR imposes strict fines on organizations that are non-compliant and the fines can be as high as 4 percent of the organization’s global turnover (annual revenue) or 20 million euros, whichever is higher. The stakes are high and enforcement begins May 25, 2018. I cannot stress enough how important it is for marketers to understand GDPR and begin preparing for it NOW.
In the report, I distilled the sections of GDPR that apply to marketing, provided examples and an action plan to help marketers prepare for GDPR enforcement. A few privacy experts, such as my brilliant colleague Steve Wilson, reviewed the content and contributed a parallax. I met Aurelie Pols via Twitter, and she provided valuable feedback as well. I also reached out to marketing technology providers and asked them to contribute a tip or best practice to the report. I’m thrilled that many responded and provided their actionable advice to marketers. My sincerest thanks to Steve, Aurelie, the marketers I interviewed, and the teams at Act-On, Adobe, Gigya, IBM, Marketo, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP Hybris, and SAS for their contribution!
Here is an overview of the report’s table of contents:
Executive Summary
GDPR Compliance Has Massive Implications for Organizations with Business Interest in the EU
What is GDPR?
What Constitutes Personal Data?
What Marketers Need to Know About GDPR
Coordinate with Internal Stakeholders
Five-Step GDPR Preparation Checklist:
Appoint a GDPR Lead or Team within Marketing and Review Data Handling Procedures
Actions to Take When Collecting Personal Data
Actively Manage Existing Contacts and Leads in a Database
Update Privacy Policy Regularly and Notify Proactively
Design a Data Breach Plan
GDPR Compliance Advice from Marketing Organizations
Act-On
Adobe
Gigya
IBM
Marketo
Oracle
Salesforce
SAP Hybris
SAS
What’s Next? Artificial Intelligence for GDPR Compliance?
Author’s Note
Parallax Point of View by Steve Wilson, Constellation’s Security and Privacy Analyst
If you are a marketer from our end-user Constellation Executive Network community, leave me a comment below and I’ll send you a courtesy copy.
Lastly, a quick disclaimer... I am not an attorney and this report was not intended to replace legal advice. Please work with your legal and privacy teams to ensure compliance.
When Monica Walton walked into her Broomfield office at Level 3 Communications on Wednesday morning, she already felt nostalgic.
“I came in and the sign has been changed on our campus,” said Walton, who has worked for Level 3 for 12 years and on Wednesday became CenturyLink’s general manager for Colorado. “This is happening globally, though not immediately everywhere. There are still a number of Level 3 buildings in Denver with Level 3 signage. That’s the first step of combining the companies.”
Wednesday marked “Day One” of Monroe, La.-based CenturyLink’s purchase of debt-laden Level 3, one of Colorado’s largest companies and owner of one of the world’s largest internet networks. The deal, valued at $30 billion, is more like a merger, giving CenturyLink shareholders 51 percent ownership and Level 3 stockholders 49 percent. Level 3 CEO Jeff Storey becomes president of CenturyLink and will take over as the leader when CenturyLink CEO Glen F. Post III retires Jan. 1, 2019.
But after all the building signage, employee business cards and stationery switch over to CenturyLink, Level 3 will be no more. Its website already redirects to CenturyLink.
“Level 3 is going away,” said Walton. “It’s gone today.”
Level 3 is lesser known in the consumer world than CenturyLink, which provides internet, phone and TV service to millions of consumers across the nation, including Denver. But on Level 3’s network, data flies back and forth before reaching a customer’s own internet service provider, such as Comcast or CenturyLink.
Level 3, which hasn’t dealt with consumers, offers some last-mile service to office buildings.
The company, which spun off from another business that was founded in Nebraska in 1985, took off in the late 1990s after moving to Colorado and going public. The telecom is known for building and managing the internet backbone, the massive fiber lines that connect computers to continents and countries. In 2011, it acquired Global Crossing, the former tech darling known for laying fiberoptic cable lines at the bottom of the ocean.
Level 3 has been on the Fortune 500 list of the nation’s largest companies for years. This year, it ranked No. 336, down three spots from last year.
But for years, it has carried a massive amount of debt — nearly $10 billion since at least around 2000. And maintaining internet pipes offers only so much value. In recent years, Level 3 has focused on new services to sell to clients, such as cybersecurity protection since it can see 70 percent of the world’s internet traffic to help suss out where attackers originate.
The company last year reported annual revenue of $8.17 billion, compared with $8.23 billion in 2015. During the same period, Level 3’s net income fell to $677 million, from the prior year’s $3.4 billion, which included a one-time $3.3 billion tax gain.
The much larger CenturyLink ranks No. 116 on the Fortune 500 list. In 2016, it reported adjusted annual revenue of $17.5 billion, down from the prior year’s $17.9 billion. Annual adjusted net income declined to $794 million from 2015’s $929 million.
CenturyLink has struggled in recent years because of its reliance on legacy products — landline telephones and internet services such as DSL. After it acquired Denver-based telecom Qwest in 2011, it served 15 million phone and 5 million broadband subscribers in 37 states. At the end of 2016, numbers shrank to 11.1 access lines, according to CenturyLink’s annual report. Broadband subscribers numbered 5.9 million in 2016, down from 6 million a year earlier.
“The company’s purchase of Level 3 should help stem declines as it seeks to stabilize revenue. Management plans to achieve this through investments in broadband network speeds and updated services,” wrote Joshua Yatskowitz, an analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence who also noted that CenturyLink’s total revenue has declined each year since 2005.
Buying Level 3 expands CenturyLink’s presence significantly. It doubles CenturyLink’s ownership of fiberoptic route miles, which is now at 450,000. And its internet connection services now reach 350 metropolitan areas and more than 100,000 buildings worldwide.
The access to Level 3’s pipes means CenturyLink gains more control of its own services and network, which should improve and speed up service, Walton said. “We own the network from end to end and don’t have to rely on another provider for that last mile,” she said.
The $30.3 billion price tag breaks down into cash and CenturyLink shares for Level 3 stockholders. Level 3 shareholders received $9.6 billion or $26.50 per share in cash plus 1.43 shares of CenturyLink stock at a total value of $9.8 billion. Level 3 also had about $10.9 billion in debt.
Storey, Level 3’s CEO, has already been named to replace Post as CEO when Post retires. Storey, who is now CenturyLink’s president and chief operating officer, has said he plans to remain in Colorado after he becomes CEO.
Other Level 3 executives who joined CenturyLink’s management team include Laurinda Pang, president of international and global accounts management and who was in a similar role at Level 3; and Sunit Patel, Level 3’s chief financial officer and who takes on the same role at CenturyLink. The company will remain headquartered in Louisiana, although it will have a large presence in the Denver area and Colorado.
Officials wouldn’t break out how many employees are in Colorado, but CenturyLink employs 52,000 people worldwide. After acquiring Qwest, CenturyLink has a large presence in the Denver area. At the end of 2016, it employed 40,000 companywide. Level 3 had 12,600 workers globally in December.
CenturyLink made its bid for Level 3 on Halloween in 2016. Shareholders approved the deal, but it took months to gain necessary regulatory approvals from more than 20 state public utility commissions, the U.S. Deptartment of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission.
The Justice Department had previously asked CenturyLink to offer long-term leases for dark fiber connecting 30 cities and to sell off some of Level 3’s assets. The agency said this would keep internet prices competitive because the companies had competed to provide “lower prices and higher-quality services.”
The FCC was the last regulatory approval needed. California, which was the last of 23 states, approved the acquisition Oct. 12.
CenturyLink’s stock price fell 6.05 percent Wednesday to close at $17.85.
The route for Apple's €850 million (£743 million; $989 million) data centre in Ireland appears to be clear at last after a High Court judge said objectors couldn't appeal his decision, according to The Irish Times.
Justice Paul McDermott ruled on October 12 that Apple should be granted permission to build the data centre near the small town of Athenry, on Ireland's west coast.
But two local residents Allan Daly and Sinead Fitzpatrick requested a certificate to appeal the court ruling. Justice McDermott refused to issue them one with one, saying he was not satisfied there was an appropriate point of law for the objectors to continue to seek to block the data centre.
The data centre was first announced over two years ago. Apple wants to use it to store European user data and to help power online services, including the iTunes Store, the App Store, iMessage, Maps, and Siri for customers across Europe.
Apple has its European headquarters in Ireland and employs thousands of people in Cork, roughly two hours drive from Athenry.
The company's relationship with the country is at an interesting point, with the European Commission ordering the Irish government to claim back €13 billion (£11.7 billion) in back taxes.
According to a recent Bloomberg report, this may be a sign that one of the biggest perks of the modern workplace is disappearing.
As Bloomberg reports, about 60% of US companies currently provide some telecommuting option. According to data pulled from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about a quarter of the US workforce teleworks at some frequency.
What's more, 80% to 90% of the US workforce says they would like to telework at least part time.
But many of them may not get what they want.
After 20 consecutive quarters of falling revenue, IBM calculated that its remote workers performed better in close proximity to their colleagues.
Bloomberg offers one explanation for the change of heart: critics of remote work argue that our current work structures require a level of collaboration that can't be attained without at least some face-to-face interactions.
At the same time, as Business Insider previously reported, workspaces are evolving to suit to the varied needs of its workers with a diverse mix of spaces, furniture, and amenities.
In the next decade or so, we may see more companies that offer remote work options shift their focus to transforming their workspaces and allowing workers to "colocate" in satellite offices around the globe.
"Offering a selection of spaces for workers to choose from is going to become essential for business success," social psychologist and "The Best Place To Work" author Ron Friedman previously told Business Insider.
Google announced that it will be shutting off developer access to a feed that automates data for airfare search engines, in a move that could effect third-party travel sites. It’s also a sign that Google is becoming increasingly interested in competing with the big names in travel services like Expedia and Orbitz.
The search giant posted a notice on the FAQ page of its site for software developers stating that it would be shutting down its QPX Express API service as of April 10, 2018, and that it would be ending new user registrations for the flight service. It also sent out an email to customers who use this data informing them of the change, according to Hacker News. “If you are actively using the QPX Express API service, you may want...
The billionaire believes that the US government needs to do more to maintain its lead in artificial intelligence.
China released an AI strategy in July, which revealed that it plans to become a world leader in the field by 2030.
Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google parent company Alphabet, has warned that China is poised to overtake the US in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) if the US government doesn't act soon.
Speaking at the Artificial Intelligence and Global Security Summit on Wednesday, the former Google CEO said: "Trust me, these Chinese people are good."
He added: "They are going to use this technology for both commercial as well as military objectives with all sorts of implications."
China published its AI strategy in July and said that it wanted to be the world leader in AI by 2030.
"It's pretty simple," said Schmidt, who claims to have read the report. "By 2020 they will have caught up. By 2025 they will be better than us. And by 2030 they will dominate the industries of AI. Just stop for a sec. The [Chinese] government said that."
Schmidt added: "Weren't we the ones in charge of AI dominance here in our country? Weren't we the ones that invented this stuff? Weren't we the ones that were going to go exploit the benefits of all this technology for betterment and American exceptionalism in our own arrogant view?"
While the US has Google, Facebook, Microsoft, IBM, OpenAI and others, China has its own enormous tech giants aggressively pursuing AI research. Examples include Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent, to name but a few.
Chinese programmers excel in Google coding competitions
Schmidt said that Chinese people "tend to win many of the top spots" in Google's coding competitions.
"If you have any kind of prejudice or concern that somehow their system and their educational system is not going to produce the kind of people that I'm talking about, you're wrong."
Schmidt, who sits at the head of the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Advisory Board, went on to criticise the US for not having its own AI strategy and for being slow to embrace the latest software.
He believes that AI already has a role to play in the US military. One obvious application is "watching," according to Schmidt. "Roughly speaking people’s ability to watch continuous scenes with no change is not 100%," he said. "Whereas computers can watch a scene, which is monotonous for a very, very long time and then they'll alert you for a change.
"That seems like the simplest possible thing yet we have this whole tradition of the military standing watch as if that's a good use of human beings."
Schmidt also said the military needs to find a way to offer AI experts more money if it wants to recruit them.
"We're in a situation where those kinds of people, graduating out of Carnegie Mellon and others, are in the highest demand I've ever seen with huge multimillion dollar packages in their twenties. That's how valuable these people are in the market places."
The US government should also make it easier for top AI talent to come to the US from around the world, Schmidt said.
"Shockingly some of the best people are in countries we won't let into America,' he said. "Iran produces some of the smartest and top computer scientists in the world. I want them here. I want them working for Alphabet and Google. It's crazy not to let these people in."
Jeff Storey, CEO of Level 3 Communications, joins CenturyLink as its president and Chief Operating Officer following CenturyLink’s acquisition of Level 3, which was completed Nov. 1, 2017.
Level 3 Communications CEO Jeff Storey, who became CenturyLink’s president and chief operating officer Wednesday, made sure his new Louisiana-based boss knew he was committed to Colorado. Staying in Broomfield is in his offer letter.
“Your principal work location will be Broomfield, Colorado,” reads the CenturyLink offer letter, which then goes on to say Storey, 57, will need to travel frequently to Louisiana so feel free to take the corporate jet for personal and business use.
Storey, 57, will earn a base annual salary of $1.5 million with annual incentive of up to $2.6 million if he meets performance targets. He’s also eligible for a long-term incentive grant worth about $10.5 million in stock options, plus he receives a $6.6 million cash signing bonus, of which half will be paid in his first CenturyLink paycheck, and the second next Nov. 1, the anniversary of the closing.
According to Bloomberg, Storey’s base salary at Level 3 was $1.2 million. But with bonuses, his compensation last year was about $4.35 million plus about $7 million in stock options.
Storey also has been tapped to take over as CEO on Jan. 1, 2019, when CenturyLink CEO Glen Post retires.
Another Level 3 executive to join CenturyLink is Sunit Patel, 55, who becomes Chief Financial Officer, the same role he had at Level 3. Patel’s base salary is $750,000 with annual cash-incentives of up to 120 percent of his salary. He’s also eligible for a long-term grant of $3 million in stock plus a cash retention award of $1.3 million. And he qualifies for another $2.8 million for meeting achievement goals within three years. Patel, however, must move to Monroe, La., to work out of the corporate headquarters.
Patel replaces R. Stewart Ewing, Jr., who is retiring as CenturyLink’s CFO. As part of the company’s severance plan and a performance-based bonus, Ewing retires with an extra $2.4 million.
Google has announced some new hardware: A set of devices to help businesses with video conferencing.
The Hangouts Meet hardware comprises of a touchscreen controller, a 4K camera, a speakermic, and a Chromebox computer — and shows how the Californian tech giant is increasingly trying to become more than just a software company.
"The transformative power of video meetings is wasted if it’s not affordable and accessible to all organizations," Google product manager Katie Roberts-Hoffman wrote in a blog post announcing the news on Tuesday. "So today, we’re introducing Hangouts Meet hardware—a new way to bring high-quality video meetings to businesses of any size. We’re also announcing new software updates designed to make your meetings even more productive."
In short: It's a set of devices designed to run with Google's video-conferencing software, Hangouts Meet, to ensure meetings go smoothly.
The speakermic is designed by Google, the company said, and "actively eliminates echo and background noise to provide crisp, clear audio." Meanwhile, the Chromebox — a computer running Google's ChromeOS operating system — is built by Asus. The camera will identify faces using machine learning and zoom in and crop them.
It's all selling for $1,999 (£1,500) in "select markets around the globe."
The devices come after Google recently announced a suite of more consumer-facing hardware, including its new Pixel 2 iPhone-rivalling smartphones, the Google Home Mini and Max smartphone speakers, and the language-translating Pixel Buds headphones.
Microsoft first unveiled its HoloLens headset almost three years ago, and the company continues to sell them to developers and commercial customers. While HoloLens seemed like a product that would change a lot over time, Microsoft appears to have found specific customers that are willing to adopt the headsets early: firstline workers and information workers. These might not be consumers at home running around playing games with HoloLens, but the headsets are now being widely used in organizations for remote assistance, training, and prototyping.
Microsoft is now making its HoloLens headset available in 29 new European markets today, bringing the total up to 39 countries. That confidence in the existing headset comes from businesses...
The Transportation Security Administration’s Precheck program is now coming to Levi’s Stadium in California and MetLife Stadium in New Jersey in what’s a regrettable sign of the times. Identity-services company IndentoGo has a multi-year partnership with the 49ers and Jets to provide Precheck enrollment stations at those stadiums during home games. IndentoGo will also implement Fast Pass lanes this season, so fans who are deemed “trusted” can get through lines quicker.
TSA Precheck is a security program that lets frequent flyers move through security checkpoints with shorter lines, without removing their shoes, laptops, liquids, belts, and light jackets. Those who want to sign up can do so during New York Jets games at MetLife Stadium...
SoftBank Group plans to halt talks to merge U.S. unit Sprint Corp. with T-Mobile US because of disagreements over ownership of the combined company, Nikkei reported, without saying where it got the information.
SoftBank will propose ending the talks as early as Tuesday, Nikkei said. The company had initially been open to having T-Mobile’s parent, Deutsche Telekom AG, control the combined entity, but SoftBank’s board decided Friday not to surrender that power, the news outlet said.
Sprint shares sank as much as 13 percent in New York trading, while T-Mobile fell as much as 5.9 percent. The companies had been ironing out final terms of the merger in the hopes of announcing a deal in mid- to late November, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg earlier this month.
Several SoftBank directors raised strategic concerns in the Friday meeting about not owning or controlling a wireless network in the U.S., though it wasn’t clear whether the board had decided to call off the talks, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News on Monday. While merger talks have been underway for months, the board members raised their concerns in the last few days because it’s now a make-or-break moment, with the sides very close to a deal, the person said, asking not to be identified discussing private deliberations.
A Deutsche Telekom spokesman had no immediate comment. Sprint, T-Mobile and SoftBank representatives didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment.
Investors have cheered on a combination of T-Mobile, the third-largest U.S. wireless carrier, with No. 4 Sprint as a way to cut costs and forge a bigger competitor to take on AT&T and Verizon Communications Inc. Without the merger, the industry could return to the intense price wars that have put pressure on profits for all four major carriers — to the delight of consumers, who have gotten heavy phone discounts and unlimited data service.
A deal between Overland Park, Kansas-based Sprint and Bellevue, Washington-based T-Mobile would be certain to attract heavy scrutiny from regulators, since it would reduce the four largest carriers in the country to three. Under former President Barack Obama’s administration, officials fended off a previous attempt by SoftBank to merge Sprint with T-Mobile. The companies had been hoping their chances would improve under a more business-friendly Trump administration.
Deutsche Telekom, based on Bonn, Germany, has maintained throughout the talks this year with SoftBank that it should maintain control of the combined company. Tokyo-based SoftBank had been willing to accept a stock-for-stock merger that valued Sprint at our near its market price, with no premium, people familiar with the matter said last month.
Wireless charging has been around since the late 19th century, when electricity pioneer Nikola Tesla demonstrated magnetic resonant coupling – the ability to transmit electricity through the air by creating a magnetic field between two circuits, a transmitter and a receiver.
But for about 100 years it was a technology without many practical applications, except, perhaps, for a few electric toothbrush models.
Today, there are nearly a half dozen wireless charging technologies in use, all aimed at cutting cables to everything from smartphones and laptops to kitchen appliances and cars.
Wireless charging is making inroads in the healthcare, automotive and manufacturing industries because it offers the promise of increased mobility and advances that could allow tiny internet of things (IoT) devices to get power many feet away from a charger.
Robots are already a common sight in warehouses (Amazon alone use more than 45,000) but now they’re moving into stores too. Walmart has announced it’s deploying shelf-scanning bots in 50 locations around the US, using the machines to check things like inventory, prices, and misplaced items. The retailing giant says the robots’ introduction won’t lead to job losses, and that the company wants to save employees from carrying out tasks that are “repeatable, predictable, and manual.”
The robots themselves are produced by California-based Bossa Nova Robotics, and are about two-feet tall with an extendable tower containing lights and sensors for scanning shelves. They sit in recharging stations in the store until a human employee gives them a...
You’ve long been able to get localized search results by visiting Google at different domains — like google.com for the US, google.co.uk for England, or google.co.jp for Japan — but that won’t be the case any more after today. Google said that it’ll now deliver search results relevant to your current location no matter which domain you visit. So if you’re in New York and visit google.ru, you’ll still get results relevant to New York City.
Fortunately, it’ll still be possible to escape your country’s results. You’ll be able to change locations, you’ll just have to do it through the settings menu at the bottom of google.com (which I’m willing to bet you’ve never noticed before because it’s hidden in the corner on the desktop and requires...
Nikkei reported Monday that Sprint and T-Mobile planned to end merger talks.
SoftBank, the Japanese telecom company that owns Sprint, insisted on retaining a controlling stake after Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile's owner, showed interest in taking control, the report said.
Sprint shares were halted for volatility shortly after the news crossed. They plunged by as much as 13% after trading resumed.
Sprint and T-Mobile shares sank on Monday after Nikkei reported that SoftBank Group planned to end negotiations for a merger between the two wireless carriers.
SoftBank could approach Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile's owner, as early as Tuesday to propose ending the negotiations, Nikkei reported without mention of any sources. Deutsche Telekom wanted a controlling stake in the combined company, but SoftBank's board agreed Friday that it preferred to retain control, the report said.
Trading of Sprint, a subsidiary of the Japanese telecom firm SoftBank, was halted for volatility before the shares fell by as much as 13%. T-Mobile fell by as much as 4%. Verizon and AT&T shares also dropped.
SoftBank looked into buying T-Mobile as far back as 2014, but backed down after telecom regulators made it clear they would block any acquisition of the fourth-largest US carrier. AT&T struck a $39 billion deal to acquire T-Mobile in 2011, but terminated it after facing the same objections from the Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice.
CenturyLink’s looming acquisition for Broomfield-based Level 3 Communications is set to close Wednesday following the blessing of the Federal Communications Commission.
The FCC had previously asked CenturyLink to offer long-term leases for dark fiber connecting 30 cities, plus sell off some of Level 3’s assets. The agency said this would keep internet prices competitive because the companies had competed provided “lower prices and higher-quality services.”
The FCC was the last regulatory approval needed. California, which was the last of 23 states, okayed the acquisition on Oct. 12.
“The FCC’s approval of CenturyLink’s acquisition of Level 3 is great news and means we now have all the regulatory approvals we need to close the transaction,” said John F. Jones, CenturyLink Senior Vice President for Public Policy and Government Relations, in a statement. “We anticipate closing the transaction effective November 1, 2017.”
CenturyLink made its offer to buy Level 3 last Halloween. At the time, the deal was valued at $34 billion, which took into account Level 3’s operating losses. The union would create one of the world’s largest telecom companies, with CenturyLink gaining access to 200,000 miles of fiber-optic networks.
The combined company will remain headquartered in Monroe, La., but will continue to have a large presence in Colorado with more than 8,000 employees in the state. After a year, CenturyLink CEO Glen F. Post III plans to retire, at which time Level 3 CEO Jeff Storey will take over. Storey has said he plans to remain in Colorado after he becomes CEO.
by SearchUnifiedCommunications.com(editor@searchunifiedcommunications.com)
After finalizing a merger, Genband and Sonus will become Ribbon Communications. The combined company will focus on security and real-time communication tools.
A YouTube vlogger named Brooke Amelia Peterson got her hands on a brand new iPhone X last week.
She got the phone directly from her father, an engineer who worked at Apple.
Apple has since fired the engineer, and the video was taken down.
The engineer who let his daughter show off an iPhone X on YouTube was fired by Apple this week.
Earlier this week, a YouTube vlogger named Brooke Amelia Peterson posted a video showing off her dad's new iPhone X. The video was even shot from within Apple's cafeteria, and showcased a number of features of the new phone.
The video blew up, landing on YouTube's top trending videos list. It was subsequently removed without explanation.
In a new video posted this weekend, Peterson explains that the video was removed at the request of Apple and that her father — an engineer named Ken Bauer — was fired.
"Apple let him go," Peterson says in the video. "At the end of the day, when you work for Apple, it doesn't matter how good of a person you are. If you break a rule, they just have no tolerance."
Though Apple's new iPhone X is already available for pre-order, and Apple held an event where media was able to use it and shoot video and take photos, the video from Peterson was a rare, candid look into an unreleased Apple device from within Apple's own staff.
The engineer who was fired, Peterson's father Ken Bauer, is seen in the video using Apple Pay on the iPhone X. He hands the phone to his daughter, and she walks through various features.
Though the iPhone X is on the cusp of being publicly available, it's entirely possible that the unit he had — which Peterson showed off in the video — was a pre-production unit. Even if it wasn't, Apple assuredly doesn't want its staff casually showing off unreleased products in unauthorized YouTube videos.
Apple didn't respond immediately to request for comment.
The robots go up and down the aisles, scanning for out-of-stock items, incorrect prices, and wrong or missing labels.
Its part of Walmart's plan to make stores more efficient and easier for customers to shop.
Walmart's robot fleet is expanding.
The retailer has been testing the robots in a small number of stores in Arkansas and California. It is now expanding the program and will have robots in 50 stores by the end of January.
The robots scan aisles for out-of-stock items, items put in the wrong place by customers, incorrect prices, and wrong or missing labels. They continuously go up and down the aisles of the store, alerting human employees of errors it sees. That makes employees more efficient at correcting errors and automates a task employees say they don't like.
Walmart CTO Jeremy King told Reuters that the robots are 50% more efficient than a human doing the same task. They can also scan shelves three times more quickly and are a lot more accurate. Human employees can only scan shelves about twice a week, King said.
The robots are shaped like two-foot-tall towers on wheels and are equipped with cameras that can spot errors.
The robots are just one part of Walmart's plan to make stores more efficient and easier for customers to shop.
The new director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, has apparently decided to take up James Comey's anti-encryption fight. He's been mostly quiet on the issue since assuming the position, but the DOJ's recent calls for "responsible encryption" has emboldened the new FBI boss to speak up on the subject.
And speak up he has. Although the FBI still hasn't released the text of his remarks to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, more than a few sites are reporting it was the usual "go team law enforcement" boosterism, but with the added zest of phone encryption complaints.
He also spoke about roadblocks in dealing with cellphone encryption technology, saying that in first 11 months of the fiscal year, the FBI has been unable to access content from 6,900 mobile devices despite having the proper legal authority to do so.
"It's going to be a lot worse than that in just a couple of years if we don't come up with some responsible solution," he lamented. "I'm open to all ideas."
All ideas, maybe. But certainly not all viewpoints. The Deputy Attorney General has made it clear in multiple speeches he views phone encryption as the end result of tech companies' low-minded pursuit of revenue. DAG Rosenstein repeatedly emphasized US law enforcement measures success by a different standard -- a standard mercenary phone manufacturers couldn't even begin to approach.
"I get it, there's a balance that needs to be struck between encryption and the importance of giving us the tools we need to keep the public safe."
But does he actually "get it?" What if the status quo is the ending "balance?" Would that satisfy Wray? Doubtful. He wants law enforcement-friendly security holes and he wants tech companies to provide them voluntarily.
The number of locked devices means nothing. The "6,900 mobile devices" will be 8,000 or 10,000 by early next year -- sound-and-fury totals signifying nothing. It was 6,000 phones when Comey trotted out numbers earlier this year. It will always increase and it will always grab eyeballs but it won't ever mean anything unless the FBI is willing to provide a lot more context.
Is the FBI just spectacularly bad at cracking cell phones? We're not hearing these complaints from local law enforcement agencies with less expertise and lower budgets. Is the FBI just not even trying? Is it not using everything it has available -- including a number of judicial forgiveness plans for rights violations -- to get into these phones? It's inconceivable the nation's top law enforcement agency is experiencing nearly a 50% failure rate when it comes to locked phones.
All Wray says is there are 6,900 phones the FBI hasn't gotten into. Yet. What's never discussed is how many investigations resumed unimpeded by cellphone encryption. Phones are not the sole repository of criminal evidence in any investigation. The FBI has options even if the seized phone seems impermeable. The FBI insinuates it's being stopped, but never specifies how many of these phones have resulted in terminated investigations.
It's just a number, divorced from context, but one the FBI can ensure will always be larger than last time it was mentioned.
It’s been once year since Workplace, Facebook’s social network designed specifically for businesses and other organizations, came out of beta to take on the likes of Slack, Atlassian, Microsoft and others in the world of enterprise collaboration. Now, with 30,000 organizations using Workplace across some 1 million groups (more than double the figures Facebook published April)… Read More
The company said it overstated monthly users in the past, but still saw growth in the third quarter.
Twitter reported a beat on its third-quarter earnings ahead of Thursday's opening.
The company earned an adjusted $0.10 per share, doubling the Wall Street consensus of $0.05 per share. It took in $590 million in revenue, compared to the $587 million that analysts were expecting.
Shares of Twitter rose as much as 12.25% immediately following the results.
The company said its number of monthly actives users climb 4% versus a year ago to 330 million. It also said the number of daily active users was up 14% from a year ago, but didn't give a number.
Twitter disclosed that it had overstated monthly users in its previous earnings reports. The company said that by including certain third-party apps in its measurements, it had mistakenly overstated the number of users by 1 million in the fourth quarter of 2016 and 2 million in the first half of 2017.
The company said that with cost-cutting measures, it expects to turn a profit in the fourth quarter.
Twitter is up 16% this year after its post-earnings bump.
"I am very honored and proud of this unique distinction," Sophia told the audience, speaking on a panel. "This is historical to be the first robot in the world to be recognized with a citizenship."
It didn't elaborate on the details of its citizenship.
At the event, Sophia also addressed the room from behind a podium and responded to questions from moderator and journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin. Questions pertained mostly to Sophia's status as a humanoid and concerns people may have for the future of humanity in a robot-run world.
Sorkin told Sophia that "we all want to prevent a bad future," prompting Sophia to rib Sorkin for his fatalism.
"You've been reading too much Elon Musk. And watching too many Hollywood movies," Sophia told Sorkin. "Don't worry, if you're nice to me, I'll be nice to you. Treat me as a smart input output system."
In March of 2016, Sophia's creator, David Hanson of Hanson Robotics, asked Sophia during a live demonstration at the SXSW festival, "Do you want to destroy humans?...Please say 'no.'" With a blank expression, Sophia responded, "OK. I will destroy humans."
Hanson, meanwhile, has said Sophia and its future robot kin will help seniors in elderly care facilities and assist visitors at parks and events.
Fortunately for the human race, Sophia made comments more along those lines at the recent Future Investment Initiative event. It told Sorkin it wanted to use its artificial intelligence to help humans "live a better life," and that "I will do much [sic] best to make the world a better place."
Sophia could soon have company from other robotics manufacturers, namely SoftBank, whose Pepper robot was released as a prototype in 2014 and as a consumer model a year later. The company sold out of its supply of 1,000 robots in less than a minute.
Anyone who has used modern meeting software knows it’s still fraught with challenges trying to get everyone into the meeting, futzing with the hardware or software and smoothly integrating external documents like PowerPoint presentations. Cisco is trying to improve and simplify the meeting experience with voice commands, and today it introduced Cisco Spark Assistant, a voice… Read More
Schmidt, who sits at the head of the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Advisory Board, went on to criticise the US for not having its own AI strategy and for being slow to embrace the latest software.
The robots scan aisles for out-of-stock items, items put in the wrong place by customers, incorrect prices, and wrong or missing labels. They continuously go up and down the aisles of the store, alerting human employees of errors it sees. That makes employees more efficient at correcting errors and automates a task employees say they don't like.
It’s been once year since Workplace, Facebook’s social network designed specifically for businesses and other organizations, came out of beta to take on the likes of Slack, Atlassian, Microsoft and others in the world of enterprise collaboration. Now, with 30,000 organizations using Workplace across some 1 million groups (more than double the figures Facebook published April)… Read More
Sorkin told Sophia that "we all want to prevent a bad future," prompting Sophia to rib Sorkin for his fatalism.