Tag Archives: tech

Bloomberg A $1 Trillion Liquidity Surge Is Morphing Into a Leverage Boom (Bloomberg) — It was supposed to be a temporary buffer — more than $1 trillion of debt taken on by U.S. companies last year to ride out the economic devastation caused by Covid-19.But with the economy rebounding and interest rates still near all-time lows, it’s becoming increasingly tempting for corporations including Home Depot Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. to spend those cash cushions on acquisitions and… Source link

A new proposal by Republican lawmakers to overhaul a critical law that protects online platforms already looks dead in the water, according to one legal expert, though another prominent legal scholar believes it could fuel bipartisan reform for tech regulation. The proposal, laid out by Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday, is meant to serve as a foundation to reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law that provides liability protection… Source link

The Nasdaq has popped roughly 8% since March 30 to outpace the S&P 500’s run to start the second quarter, as the tech-heavy index inches within touching distance of its records, just over a month after it fell into a correction. The fall from its mid-February highs coincided with a wave of bond selling and had some on Wall Street worried technology stocks were due for a huge downturn. How quickly things change. The Nasdaq has recovered roughly all of its losses, which were perhaps more… Source link

Google is going it alone with its proposed advertising technology to replace third-party cookies. Every major browser that uses the open source Chromium project has declined to use it, and it’s unclear what that will mean for the future of advertising on the web. A couple of weeks ago, Google announced it was beginning to test a new ad technology inside Google Chrome called the Federated Learning of Cohorts, or FLoC. It uses an algorithm to look at your browser history and place you in… Source link

Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos acknowledged Thursday that his new annual letter to shareholders would be his last as CEO. But that reiteration has done nothing to shake Wall Street’s confidence in the e-commerce behemoth’s future financials, although the leadership change is being very closely watched for potential stumbles.   “Well, I think Bezos probably goes down as the best entrepreneur of this generation in a way like Steve Jobs was and Bills Gates was. We’ll see about the next generation…. Source link

(Bloomberg) — After China imposed a record antitrust fine on Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., the e-commerce giant did an unusual thing: It thanked regulators. “Alibaba would not have achieved our growth without sound government regulation and service, and the critical oversight, tolerance and support from all of our constituencies have been crucial to our development,” the company said in an open letter. “For this, we are full of gratitude and respect.” It’s a sign of how odd China’s… Source link

Google is just starting to test its replacement for third-party cookies, but DuckDuckGo is already announcing that it wants to block that tech with its Chrome extension. Google’s FLoC, or Federated Learning of Cohorts, technology is designed to be a more privacy-centered way to track users and serve ads to them, but some privacy advocates, like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have claimed that it could be harmful to consumers. We have a great explainer on what FLoC is for those who… Source link

Bloomberg Credit Suisse Scandal Toll Goes Ever Higher as Rivals Thrive (Bloomberg) — In an era of prosperity for investment banks, Credit Suisse Group AG is careening from one crisis to another and then another — this time, with a $4.7 billion writedown tied to billionaire investor Bill Hwang’s trading blowout.The staggering hit — the largest yet linked to market-shaking losses run up by Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management — prompted sweeping management changes at the Swiss bank… Source link

This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it weekdays. On Monday, the Supreme Court said it was kosher to copy someone else’s computer code in some cases. That handed Google a win in a decade-long court battle with Oracle over the guts of the Android smartphone system. I’ll explain why the technology industry was relieved by the decision, and the ways it might be relevant for artists, writers and archivists. I also want us to ponder this: Why are… Source link

Yahoo Answers is going to be shut down after more than 15 years of providing the web with hilarious content. The website is first slipping into read-only mode from 20 April, before being shut down entirely on 4 May – redirecting visitors to the Yahoo homepage instead. When the site disappears then all of its many brilliant questions – with their innovative grammatical and spelling errors, and the amazing credulity of the askers – will be… Source link