On Sunday, Tencent Music Entertainment Group announced a plan to repurchase $1 billion in shares. The China-based music-streaming service has authorized a buyback of up to $1 billion in Class A shares, in the form of American depositary receipts, over the next year. “The share repurchase program is a strong indication of the board’s confidence in the company’s business outlook and long-term...

Facebook is reportedly planning to start opening its Silicon Valley offices in May, if COVID-19 cases continue to decrease. The social media giant will allow its Menlo Park, California, headquarters at 10% capacity. Its Fremont, California, offices will do so on May 17, its Sunnyvale, California, offices on May 24 and its downtown San Francisco towers on June 7. All Facebook employees can...

Bumble, Inc., which became public in February, posted its fiscal fourth quarter revenue that beat analysts’ expectations. The online dating & networking company also provided an optimistic revenue guidance for the full year. The company’s revenue of $165.6 million came in higher than the $163.3 million expected by analysts polled by FactSet. Bumble incurred a net loss of -$26.1 million,...

Since receiving his Ph.D. in AI from the University of Edinburgh in 1978, Hinton has spent ample time teaching, researching, and innovating within the field.Hinton’s company, DNNresearch, was acquired by Google in 2013 after delivering a significant improvement in object recognition accuracy in photos, though neural nets have application in speech recognition, language processing, and more. With vast experience in the field and an executive position at one of tech’s biggest and most important companies, Hinton is uniquely qualified to discuss the future of AI (as he did recently with Wired).

Quakes can cause staggering levels of damage and trigger other natural disasters, like tsunamis.Compounding the effects of the initial quake (called a “mainshock”) are a series of aftershocks – smaller earthquakes that can heighten the existing problems in a quake’s aftermath.  Science has been able to establish laws dictating the magnitude and timing of aftershocks – Omori’s law, Båth's law, and the Gutenberg–Richter law are all accepted by the scientific community as accurate representations of aftershock behavior.

Recent analyses from the US Treasury Department and KPMG (the creator of the vaunted, twice-yearly “Pulse of Fintech” report) have offered a rosy outlook for the space, which continues to threaten the way traditional financial institutions do business. But for all the talk of creating a new financial paradigm, increasing numbers of companies are seeing the value of collaboration with fintech as a path to growth.Traditional financial institutions can transcend their legacy systems, while fintech firms can scale profitably in ways previously elusive – assuming both parties can get out of each other’s way. Meanwhile, a new type of service called techfin offers a new, different type of disruptive potential.

By most accounts, it isn’t much, and YouTube, who reported $12 billion in revenue in 2017, recently raised the limit on the number of views required to share in advertising revenue. This skewed distribution of wealth is not the only problem facing major tech platforms – many are experiencing backlash about the way they use the data they have collected about their users.A variety of companies are using blockchain technology, the foundational element of cryptocurrency, to pursue these goals. Smart contracts, written in code within the blockchain protocol, allow companies to openly execute this vision.

Investing just $100 per year starting at 20 years old, with a minimum 5% return, would mean $17,667.02 sitting in a bank account upon retirement age (65).For investors who can sock away $100 a month instead of $100 a year, the numbers get into six figure territory. With a help from a professional, or even a little research, achieving returns beyond 5% are well within reach.

Following Twitter’s Q4 earnings beat, several analysts boosted their one-year price targets on the microblogging platform’s shares. KeyBanc analyst Justin Patterson boosted his price target to a Wall Street-high of $80 from $65, as he perceived the Q4 results as a “full swing” recovery in Twitter’s advertising and continued success in strengthening audience engagement and advertisers...

Twitter reported fourth quarter earnings that crushed analysts’ expectations. Despite missing estimates for audience growth, the microblogging website experienced solid year-over-year increase in revenue. The company’s earnings came in at 27 cents per share, up from 15 cents per share a year ago. Excluding items, Twitter earned 38 cents per share. Analysts polled by FactSet on average...

Snap, Inc. expected a first-quarter EBITDA loss , despite a better-than-expected financial report for the fourth quarter. For the fourth quarter, the social media company’s adjusted earnings came in at 9 cents a share – compared to the 7 cents expected by analyst polled by FactSet. Revenue of $911 million also was higher than the $852.3 million estimated by analysts. The company projected...

Twitter got a rating upgrade from analysts at KeyBanc, on expected long-term revenue growth. Analysts at KeyBanc boosted their rating on the microblogging company’s shares to overweight (from sector weight), saying they expected long-term revenue growth to be driven by the platform’s improvement in the experience for advertisers and users. "Our view is that execution is improving, and the...

The riots led to a ban of former President Trump from several platforms and that caused Twitter (TWTR) and other stocks to fall.

Thanks to the selling, Tickeron’s AI Trend Prediction tool generated bullish signals on Twitter and two other internet companies on January 19.The bullish predictions all three showed a confidence level of 88% for the stocks to move higher by at least 4% over the next month.

None of the three stocks do very well on the fundamentals with Farfetch and Snap both getting five negative ratings and no positive ratings.

According to the analysts, the Snap results are likely to surprise on the upside – the analysts are 15% above consensus 2024 revenue and 30% above consensus 2024 non-GAAP operating income.

The analysts said that their upgrade is based on current macroeconomic conditions supportive of “elevated valuations for high growth stocks”.They also mentioned further upside potential for Snap due to e-commerce and small- and medium-sized business marketer tailwinds driving the broader online advertising sector.

On Friday, Twitter Inc. announced its decision to  permanently suspend the accounts of President Donald Trump, citing potential incitement of violence,.The microblogging company’s decision came in the aftermath of the a pro-Trump mob storming the Capitol last week land leading to atleast five deaths.

"After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence," Twitter said in a statement.

Twitter’s move was followed by Facebook ‘s indefinite suspension of   the President's account on both its namesake website and Instagram.

E-commerce company Shopify  shutdown two sites affiliated with the Trump campaign.

Alphabet shares got a  price target hike from an analyst at  Robert W. Baird & Co., on optimistic outlook for the latter part of 2020 and for the next year.

Analyst Colin Sebastian  boosted his price target on the tech behemoth’s shares to $2,000 from $1,725.He also suggested that digital-advertising visibility in 2021 is improving.

Sebastian  has a "favorable outlook” for the next year, as he views an easy year-over-year comparison alongwith an expected improvement in recreation, travel and auto advertisements.

Snap Inc.  got a Wall Street-high price target from Goldman Sachs analysts.

Goldman analyst Heath Terry raised his price target on the social media company’s shares to $70 per share (from $47) – the highest target on Wall Street.Terry maintained his buy rating on the stock.

 The analyst mentioned tech innovations and product partnerships that he believes could push Snap's revenue growth beyond the Street expectations.

Terry also said that Snap's Spotlight product, new ad campaign objectives and bid types, and the Unity partnership, particularly Unity Ads' inclusion into the Snap Audience Network (SAN) could potentially propel further momentum in engagement growth as well as provide valuable scale to advertisers.

More than three million people have been believed to install the plug-ins.

Cybersecurity company Avast made an analysis of the extensions last month, following a study by Czech researchers at CZ.NIC.According to these researchers, some of those extensions  have been active since at least December 2018.

Malicious activities such as redirecting users to ads and phishing sites, collecting personal data and browsing history, and downloading other malware onto the host device have apparently occurred in the process.

Spotify  announced that it has signed a multiyear deal with Prince Harry and his wife Meghan to produce and hosts podcasts.

Their first podcast, a holiday special, is due for release during the Christmas.

Meghan said that in the first podcast episode, they would be speaking to  “some amazing people” who would be sharing their thoughts on the past year. 

Prince Harry said, "So many people have been through so much pain this year, experiencing loss, a huge amount of uncertainty, but it feels worth acknowledging that 2020 has connected us in ways we could have never imagined, through endless acts of compassion and kindness.

Social networking giant Facebook  faced lawsuits from the Federal Trade Commission and 48 states  and territories on charges of anticompetitive behavior. Both suits allege that Facebook attempted to maintain a monopoly through anticompetitive acquisitions that target potential rivals, in order to maintain a monopoly position in personal social networking.The lawsuits could require Facebook to divest Instagram and Whatsapp.  Facebook pushed back against the lawsuits.“The most important fact in this case, which the Commission does not mention in its 53-page complaint, is that it cleared these acquisitions years ago,” Facebook’s chief counsel Jennifer Newstead mentioned in a statement.