Donald Trump's paid maternity leave plan gets Hillary Clinton rejoinder

Donald Trump's paid maternity leave plan gets Hillary Clinton rejoinder

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has introduced an unorthodox childcare plan, becoming a rareRepublican calling for paid maternity leave.

Introduced on Tuesday by his daughter Ivanka, who asserted that childcare issues were at the "root of wage inequality by disproportionately affecting women", Trump tried to soften his image at an event held in Pennsylvania, a former stronghold for moderate Republicans that has trended Democratic in recent years, the Guardianreported.

Trump also asserted that "my opponent has no childcare plan". Clinton has in fact made a number of detailed proposals on childcare.

Clinton in June last year first outlined a programme for universal pre-kindergarten and in May this year proposed to cap childcare costs at ten per cent of household income and to introduce 12 weeks of paid family leave.

Maya Harris, a senior policy adviser to Clinton, described Trump's plan as "half-baked and completely out of touch". read full story >>>

Google to unveil Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones in October

Google to unveil Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones in October

Google will unveil its Pixel(Nexus) range of devices along with Daydream virtual reality (VR) and a new 4K compatible Chromecast to replace the currently available options on October 4, media reported on Tuesday.

Earlier reports pointed out that HTC is making this year's Nexus phones and there are two of them — Pixel and Pixel XL, code named Sailfish and Marlin, respectively.

"Google's Pixel XL has allegedly surfaced on a Geekbench benchmark listing recently, showcasing a couple of pieces of information that seem to confirm once more that the codename for the device is Marlin,"technology website reported on Tuesday.

Pixel XL is expected to have an aluminum unibody design, a rear-facing fingerprint scanner and a 5.5-inch screen, according to earlier leaks.

Pixel XL is rumoured Smartphones to pack quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor clocked at 1.59GHz paired up with 4GB of RAM and will be running on NMR1, a version of Android 7.0 Nougat operating system. (more)

Pfizer nears agreement to buy Medivation for $14 billion

Pfizer nears agreement to buy Medivation for $14 billion

US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is nearing a deal to buy US biotech firm Medivation, which specialises in cancer treatments, for nearly $14 billion, US media reported.

Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal said the deal could be made public as early as today. The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said it could be an all-cash transaction.

Pfizer's offer for the San Francisco, California-basedMedivation goes far beyond the company's market value of $11.1 billion. Medivation shares closed at $67.16 in Friday trading.

By purchasing Medivation, Pfizer would add to its portfolio the drug Xtandi, a promising treatment against prostate cancer that analysts estimate will generate some $1.33 billion in annual sales by 2020. Visit Here

Azim Premji and Shiv Nadar in Forbes list of 100 richest tech tycoons

Azim Premji and Shiv Nadar in Forbes list of 100 richest tech tycoons

Wipro Chairman Azim Premji and HCL co-founder Shiv Nadar are the only two billionaires from India in Forbes' list of the world's 100 richest people in technology, ranking in the top 20 ahead of Google boss Eric Schmidt and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.

The '100 Richest Tech Billionaires In The World 2016' list has been topped by Microsoft founder Bill Gates with an estimated fortune of USD 78 billion.

Premji ranks 13th on the list with a net worth of USD 16 billion and Nadar comes in on the 17th spot with USD 11.6 billion of net worth. Two Indian-American technology czars Symphony Technology Group CEO Romesh Wadhwani and founders of IT consulting and outsourcing company Syntel Bharat Desai and his wife Neerja Sethi are also on the list.

Forbes said Premji, who heads India's third-largest outsourcer, Wipro has been on a buying spree in the past year to boost growth. Azim Premji son Rishad, who heads strategy and sits on the board, also oversees Wipro's USD 100 million venture capital fund.

Nadar co-founded HCL, which is reportedly mulling a US listing, Forbes said adding that Nadar also owns HCL TalentCare, a skills-development firm that provides training to new graduates. His latest venture is a USD 500 million fund to invest in start ups and US healthcare tech firms. Read More

Read More On: News | Results | Auto | Engineering | Financials | Infra | IT | Oil & Gas | Telecom | Services |  

Facebook to live stream US Democratic, Republican conventions

Facebook to live stream US Democratic, Republican conventions

Social networking giant Facebook has partnered with the US television network ABC for a non-stop live streaming of both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.

The Republican National Convention started in Cleveland, Ohio on Monday night and will run till Thursday while the Democratic National Convention is set for July 25-28 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Not just livestreaming, Facebook will provide an in-depth coverage of both the events, reported on Monday.

Earlier, micro-blogging site Twitter had signed a deal with the US television network CBS to stream both the conventions.

Twitter has permission to broadcast the CBSN feed—the company's 24-hour digital news streaming service—and anyone online can watch for free even if they do not have a Twitter account. Read More

Twitter selling ad spots linked to NFL for over $50 million

Twitter selling ad spots linked to NFL for over $50 million

Micro-blogging website Twitter is planning to sell the ad packages linked to US National Football League (NFL) games streaming — which it purchased for $10 million back in April — for nearly $50 million, a media report said on Thursday.

Twitter paid for the right to stream 10 of the NFL Thursday night games and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey had hinted that this deal would help the company earn better traffic, tehnology website Re/Code reported.

Dorsey and COO Adam Bain were in France at the annual Cannes Lions ad festival this week, working to drum up business.

“These ads packages, which combine the ad inventory Twitter has around NFL, highlights that it also sold last year, plus the NFL game footage it bought this year, are selling between $2 million and $8 million per advertiser,” the report quoted a source as saying.

That range depends on the number of ads and whether or not they are shown during a game versus alongside other NFL content, the report said.

“Twitter wants to sell 10 to 15 of these packages. Twitter has already sold about 60% of this ad inventory,” Matt Derella, who runs North American sales for Twitter and is in charge of selling the NFL packages, was quoted as saying.

Twitter would get the same NBC or CBS game feed that people can watch on TV but it is still not clear how it will add a social component to the broadcast.

“We are going to marry the best of Twitter (with the NFL stream). So that would be that live experience as it is happening and that live conversation around Twitter. One flavor would be all the most authoritative analysts and players actually tweeting about the game… so that could be manually or algorithmically curated,” Derella added.

“Other users might just want the pure roar of the crowd and the unfiltered timeline. We are going to experiment with what is best,” he added. Click Here

Walmart rips up China online strategy, starts again with stake in Alibaba rival

Walmart rips up China online strategy, starts again with stake in Alibaba rival

Walmart Stores Inc has sold its Chinese online grocery store in return for a stake in the country's no. 2 e-commerce firm, ripping up its previous strategy in efforts to cure ailing sales in one of the world's toughest retail markets.

The deal will see the US grocery giant swap its Yihaodian platform for a 5% stake in Inc, worth about $1.5 billion by the firm's latest market value. The move also gives Walmart a ringside seat in bitter rivalry with Chinese e-commerce leader Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

The sell-off, announced on Monday, is a significant shift for Walmart in China, where it operates more than 400 bricks-and-mortar stores. The firm has been shuttering underperforming outlets and grappling with soft online sales in the world's second-biggest economy since it bought full control of Yihaodian in July last year, saying the site would play a leading role in its China strategy.

"The reality is that e-commerce is hyper-competitive in China and it is tough for any platform to make money," said Ben Cavender, Shanghai-based principal of China Market Research Group. "Selling up in return for a 5% stake in is a good way of staying in the space while reducing the risk."

The deal echoes a strategy adopted by other international retailers and consumer goods makers - selling a local unit for a stake in a Chinese partner in order to prosper in a cut-throat marketplace. France's Danone SA sold its Dumex brand last year to raise its stake in local dairy giant China Mengniu Dairy Co Ltd.

Walmart 's tie-up gives it access to nationwide logistics and warehousing networks, as well as its over 150 million users - helping expand the US firm's reach with China's increasingly tech-savvy middle class.

For the deal could provide a boost in its intensifying competition in the fast-growing online grocery business with Alibaba - a market set to boom to nearly $180 billion by 2020 from $41 billion last year, according to data from food research body IGD. Read More

Facebook introduces 360-degree photos

Facebook introduces 360-degree photos

Social media giant Facebook on Thursday introduced a new feature that enables users upload and view 360-degrees photos right in the News Feed, a media report said.

"Along with 360 photos from your friends and family, you can discover stunning new 360 photos on Facebook from public figures, publishers, and other organizations," technology website The Verge quoted Andy Huang, product manager, Facebook, as saying.

"360 photos give you the ability to take the stage in front of 100,000 fans with Paul McCartney, get behind-the-scenes access to the Supreme Court via The New York Times,visit the International Space Station with NASA, and more," he said.

After capturing a panorama or 360-degree photos with smartphone camera or a third-party app, users can now post the photo directly to the social network, where it will be converted into an image that can be viewed on desktop or any smartphone, the report added.

Users will be able to identify the photos by the compass icon floating on the upper right hand corner of the image.

All they need to do is click and drag on the image to explore the complete environment, or simply move their smartphone around.

Protests turn violent outside Trump's rally in New Mexico; clashes erupt

Protests turn violent outside Trump's rally in New Mexico; clashes erupt

Donald Trump's rally in New Mexico turned violent as anti-Trump demonstrators clashed with police, hurling rocks and burning clothes at officers, the latest scuffle to hit the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's campaign.

The "unlawful assembly" went on rampage, lighted fires and threw rocks at the police officers and their horses outside Trump's rally at a convention centre in New Mexico's Albuquerque. The police resorted to launching smoke bombs to disperse the violent crowd which overturned barricades and hurled rocks.

The protesters disrupted the 69-year-old New York-based real estate tycoon's speech several times yesterday. Most of the protesters were escorted out one by one.

"Go ahead, get them out of here," Donald Trump told one of them.

However, the police had a tough time in controlling the demonstrators who were protesting against the policies and rhetorics of Trump.

"This is an unlawful assembly," Albuquerque police spokesman Simon Drobik told protesters over a loudspeaker.Read more.