This weekend, Google will release a Doodle celebrating what would have been Stephen Hawking’s 80th birthday. The two and a half minute-long video will go live in the US at midnight ET tonight (9pm PT) and includes a narration in the physicist’s own computer-generated voice (created and used with permission from his estate) outlining his work and painting a message of hope for the future. Hawking’s digital voice was one of the most recognizable characteristics of the late physicist,… Source link

This article first appeared in the Morning Brief. Get the Morning Brief sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Friday by 6:30 a.m. ET. Subscribe Friday, January 7, 2021 The world’s two largest economies are having serious identity crises The occasion of the first anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot on Capitol Hill provides a chance to explore something that’s been on my mind for at least a couple of years. Even with its dynamic economy and enviable growth, America’s all-consuming political… Source link

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Staff members who operate retail stores for Google Fiber internet in Kansas City, Missouri, have begun the formal process to form a union. This week, 10 of the 11 eligible employees filed a request to hold a union vote with the National Labor Relations Board. The group is organizing under the Alphabet Workers Union which formed one year ago under the Communications Workers of America. Alphabet owns Google. Eris Derickson works at the Google Fiber retail store near West… Source link

PHOENIX — Los Angeles Clippers star Kawhi Leonard is ahead of schedule in his rehab from a torn right ACL and a return to action this season is within reach, league sources told Yahoo Sports’ Chris Haynes as he relayed on TNT Thursday night. Leonard has amped up his workload in recent weeks and is looking stronger and stronger, sources said. Heading into Thursday’s game against the Phoenix Suns, the Clippers are 19-19, positioned eighth in the Western Conference standings. Multiple players… Source link

As brick-and-mortar retail prepares for a renaissance this year, Yahoo is diving deeper into e-commerce with new multiretailer checkout for ads, the company announced Thursday. A product of the tech company’s partnership with e-commerce platform MikMak, the update offers add-to-cart functionality and e-commerce analytics for campaigns across native and display advertisements on Yahoo. Functionally, the updates may make the shopping experience easier for consumers, as they can checkout… Source link

The US International Trade Commission has ruled that Google is in violation of five Sonos patents relating to smart speakers (via The New York Times). The decision affirms a judge’s ruling in August, and could force Google to stop importing products using the infringing technology. It’s not yet clear whether any specific Google products will necessarily disappear from shelves — in fact, Google spokesperson José Castaneda suggests the company’s customers would not “experience any… Source link

As a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration, Brian Murphy got a close look at the failures ahead of the insurrection at the Capitol. His 26-year career at DHS and at the FBI focused on violent extremism and he watched, he said Thursday in a Yahoo Finance Live interview, as those departments failed in 2020 as an early warning system to the emerging threat from then-President Trump’s radicalized supporters. Officials, he says, “were intimidated… Source link

Stock futures opened higher Thursday evening as investors looked ahead to a key report on the U.S. labor market recovery at the end of a volatile week. Contracts on the S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq gained as the overnight session began.   On Friday, investors are set to receive the Labor Department’s December jobs report, providing an update on the extent to which labor supply shortages were still impacting the economy at the end of last year. Economists expect to see more than 400,000 non-farm… Source link

GameStop’s (GME) stock surged as much as 30% in after hours after a report that the video game retailer is launching a marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a move which had been telegraphed last year.  GameStop is also reportedly creating partnerships with two crypto companies to “share technology and co-invest in the development of games that use blockchain and NFT technology, as well as other NFT-related projects,” according to people familiar with the plans who spoke to the… Source link

OAKLAND, Calif. — Google infringed on five audio technology patents held by the speaker manufacturer Sonos and is not allowed to import products that violate Sonos’s intellectual property into the United States, a trade court ruled on Thursday. The final ruling by the United States International Trade Commission, a quasi-judicial body that decides trade cases and can block the import of goods that violate patents, closes a two-year investigation into the intellectual-property dispute.