TOP 5 STOCKS TO WATCHOUT:-
1. #ALIBABA- Technology giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has facial recognition technology which can specifically pick out members of China's Uighur minority, surveillance industry researcher IPVM said in a report.
The report comes as human rights groups accuse China of forcing over 1 million Muslim Uighurs into labour camps, and call out firms suspected of complicity.
China has repeatedly denied forcing anyone into what it has called vocational training centres, and has also said the region of Xinjiang is under threat from Islamist militants.
Still, sensitivities have prompted caution among Chinese internet firms which often self-censor to avoid running afoul of a government which strictly controls online speech, and which last month published draft rules to police live streaming.
2. #TWITTER-Twitter Inc is reversing changes made to its retweet function intended to curb the spread of misinformation during the U.S. presidential election, the company said.
The microblogging site had in October made it difficult for users to retweet a tweet with misinformation and promoted the use of quote tweets, which included commentary from the user.
It had also imposed curbs including labeling and removal of tweets calling for people to interfere with the election process or implementation of results.
Twitter said it will no longer prompt quote tweets from the retweet icon. "Retweet functionality will be returning to the way it was before," the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
3. #UBER-A group of British Uber drivers took their employer to court in the Netherlands on Wednesday in a bid to get access to data the company collects about them.
The drivers say Uber determines the allocation of available rides and their fares based on information about their performance, behaviour and other personal traits it gathers through the app they have to use to do their job.
They demand full access to this information and the working of Uber's algorithms, as they say it ultimately decides how much money they earn and how they could do better.
4. #IBM:- International Business Machines Corp said on Wednesday Chief Executive Officer Arvind Krishna would take over as chairman from Jan. 1, replacing Ginni Rometty, who stepped down as its long-time CEO earlier this year.
Rometty, who was the tech pioneer's first woman CEO, would occasionally be asked to act as an independent contractor after her retirement, IBM said.
Before assuming the role of CEO in April, Krishna was head of IBM's cloud business and has been with the company since 1990.
5. #GOOGLE:-Staff on Google's Ethical AI research team on Wednesday demanded the company sideline a vice president and commit to greater academic freedom, escalating a confrontation with management following this month's termination of scientist Timnit Gebru.
The personnel called on Vice President Megan Kacholia to be removed from the team's management chain after she allegedly excluded Gebru's boss from the decision to fire her, according to an internal document seen by Reuters.
Gebru had questioned Google's demand for her to retract a paper describing harms from Google-like technology, and the company answered by saying it accepted her resignation.
The document also demanded an explanation of the dismissal, transparency into reviews of staff papers, and an investigation into how Google handles employee complaints about working conditions, like those Gebru raised while at the company.
1. #ALIBABA- Technology giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has facial recognition technology which can specifically pick out members of China's Uighur minority, surveillance industry researcher IPVM said in a report.
The report comes as human rights groups accuse China of forcing over 1 million Muslim Uighurs into labour camps, and call out firms suspected of complicity.
China has repeatedly denied forcing anyone into what it has called vocational training centres, and has also said the region of Xinjiang is under threat from Islamist militants.
Still, sensitivities have prompted caution among Chinese internet firms which often self-censor to avoid running afoul of a government which strictly controls online speech, and which last month published draft rules to police live streaming.
2. #TWITTER-Twitter Inc is reversing changes made to its retweet function intended to curb the spread of misinformation during the U.S. presidential election, the company said.
The microblogging site had in October made it difficult for users to retweet a tweet with misinformation and promoted the use of quote tweets, which included commentary from the user.
It had also imposed curbs including labeling and removal of tweets calling for people to interfere with the election process or implementation of results.
Twitter said it will no longer prompt quote tweets from the retweet icon. "Retweet functionality will be returning to the way it was before," the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
3. #UBER-A group of British Uber drivers took their employer to court in the Netherlands on Wednesday in a bid to get access to data the company collects about them.
The drivers say Uber determines the allocation of available rides and their fares based on information about their performance, behaviour and other personal traits it gathers through the app they have to use to do their job.
They demand full access to this information and the working of Uber's algorithms, as they say it ultimately decides how much money they earn and how they could do better.
4. #IBM:- International Business Machines Corp said on Wednesday Chief Executive Officer Arvind Krishna would take over as chairman from Jan. 1, replacing Ginni Rometty, who stepped down as its long-time CEO earlier this year.
Rometty, who was the tech pioneer's first woman CEO, would occasionally be asked to act as an independent contractor after her retirement, IBM said.
Before assuming the role of CEO in April, Krishna was head of IBM's cloud business and has been with the company since 1990.
5. #GOOGLE:-Staff on Google's Ethical AI research team on Wednesday demanded the company sideline a vice president and commit to greater academic freedom, escalating a confrontation with management following this month's termination of scientist Timnit Gebru.
The personnel called on Vice President Megan Kacholia to be removed from the team's management chain after she allegedly excluded Gebru's boss from the decision to fire her, according to an internal document seen by Reuters.
Gebru had questioned Google's demand for her to retract a paper describing harms from Google-like technology, and the company answered by saying it accepted her resignation.
The document also demanded an explanation of the dismissal, transparency into reviews of staff papers, and an investigation into how Google handles employee complaints about working conditions, like those Gebru raised while at the company.
TOP 5 STOCKS TO WATCHOUT:-
1.#ANT Group:- China's Ant Group on Thursday said it has received a meeting notice from regulators, and will strictly comply with all regulatory requirements.
China's financial watchdogs including the central bank and banking and insurance regulator said will conduct regulatory talks with Ant Group within the next few days, while the country's market regulator on Thursday said it has launched an investigation on the group for alleged monopoly conduct.
2. #SAP:- Survey-software seller Qualtrics International Inc, owned by business software group SAP, filed for a U.S. initial public offering of up to $100 million on Monday, with tech stocks largely outperforming the broader market this year.
Qualtrics, which SAP bought for $8 billion two years ago, will have two classes of common stock upon completion of the offering, with SAP America Inc set to own all 423.2 million Class B shares and remain the controlling shareholder.
The company also said it had applied to list its Class A common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol "XM" and expects the IPO price to be between $20 and $24 apiece.
Total revenue of Qualtrics, which gathers real-time feedback from customers to help analyse how a firm's products or services are performing, rose about 32% to $550 million in the nine months ended Sept. 30.
3. #IBM :- IBM Corp has agreed to pay $24.25 million to resolve a pair of investigations by the Federal Communications Commission(FCC) over subsidies awarded to connect schools and libraries to broadband.
IBM payment will resolve two FCC investigations that have spanned nearly 15 years over its alleged violations of "E-Rate" program rules in connection with New York City and El Paso school districts. Under the agreement, IBM agreed to return $24.25 million to the Universal Service Fund that funds the E-Rate program, but did not admit wrongdoing.
The FCC said its investigations found IBM had not satisfied the competitive bidding rules in New York for 2005-2008 and provided ineligible equipment and services in El Paso for 2001.
4. #NOKIA:- Telecom Italia has decided to retain Nokia as a supplier and reduce Huawei's share of a planned purchase of equipment for building a 5G network, three sources close to the matter told Reuters, amid pressure to exclude the Chinese firm on security concerns.
The United States has lobbied Italy and other European allies to avoid using Huawei's equipment alleging it could pose a security risk - a charge Huawei has rejected. Italy has so far declined to ban Huawei outright.
Former national phone company Telecom Italia (TIM) at the beginning of this year was considering dividing a supply contract for the radio access network (RAN) part of its 5G build-out between Huawei and Sweden's Ericsson.
5. #GOOGLE:- Alphabet Inc's Google this year moved to tighten control over its scientists' papers by launching a "sensitive topics" review, and in at least three cases requested authors refrain from casting its technology in a negative light, according to internal communications and interviews with researchers involved in the work.
Google's new review procedure asks that researchers consult with legal, policy and public relations teams before pursuing topics such as face and sentiment analysis and categorizations of race, gender or political affiliation, according to internal webpages explaining the policy.
"Advances in technology and the growing complexity of our external environment are increasingly leading to situations where seemingly inoffensive projects raise ethical, reputational, regulatory or legal issues," one of the pages for research staff stated. Reuters could not determine the date of the post, though three current employees said the policy began in June.
1.#ANT Group:- China's Ant Group on Thursday said it has received a meeting notice from regulators, and will strictly comply with all regulatory requirements.
China's financial watchdogs including the central bank and banking and insurance regulator said will conduct regulatory talks with Ant Group within the next few days, while the country's market regulator on Thursday said it has launched an investigation on the group for alleged monopoly conduct.
2. #SAP:- Survey-software seller Qualtrics International Inc, owned by business software group SAP, filed for a U.S. initial public offering of up to $100 million on Monday, with tech stocks largely outperforming the broader market this year.
Qualtrics, which SAP bought for $8 billion two years ago, will have two classes of common stock upon completion of the offering, with SAP America Inc set to own all 423.2 million Class B shares and remain the controlling shareholder.
The company also said it had applied to list its Class A common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol "XM" and expects the IPO price to be between $20 and $24 apiece.
Total revenue of Qualtrics, which gathers real-time feedback from customers to help analyse how a firm's products or services are performing, rose about 32% to $550 million in the nine months ended Sept. 30.
3. #IBM :- IBM Corp has agreed to pay $24.25 million to resolve a pair of investigations by the Federal Communications Commission(FCC) over subsidies awarded to connect schools and libraries to broadband.
IBM payment will resolve two FCC investigations that have spanned nearly 15 years over its alleged violations of "E-Rate" program rules in connection with New York City and El Paso school districts. Under the agreement, IBM agreed to return $24.25 million to the Universal Service Fund that funds the E-Rate program, but did not admit wrongdoing.
The FCC said its investigations found IBM had not satisfied the competitive bidding rules in New York for 2005-2008 and provided ineligible equipment and services in El Paso for 2001.
4. #NOKIA:- Telecom Italia has decided to retain Nokia as a supplier and reduce Huawei's share of a planned purchase of equipment for building a 5G network, three sources close to the matter told Reuters, amid pressure to exclude the Chinese firm on security concerns.
The United States has lobbied Italy and other European allies to avoid using Huawei's equipment alleging it could pose a security risk - a charge Huawei has rejected. Italy has so far declined to ban Huawei outright.
Former national phone company Telecom Italia (TIM) at the beginning of this year was considering dividing a supply contract for the radio access network (RAN) part of its 5G build-out between Huawei and Sweden's Ericsson.
5. #GOOGLE:- Alphabet Inc's Google this year moved to tighten control over its scientists' papers by launching a "sensitive topics" review, and in at least three cases requested authors refrain from casting its technology in a negative light, according to internal communications and interviews with researchers involved in the work.
Google's new review procedure asks that researchers consult with legal, policy and public relations teams before pursuing topics such as face and sentiment analysis and categorizations of race, gender or political affiliation, according to internal webpages explaining the policy.
"Advances in technology and the growing complexity of our external environment are increasingly leading to situations where seemingly inoffensive projects raise ethical, reputational, regulatory or legal issues," one of the pages for research staff stated. Reuters could not determine the date of the post, though three current employees said the policy began in June.