Top economic policymakers are facing a critical question: Will the Delta variant hold back the more than 6 million Americans still sidelined from work compared to pre-pandemic levels? Child care concerns and enhanced unemployment insurance benefits are often cited as top reasons for hesitancy in returning to work. But a third reason is fear of contracting the virus, a factor likely to be amplified by the spread of the more contagious Delta variant. At the Federal Reserve, the policymakers… Source link

Google just dumped a whole bunch of news about its upcoming Pixel 6 smartphone. Maybe the company was looking to get out in front of August 11’s big Samsung event — or perhaps it’s just hoping to keep people interested in the months leading up to a big fall announcement (and beat additional leaks to the punch). In either case, we got the first look at the upcoming Android smartphone, including a fairly massive redesign of the camera system on the rear. The company has traded its… Source link

Square (SQ) hasn’t escaped the volatility in bitcoin this year by any means.  The payments platform — which allows the buying and selling of bitcoin via its Cash App — said Monday its second quarter bitcoin revenue clocked in at $2.72 billion. That’s a 23% drop from the first quarter. Gross profit from Square’s bitcoin business tallied $55 million, down $20 million from the first quarter. Year-to-date Square has been forced to take $65 million in impairments related to its bitcoin… Source link

While the company isn’t revealing everything about it just yet, this morning Google gave the world its first official peek at its next flagship phone: the Pixel 6. Here’s what we know so far: It’ll come in two forms: Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. The base 6 will have a matte aluminum finish with a 6.4″ display, while the Pro has a shinier polished aluminum finish with a 6.7″ display. Pixel 6 has two cameras (wide and ultrawide), while the 6 Pro adds a telephoto zoom lens. If you… Source link

With its stock price down about 72% year-to-date amid an overall cooling in the SPAC craze, QuantumScape founder and CEO Jagdeep Singh has a message to the market.  The upstart solid state battery maker remains on track with everything it said it would do when it debuted via a SPAC transaction late in 2020.  Singh said on Yahoo Finance Live the company is still eyeing commercialization of its battery technology in the 2024-2025 timeframe. Its key partner and backer Volkswagen will be the… Source link

The first half of 2021 brought a crypto boom and bust as bitcoin hit a new all-time high in April and then completely erased all its annual gains (and then some) by July.  Now, as bitcoin (BTC-USD) finds its footing, bulls are reloading for what they say will bring an exciting conclusion in the back half of the year.  Whether or not the world of crypto delivers on the high hopes investors have for what’s left of 2021, Yahoo Finance can at least guarantee that the action is likely to involve… Source link

Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro phones Google Google announced Monday it will build its own smartphone processor, called Google Tensor, that will power its new Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro phones this fall. It’s another example of a company building its own chips to create what it felt wasn’t possible with those already on the market. In this case, Google is ditching Qualcomm. The move follows Apple, which is using its own processors in its new computers instead of Intel chips. And like Apple, Google… Source link

Google is announcing the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro today, though it might be better to call it a preview or a tease. Rather than releasing all the details on its new Android phones, Google is instead putting the focus on the new system on a chip (SoC) that will be inside the new Pixels. It’s called the Tensor SoC, named after the Tensor Processing Units (TPU) Google uses in its data centers. Tensor is an SoC, not a single processor. And so while it’s fair to call it Google-designed,… Source link

Square (SQ) is acquiring Australian buy now, pay later (BNPL) company Afterpay for $29 billion in stock, signaling that the digital payments company is entering the installment payment market. “This deal makes a lot of sense for Square, especially insofar as it enabled the company to expand significantly, both in terms of product line and globally by using its stock as an acquisition currency,” BTIG Managing Director Mark Palmer said on Yahoo Finance Live (video above). Square is a brainchild… Source link

The U.S. has fallen significantly behind China in the race to develop a blockchain-based payment system, Pantera Capital founder and CEO Dan Morehead told Yahoo Finance in a recent interview. “China’s six years ahead of the United States in building a blockchain-based payment system,” Morehead said in a Friday segment on blockchain technology with Yahoo Finance Live. China’s dominance in the blockchain space may propel America into action in the near future, according to Morehead,… Source link