Amazon Japan offices raided in competition probe

Amazon CloudFront Edge

Amazon Japan said its offices have been raided by the country’s fair trade regulator on suspicion of anti-trust violations. The online retailer is suspected of asking suppliers to shoulder costs incurred for selling their products at a discount, according to media reports. The firm said it is cooperating with the investigation by Japan’s Fair Trade Commission (JTFC), Reuters reported. JTFC declined to provide more details on the case when contacted by the BBC. It’s not the first time Amazon Japan has been investigated over anti-trust breaches. In 2016, JTFC raided…

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Google will now ban ads on cryptocurrencies and related products

Alphabet Google said on March 14 it will ban advertisements for cryptocurrencies and related content starting in June. Under the new policy, the company will ban ads for unregulated or speculative financial products like binary options, cryptocurrency and financial spread betting among others. In a separate blog post, Google said it took down 3.2 billion ads that violated its advertising policies in 2017, nearly double the number of ads it removed in 2016. “Improving the ads experience across the web, whether that’s removing harmful ads or intrusive ads, will continue…

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Alibaba tech company to Invest over $15billion in global initiative

Alibaba Group today revealed its plans to invest more than $15 billion over the next three years into a global research and development initiative called Alibaba DAMO Academy. The Chinese tech giant said the program, which it is currently recruiting 100 researchers, will help it reach its goal of serving two billion customers and creating 100 million jobs by 2036, while also “increasing technological collaboration worldwide.” Discovery, adventure, momentum and outlook (DAMO) Academy  will be led by Alibaba Group chief technology officer Jeff Zhang and start by opening labs in seven…

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Facebook making its workforce more diverse

Diversity is core of business at Facebook.  According to an update by the social media company, diversity enables them to build better products, make better decisions and help bring the world closer together. While most tech companies struggle to make their workplaces more diverse and less dominated by white and male employees, Facebook has managed to hire more women and minorities in the last year in almost every category it tracks. Of course, the improvements are still very incremental, but the improvements show that Facebook’s efforts, led by executive diversity…

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Google leaks Microsoft’s Internet Explorer bug

Google has disclosed a still-active vulnerability in the Edge and Internet explorer browsers that Microsoft apparently ignored for more than three months. The Internet explorer bug was reported to Microsoft by a Google engineer and given 90 days to eliminate the error. The flaw was leaked as Microsoft failed to comply with the appointed timeframe. The flaw fundamentally allows ill-intended individuals to build websites that cause the browsers to spontaneously crash and  to take control of your browser in certain cases, BBC reports. The flaw has to do with the way…

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Google and Microsoft agree crackdown on illegal downloads

Vivo

US tech giants Google and Microsoft have reached a truce with the Government and the creative industries in a bitter and long-running battle over links to pirated films and music online. The search engine operators have signed up to a clampdown that will see the UK’s copyright watchdog monitor the search results they provide for unlawful websites. The agreement follows years of campaigning by record labels and film studios, which have accused Google and Microsoft of turning a blind eye to piracy and dragging their feet over measures to protect…

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A Startup Has Developed An Artificial Intelligence That Can compete with Google

artificial intelligence

There is something familiar about fears that new machines will takeover human activities. Today, the machinery question is back with a vengeance. The entire tech industry has fallen hard for a branch of artificial intelligence called deep learning. The AI involves throwing massive amounts of data at a neural network to train the system to understand things like speech and images.The deep learning allows systems to learn and improve by crunching lots of examples rather than being explicitly programmed. Acording to Forbes, a new startup coming out of stealth called Gamalon , claims…

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BlackBerry, Microsoft and the Ever-Smarter Connected Car

Microsoft

BlackBerry announced that its turnaround was finished, and Microsoft finally provided some information on its new connected car deliverables. CEO John Chen excitedly pointed out that BlackBerry had displaced Microsoft in Ford and announced a strategic initiative to work more closely with Microsoft’s Azure platform on BlackBerry’s own market-leading QNX car operating system. That showcased not only the massive changes in both companies, but also the really strange way this market is evolving. With all the focus on the coming autonomous car and on BlackBerry’s old phone business, most don’t…

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Google Gets Rid of 1.7 Billion Bad Ads

Google

Google has reported that it removed 1.7 billion bad advertisements from its various sites in 2016, more than double the prior year’s totals. The firm took several steps to crack down on the deceptive advertising, including updating its policies to protect users from “misleading and predatory offers.” It also beefed up its technology to help identify misleading ads and remove them, according to Scott Spencer, Google’s director of product management, sustainable ads. The director noted that free and open Web is a vital resource for individuals and businesses around the…

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40 law enforcement agencies raids seize servers hosting ransomware & botnets

Legal raids in five countries seize botnet servers, sinkhole 800,000+ domains reports ARS. A botnet that has served up phishing attacks and at least 17 different malware families to victims for much of this decade has been taken down in a coordinated effort by an international group of law enforcement agencies and security firms. Law enforcement officials seized command and control servers and took control of more than 800,000 Internet domains used by the botnet, dubbed “Avalanche,” which has been in operation in some form since at least late 2009.…

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