Uber Drivers Allowed To Form Unions In Seattle

The City Council has passed a law which grants the right to Uber driving partners to unionize in Seattle.

The City council of Seattle has unanimously ratified a law that will grant the right to Lyft and Uber’s drivers to form unions, a bold legislative move that is capable of testing the famous application based ride hailing companies.

Member of Council, Mike O’ Brien, says for-hire drivers as independent contractors are not provided protections so he is interested in giving them an opportunity to negotiate their working conditions. If more than 50% of drivers in Seattle were ready to be unionized, then the law would compel the corporations to bargain.

Neither of the two companies was able to send their representatives for commenting on the development Monday, but Lyft issued a statement asking the council and Mayor of the city to review the ordinance. Drivers said that with independent and flexible conditions with Uber, 50% of them are able to drive less than 10 hours per week, 70% have part time or full time work for being done for someone else other than Uber and 65% opted to vary their driving time 25% on a weekly basis.

After the voting, an official of Lyft stated via email, "Unfortunately, the ordinance passed today threatens the privacy of drivers, imposes substantial costs on passengers and the City, and conflicts with longstanding federal law". In California, a significant class-suit petition was filed against Uber technologies to resolve the same issue regarding the classification of its driving partners.

In June 2016, that petition would be presented before the court of law. Seattle University’s assistant law professor Charlotte Garden told it is a "virtual certainty" that a lawsuit would be filed against the legislation if it is enacted. The legislative body ignored the possibility of the law being challenged in the court and voted on Monday to unanimously pass it.

Drivers from various cities, including Seattle, have filed lawsuits against Uber for classifying them as autonomous contractors, and political leaders in Washington D.C and in other places are discussing whether a new labor category or benefits system may be needed.

Mr. Mike believes that the law would not be challenged if it is ratified, but made an acknowledgement that the newly passed law has never been previously tried. He further stated that the larger issue is concerned with antitrust rules, including whether independent organizations joining together to negotiate is a violation of any anti-trust law. These organizations will have four months to show that "a majority of drivers for a specific company choose to be represented". 

It's Always Been About Google With Apple, Inc.

The tech giant acquired an analytics firm two year ago to compete with google's capabilities.

About two years ago, the Silicon Valley giant Apple, Inc. had acquired Topsy, an analytics firm at a price of $200 million. The aim of the company by acquiring this firm was to create a search engine that would compete with that of Google’s and would consist of all the Tweets that have been on the web since 2006. This news came out after an Executive of Analytics Company; Aaron Hayes-Roth decided to talk about how his life changed while working for this, with Business Insider.

This executive who talked to Business Insider informed that he was the Director of Business Development at the analytics firm and was a startup back then. The products of this startup were found to be quite reliable and quick by many customers who would use them. The product would do an in-depth analysis that would go back to 2006 and help the users make better decision for the future and would offer future recommendations and forecasts as well.

While working with Apple’s team, Mr. Roth always wondered as to what the multinational technology giant would fit Twitter, Inc. into its system. Turns out it wasn’t the micro-blogging website that the tech giant was after but what powered that tool is what interested Steve Job’s company. The indexing capabilities by Topsy’s platform are exceptional and allow the system to be able to search huge amounts of data quite quickly.

From the beginning this has been about Google; the tech giant wants to compete with the search engine leader and get a share of its pie. Since iPhone 4s and the introduction of Siri, the organization has come a long way. Now if you swipe left on your iPhone and type a single word, Wikipedia search results start to come up. Spotlight is the next thing to increase usage since more than 85% of a user’s time is not spent on Apps and searching for things does not account for much. Apple has a greater user base than google.

Another then that the iPhone manufacturer has achieved is that when a safari user searches something on the web via the browser, it will not get the google links of the search because it does not want its competitors search to come up on its platform. As of September, the tech giant has over 585 million users. The organization is making efforts to make it users use its own search engine rather than google but that would not be happening anytime soon.

Even though this acquisition took place two years ago, Apple has managed to hide it from the public which could be a blessing for it.

Good Technology Employees Not Happy With Blackberry Ltd.'s Acquisition

The Canada based smartphone company acquired a mobile security startup due to which a lot of issues in business started coming up.

The New York Times has shown a very interesting side of Blackberry Ltd.’s acquisition of Good Technology. The Canada based smartphone company acquired the mobile security provider back in September 2015 for $425 million. This news came as a rather unpleasant surprise to the employees of the company since the company had planned to go public in the near future.

After the unexpected acquisition took place between the two mobile security provider companies, the employees were invited to a conference call meeting with both the chief executive officer of the company, John Chen and Christy Wyatt, who during the call informed the employees regarding the acquisition. This meeting just created more confusion amongst the workers of the startup security provider since during the meeting; John Chen humorously said to Wyatt that it only bought the company for $425 million when its private evaluation was at least $1.1 billion.

Things further got heated up when an investors’ note circled around amongst the shareholders of the startup as many of the employees of the organization had shares in the company. Employees found out from the note that the stock that they owned was worth much less than what it was worth when they had bought it. From a stock price of $4.32 in the previous year, the shares were now at 44 cents a share.

Another hit, which made the employees at the startup furious, was when they found out that back in March they rejected an offer that was worth $825 million. Because of the tension that was going on in the office, after this news broke down, angry workers of the organization broke the glass wall of the conference room due to which the management brought counselors to calm the workers down.

According to the investors note. These stockholders did not even have protection for the shares that they owned and on the other hand a few investors and some of the board members of Good Technology who did have protection left with generous amounts. A total of six investors had preferred to protect stock on which they made as much as $125 million whereas the CEO Christy Wyatt, herself made over $4 million and added $1.9 of the severance. , after quitting the job.

A lawsuit was filed by the disappointed staff of the mobile security company in Delaware Chancery Court. According to the lawsuit, the minority shareholders did not get what they deserved and the rest of the shareholders did not have the best interest at heart for them. Furthermore, they stated that the damages were not even revealed.

AT&T Donates Money To Help The Cause Of Friendly House

AT&T has donated $7000 to improve graduation rates and increase development assets.

AT&T made a donation worth $7000 to Friendly House yesterday for the facility’s Club 912 program, which focuses on enhancing graduation rates in the region.

Friendly House’s official, Terry Conard, was given the cheque around 11 am yesterday. State Senator Larry Obhof and the Texas based company’s official, Kevin Lynch, gave the large white cheque to Mr. Conard. After the presentation, an internal company tour was organized.

Friendly House has revealed that Club 912 program, which focuses on students in grades 9 to 12, plans to reduce and prevent delinquent behavior and neighborhood youth crime, whereas adding to development assets and cutting down the dropout rate of high schools. Mentors belonging to the Mansfield City schools, Mansfield Police Department, and business leaders of the area have collaborated with the organization to teach pupils what is required to turn into a productive citizen.

Mr. Conard was grateful for the contribution of the telecom giant. "It's awesome,” he stated. "That money will go directly toward paying tutors." He affirmed that the number of teachers hired for the 2015-2016 school year would be depending upon the number of pupils who take part in the program.

As the area’s leading wireless service provider, Mr. Lynch told the carrier cooperates with community organizations that have pledged to enhance graduation rates in the region. This is the reason behind the decision to pay $7000 to the organization.

"The success Friendly House has had with Club 912 exceeds our expectations," Lynch said. Senator Obhof liked the program. "It's fantastic," he stated. "It's great to have organizations in the community who are focused on education and increasing graduation."

This news has been disclosed at a time when AT&T has given a new offer as far as newly launched iPhones are concerned. It is permitting iPhone 6S plus or iPhone 6S to use another iPhone free of charge.

Different Samsung smartphones like Galaxy S6, Galaxy Note 5, and Galaxy Note 4 have been offered through ‘buy one to get one free’ offer on the webpage of the company. The iPhone 6S plus and 6S smartphones have not been mentioned on the offer page. Nevertheless, an official of the carrier disclosed to 9to5Mac that the organization is also giving the same deal for the iPhone 6S plus and 6S smartphones.

In order to avail the deal, clients should sign up to purchase iPhone 6S plus or 6S smartphone and AT&T Next plan. The company would then offer a credit worth $650 to the consumer. 

Netflix, Inc Works To Make User Experience Easier and Better By Saving Bandwidth

The streaming media giant is making the lives of those with slow internet connection easier by working alongside with university researchers.

Netflix, Inc., the streaming media giant, is working on improving its service for its customers and provides better service in comparison to its rival Amazon Prime. This significant change that the streaming media is bringing about could further extend its dominance in the streaming media industry. The streaming media network is working on a ‘new bandwidth saving feature’ through which users will be able to save data usage. Furthermore, this significant change could make the experience for its user better especially during peak hours.

At the trading session on Wednesday, Netflix stock was called off at $119.12 indicating an increase of 0.44% from its previous share price. The volume of shares being traded on Wednesday were 1,584,705 shares. Currently the market capitalization of the streaming media giant is $50.91 billion. The streaming media company had reported earnings per share of 0.38 with price to earnings ratio of 314.70. The one year high of the on-demand subscriber was registered to be $133.27 and a 52-week low of the company $45.26. The highest level to which the stock price of Netflix was seen at during the trading session on Wednesday was $ 122.19 and the lowest level it was seen at was $117.92.

The new add on that the streaming media will be making available on its platform will basically be very useful for people with slower internet speed. For Netflix users with slow speeds, there will be lower bitrates and for those on a connection that is faster in comparison, will be serviced with higher bitrates. In order to work thoroughly to make the experience for the users better, the streaming media company collaborated with University of South California, University of Nantes and the UT Austin researchers. These researchers came together make an algorithm that would scan very episode of every show and movie to determine its complexity.

Through the new service, users can save on their data plans and the servers won’t be getting too clogged up during the peak hours when Netflix is used the most. However, this change will take a few months and if done gracefully, the users might not even feel much of a difference. In addition to this, many companies are working on ‘peer-to-peer technology’ which would allow the browser or app to download half of the movie from another user watching the same show or movie during the same time.

In other news, Director at Netflix Inc. sold 2,800 shares of the company at  $125.36. This transaction was worth $351,008 and was conducted on December 10^, 2015

Netflix Paid No Corporation Tax In UK

Even after sufficient levels of sales revenue from British subscribers , Netflix hasn't paid corporation tax in UK.

Netflix is being criticized in the United Kingdom. As per reports in 2014, the on-demand internet streaming service provider did not pay corporation tax in UK despite of the estimation that it has almost 4.5 million subscribers in the country.

The video streaming enterprise behind prize-winning series, such as Orange is the New Black and House of Cards, is known for charging clients at least £5.99 per month for subscribing to its service, and has expanded rapidly since 2012 – the year in which it was launched in Britain. 

An investigation conducted by Sunday Times found out that the organization was able to generate £200m of sales revenue in UK last year but any earned profits from the European country were registered overseas. No one has suggested that the corporation has breached the law.

The publication has reported that most recent accounts of Netflix International BV, based in Luxembourg, shows profits worth £11.3 million and sales revenue worth £415 million in 2014 with British clients contributing to the biggest proportion of turnover. It stated the organization paid income tax worth £573,396 in Luxembourg, which equals a rate of around 5%.

Netflix stated that it is in “expansion” mode and suffering from overall losses as far as its global operation is concerned. An official stated its British subsidiary hires around a dozen people and paid some corporation tax in 2015, adding, “We are fully compliant with all applicable rules.”

In July, it was reported that despite of more than 65 million subscriptions across the globe third-party content‘s costs on Netflix was £5.2bn ($7.7bn), around 4.6 times its net turnover. Recently, it was reported Mondelez, which is known for owning Cadbury, did not pay any corporation tax in 2014.

In contrast, Starbucks, which was widely criticized for avoiding corporate tax in 2012, following the disclosure of meager contribution to tax revenue in recent times, has paid corporate tax worth £8.1 million in 2015, almost as much as it has disbursed in its first 14 years in the United Kingdom.

Britain is believed to be the largest market of Netflix outside the United States, which is known for having more than 40 million subscribers, with its British subscribers' figure expected to reach 9.5 million later this decade.

The organization is facing intense rivalry from competitors such as HBO, Hulu and Amazon in the United States. In Britain, the organization’s closest competitor is Amazon Prime.

The Labor Party has responded to Sunday Times’ report by pressurizing George Osborne to "get a grip" on the matter of the organization’s contribution to the British treasury.

Toyota Motors Corporation Expected To Roll Out 10 Million Cars In 2016

Toyota Motors managed to get on the top of the list of automakers after Volkswagen gets caught up with diesel emissions scandal.

In 2016, the automobile giant, Toyota Motors Corporation expects to roll out over 10 million cars which in comparison to the current fiscal year 2015 represent flat global sales. However 2015 has been an impressive year for the automobile giant as it was the only Japanese automobile company that managed to match its global sales estimates for the year.

According to the forecasts, the company was supposed to have retail sales target of 10.16 million which it managed to slash at 10.098 million units. In addition to the decrease in retail sales, the auto corporation expects a decline in its worldwide wholesale volume by 0.22 million units; from 8.97 million units it will go down to 8.75 million units. The reason as to why there was a decline in the global sales was because of a slowdown in the demand for vehicles of the automobile company globally.

In comparison to 2015, the target for 2016 is expected to see a small increase in its expected sales; from sales of 10.098 million units to 10.114 million units indicating an increase of 0.16%. Since the last three years, the Japanese automaker has kept the title of being the world’s top seller in the automobile industry, despite of the fact that Volkswagen AG managed to surpass the Toyota’s target in the first quarter of Fiscal year 2015.

The German giant might have been the top automaker of year 2015 if it hadn’t been a victim of a controversial emission cheating scandal. For 2016, the automobile company is keeping its standards high and is expecting to meet the market demand by setting the target mark higher than 10 million units. The automaker is expecting a production of over 10.196 million autos worldwide which reflects a minute increase of 0.7% from 2015 production.

Throughout the current year, most of the top automakers have reported decline in their production. Many analysts believe that the following year will not be too bright for the automobile industry. They have claimed that the industry barely grows by 2% each year. Evidently, the market for cars in the United States is currently booming but it is important to take into account that the sales of these cars in China have been weak this year.

Additionally, Toyota Motors will continue to benefit from the falling sales of Volkswagen because of its diesel emissions saga. Currently, Toyota’s stock is being traded at 124.80 showing a decline of 1.47%. The company reported earnings per share of $11.94. 

Google Brings Driverless Vehicle Manufacturing Unit Under The Umbrella Of Alphabet

Google has brought its autonomous car manufacturing division under Alphabet.

Google has taken an initiative to dominate the automotive industry. The search engine company aims to make its driverless automobiles unit, which would rent out cars, a standalone enterprise under the umbrella of Alphabet in 2016, an individual addressed on the policy of the corporation.

The driverless cars of the Californian company have been able to log more than 1.6 million kilometers (1 million miles) on public roads, mostly around  Austin, Texas and San Francisco, making these cities sound areas for introduction of the facility, acknowledges an unknown person because of the plans’ privacy. The fleets – which would include a number of small and large automobiles – can be used first in exclusive areas such as corporate office parks or military bases and college campuses.

The competition to manufacture a driverless automobile fleet intensified since February when Bloomberg shared a report that the company determines to compete against Uber, most probably in combination with its autonomous vehicle-manufacturing venture. The app-based ride sharing company is working on its own driverless capacities, whereas automotive organizations are employing semi- automatic technologies and carrying out experimentation with so-called disseminated mobility.

By threatening pioneers of app-based ride sharing enterprises, Lyft and Uber, along with conventional cabs, the organization is clarifying yet the means by which it aims to earn money from driverless automotive systems. Spokeswomen of Google, Gina Scigliano, refused to comment.

While polls have shown one-third of the American customers like to purchase driverless vehicles, others are skittish as they worry that they would lose control, stated Thilo Koslowski, an official at Gartner. “These potential ride-for-hire services could allow consumers to experience the technology and embrace it in a bigger way. That would help not just Google but the entire industry.”

In August, Google restructured itself into a multinational known as Alphabet. The corporation intends to sell many of its modern technology divisions into standalone corporations under the umbrella of Alphabet, including its robotics unit, Google Capital Investment firms, Google Ventures, intelligence thermostats and smoke alarms manufacturer ‘Nest’, and its medical research organization ‘Verily’.

In September, Google X was able to hire automotive industry veteran, John Krafcik, as the CEO of its vehicles venture. At that time, John used to work as the online automobile shopping service’s president. He did earlier worked as Hyundai Motors Company’s senior sales executive and Ford’s truck engineer. He has not responded to an emailed request for sharing his views and comments.

Tesla Motors Rival NextEV Hires Former Cisco Executive, Padmasree Warrior

Padmasree Warrior would be heading NextTV's operations in the United States.

Tesla’s rival has taken an initiative to manage the operations of its US division in a better manner. NextEV, Chinese electric carmaker and potential competitor of Tesla, has appointed the former Strategy and CTO of Cisco, Padmasree Warrior.

The Shanghai-based enterprise, NextEV, has risen investment worth around half a billion dollars from organizations, such as Tencent Holdings, Venture Capital Company, Sequoia Ventures, and a Chinese investment firm ‘Hillhouse Capital’, which has played its role in supporting Uber. The Southeast Asian electric automobile manufacturer has stated that during 2016, it aims to launch out a vehicle that would match the “Ludicrous” speed mode of Tesla.

It is not clear exactly how many funds the company has acquired, but as per reports of Bloomberg news in September, it is trying to attract $1bn from venture capitalists. NextEV has an 85,000 square foot research facility in San Jose, California, along with a Munich-based design center.

While talking to Re/code, Padmasree named it a “global startup.” She stated that her job would be doubled, as she would be the CEO of the organization’s US division and internationally offer her services as the chief digital officer heading technology efforts, including user experience and software development.

She stated, “The principle vision is to build a car that is designed for the mobile and Internet era,” We’re trying to imagine how the experience of having a car would be different today, and how you would involve the customer in the process.”

Before leaving in 2015, Padmasree had worked as the CTO at NextEV since 2008, replacing Charlie Giancarlo, and in 2012, she also became the company’s CSO. Padmasree, the Indian native, graduated from Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi with a degree in chemical engineering.

She then shifted to the United States and obtained her master’s degree in the same discipline from Cornell University. While studying for a PhD, she agreed to work in the Semiconductor division of Motorola and kept working there for more than 20 years.

She worked for four years as the CTO of Motorola before being appointed at Cisco. She is also a member of board in a number of organizations, including ‘Box’, retailer ‘Gap’ and Microsoft Corporation. At Cisco, it was believed that she would probably replace the long lasting CEO John Chambers previously this year.

Padmasree left Cisco during the summer. Her last action for the company was playing a role in negotiating a strategic tie up with Apple. She has also turned out to be the second former Cisco official to be hired by the highly advanced transportation organization. In September, CEO Elon Musk backed company, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, named Rob Lloyd, former president of Cisco, as its first chief executive officer.

Pfizer, Inc. Increases Dividend By 7% to 30 Cents.

America's largest healthcare company has planned on increasing its dividend by 7% in efforts to keep its shareholders happy.

In an attempt to move its business to a low-tax jurisdiction, Pfizer, Inc. has decided to merge with Allergan PLC in a $1.6 billion bid. Many believe that this merger is one of the biggest tax inversion deals in the history so far due to which it has managed to receive a lot of criticism from the US politicians.

Presently company’s on their foreign income pay income tax of 35% because of which the United States based companies mostly end up paying double tax on their foreign income. This attempt of parking their foreign income overseas many companies has started to take this route of settling their core business outside of the country.

In 2013, the pharmaceutical corporation, Pfizer managed to earn $17 billion on its foreign sales which make up 80% of the sales in the United States. While on the other hand, when internationally the pharma company was making billions, in the United States it was incurring losses for five consecutive years.

The chief executive officer of the pharma company Ian Read has continuously called the tax system of the country “hugely disadvantageous” when it comes to competing with international healthcare companies.

Pfizer stock, as of previous trading is up by 0.31% and is now trading at $32.26 in after hour trading sessions. This increase happened after the healthcare company had announced an increase in its quarterly dividends. In the first quarter, the company announced a dividend of 30 cents for each share which showed a 7% increase in its previous dividend price of 28 cents. Ian Read, on the dividend matter, made a statement that this increase in its quarterly dividend is a testament to the company’s continued commitment and working towards enhancing its shareholders value and furthermore, shows how much confidence the company hold in the its business.  

The CEO further added that the pharmaceutical company’s main aim had always been to maximize the shareholder’s returns and the main ingredient to do so is the dividends as they are the main component. The merged companies will be led by the present CEO of Pfizer while the Dublin based, Allergan’s chief executive officer, Brent Saunders will serve as the chief operating officer of both the companies.

As of October 2015, America’s largest pharmaceutical company had reported better than expected earnings results and for its upcoming years has better expectations as the company has clearly benefited a number of new drugs in the market which came from the acquisition of Hospira.

Sales Of Healthcare Services And Products Increase On Alibaba

Chinese shoppers have used Alibaba's platforms to purchase a large number of medical gadgets and services.

Alibaba Group is playing an important role in boosting the growth of the pharmaceutical industry. Chinese shoppers are using the internet to purchase healthcare gadgets and facilities. 

Alibaba news reported that Chinese customers made payments worth $10.10bn (65.02 billion Yuan) in purchasing healthcare devices, medicines and facilities on Hangzhou-based enterprise’s Chinese trading sites last year which is 62.5% greater from the past year, disclosed in a report recently released by electronic commerce giant. The report has also stated China’s electronic shoppers are shifting from making efforts to seek cures for illnesses to investing in disease prevention.

In the recently shared report, the organization has attributed the rise in electronic healthcare expenditure to growth in personal incomes, the increase in the number of aged people in the most populated country alongside environmental problems of the second largest economy. 

A larger number of Chinese shoppers purchased over the internet for healthcare in 2014. Electronic shoppers of medical services and products on the company’s forums grew by 63.5% to 111 million last year from 68 million in 2013.

A significant number of online healthcare consumers heavily spent money. Almost 68.9% of customers who purchased services or health products made spending of more than $777 (5000 Yuan) on company’s platforms in a time span of 12 months, the report stated.

On November 11, the yearly online buying extravaganza in China, known as Singles’ Day, sales of healthcare devices through the online trading giant’s platforms grew by 100% on a yearly basis. This encompassed sales of wearable gadgets, such as fitness trackers, growing nearly five times, Alibaba stated.

In addition, on the enterprise’s platform, there was an increase of 205% in the sales of nursing caring facilities on Singles’ Day. Health insurance’s sales grew by 432% on the enterprise’s forums including the large Tmall and Taobao marketplaces.

Alibaba has also reported that a dental clinic was able to sell vouchers for more than 500 dental implantations on Singles’ Day. Clients are also rapidly accessing the internet to purchase healthcare facilities like cancer screening and gene tests. Last year, sales of health examination facilities through the organization are trading platforms increased by 31.3% on a yearly basis.

The report stated delivery of a baby and after-birth nursing facility worth $12,643 (80,220 Yuan) proved to be the most priced services customers could purchase in the Healthcare category of Tmall during the sale that took place on Singles’ Day this year. The facility was offered by Beijing United Family Hospital.

The report has been shared at a time when the finding of a survey has made RBC Capital Markets reiterate an outperform rating on the corporation, which was able to show a much better position in the electronic commerce market than its rival, JD or Amazon.