(Bloomberg) — Sara Blakely founded Spanx Inc. in 2000 with $5,000 of her personal savings earned from selling fax machines door-to-door. She just struck a deal with Blackstone Inc. that values the company at $1.2 billion. Most Read from Bloomberg Blakely, 50, will retain a significant interest in the Atlanta-based maker of shapewear and pantyhose, according to a statement from the two firms on Wednesday. She will continue to oversee daily operations alongside Spanx’s existing senior… Source link

Google has long been an also-ran in the smartphone world. But as of this week, the Alphabet Inc. unit may have finally figured out how to compete with its iPhone-making rival: custom silicon.  On Tuesday, Google unveiled the Pixel 6 and the Pixel 6 Pro, both featuring a new Google-designed main processor called the Tensor. Along with the customary annual enhancements including a redesign, improved high refresh rate displays, longer battery life and better cameras, the two models can now… Source link

Formula One drivers use virtual reality to simulate a race, Walmart (WMT) employees don the headsets to prepare for unruly customers, and Bank of America (BAC) workers practice sensitive financial conversations on the devices. But as a labor shortage stifles companies struggling to make hires in the first place, some firms have turned to virtual reality for help attracting and retaining new employees who may never set foot in the office. Julie Sweet, CEO of the Ireland-based consulting giant… Source link

A visitor takes a photo in front of digital work “Untitled (Self-Portrait)” by Andy Warhol and digital artist Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple, at the Digital Art Fair, in Hong Kong, China September 30, 2021. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu Since NBA Top Shots and artist Beeple’s digital collage that sold from Christie’s for $69 million this year, the NFT investing craze has only gotten hotter. Artists from Snoop Dog to singer-songwriter Grimes and rock band Kings of Leon made huge profits minting these… Source link

Chrome users, all 2.65 billion of you, need to be on high alert (for the third time this month) because Google has confirmed multiple new High-level hacks of the browser. Google has confirmed multiple new Chrome security vulnerabilities LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES MORE FROM FORBESGoogle Warning Issued For 2 Billion Chrome UsersBy Gordon Kelly Following confirmation of four serious vulnerabilities less than two weeks ago, Google has published a new blog post… Source link

AT&T Inc. (T) reports Q3 2021 earnings on Thursday morning, with analysts looking for a profit of $0.80 per-share on $42.24 billion in revenue. If met, earnings-per-share (EPS) will mark a slight improvement compared to the same quarter in 2020. The stock booked a small gain after beating Q2 top and bottom line estimates in July but quickly turned tail, dropping more than 10% into last week’s 11-year low in the mid-20s. Income-Minded Shareholders Hit the Exits The telecomm giant rallied to a… Source link

Microsoft Bing and Russian search engine Yandex on Monday announced a new protocol designed to speed up search updates of websites. Called IndexNow, the protocol uses an API to allow websites to easily notify search engines whenever content is created, updated, or deleted. Once the search engines are notified of updates they can quickly crawl and reflect the website changes in their index and search results. “Ensuring timely information is… Source link

Brave, the privacy-focused browser that blocks third-party ads and trackers by default, is switching to using its own search engine by default, the company has announced. The change will be applied for new users, and will affect which search engine is used via the browser’s address bar. Brave Search will replace Google in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, Qwant in France, and DuckDuckGo in Germany. More countries will be switched over in the coming months. It’s a… Source link

A New Normal As digital acceleration continues, people are settling into a new norm where hybrid work is the reality, and people mix doing their jobs and personal tasks online during the day. The need to be productive in everything, from online shopping to getting work done, from reading the news to attending meetings. This new phase of work and… Source link

Stock futures traded slightly higher Tuesday evening as investors eyed a batch of stronger-than-expected earnings results with increasing optimism over the trajectory of corporate profits even in the face of supply chain constraints. Contracts on the S&P 500 edged up. The blue-chip index closed out a fifth straight session in positive territory on Tuesday, marking its longest winning streak since August. Bitcoin (BTC) prices topped $64,000 per share and closed in on an all-time high, after… Source link