Alphabet Inc | Pixr8 News

Now Its Official! Walmart Acquires 77% of Flipkart for $16 Billion

9May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Now Its Official! Walmart Acquires 77% of Flipkart for $16 Billion

Walmart. Inc has officially acquired Flipkart for $16 billion in a deal that soared the valuation of Indian e-commerce platform to over $20 billion, making it the biggest e-commerce acquisition ever globally. The brick-and-mortar company acquired 77% of the Indian e-tail business. The news was also confirmed by previous Flipkart investor, Softbank CEO, Masayoshi Son who also stated that the Japanese conglomerate sold out the 20% stakes it bought last year for $2.6 Bn at $4 Bn, therefore making a 60% profit on its initial investment. Out of the 50 existing investors in Flipkart, only Tiger Global Management and Tencent are expected to prolong their association with the e-commerce giant. This is also the first time that a US company bought out an entire online platform in India, driven...

Flipkart Sell 75% stake to Walmart for $15 Billion

4May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Flipkart Sell 75% stake to Walmart for $15 Billion

Flipkart, the Indian e-commerce giant came to terms with American brick-and-mortar mammoth, Walmart, to sell an equity stake of about 75% for $15 billion, according to a report from Bloomberg which cited anonymous sources. SoftBank, the Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company that holds 20% stake in the e-commerce business agreed to sell its shares of the company to the American firm. Bloomberg added that Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc is also participating alongside Walmart in this deal. Terms are still being negotiated and the deal can even fall apart at any moment, Bloomberg reported. However, the deal is expected to close within the next 10 days. None of the companies agreed to comment on the matter. Earlier this week, Indian TV channel CNBC-TV18 reported ...

Amazon becomes the 2nd most valuable company in the world

21Mar By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

News

Amazon becomes the 2nd most valuable company in the world

Amazon just took Alphabet’s 2nd place in the standings of most valuable company in the world while Apple remains topper of the list boasting a valuation of $889 billion. The e-commerce giant rose by 2.7 percent on Tuesday and thus lifted its stock market value to $768 billion and $1,586.51 per share. Parent company of Google, Alphabet fell by 0.4 percent and now possesses a valuation of $764.5 billion additionally, since bagging an all-time high of 1,197 per share on Jan 29, their stock value fell by 8.5%. This achievement comes a few weeks after Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos came first in Forbes annual billionaires list with a total wealth of $112 billion and thereby becoming the first American possessing more than $100 billion. All U.S tech mega-giants have competed vigor...

Google Faces Its First “Right To Be Forgotten” Trial in England

20Jan By PriyankaNo Comments

News

Google Faces Its First “Right To Be Forgotten” Trial in England

The search engine giant, Google Inc is set for its first battle in a London court over the "right to be forgotten" in two cases. This is the first time that the court in England will be dealing with the matter of Google's personal privacy and public interest. The case is filed by two businessmen (anonymous) who want the search engine to take down the information of their older convictions, Bloomberg reported. One of the men had been found guilty of conspiracy to account falsely, while the other of conspiracy to intercept communications, said Judge Matthew Nicklin at a pre-trial hearing Thursday. The convictions highlighted are old and presently covered under an English law designed to rehabilitate offenders- saying they can effectively be ignored. With a few exceptions, they don’t...

Uber Should Have Given Court An Ex-employee’s Letter About ‘Fraud And Theft’ In Waymo Case

16Dec By reutersNo Comments

USA

Uber Should Have Given Court An Ex-employee’s Letter About ‘Fraud And Theft’ In Waymo Case

Ride hailing company Uber was obligated to turn over to a U.S. federal judge a letter from a former employee that told of the company’s “fraud and theft” and mentioned evidence of stolen trade secrets nailed “like a scalp” to the wall, a court official said Friday. Special master, John Cooper, assigned to a lawsuit against Uber Technologies Inc by Alphabet Inc’s self-driving car unit, Waymo, released a report on Friday stating the company should have produced the letter and was wrong in keeping it from the court. The letter, from former Uber security analyst Richard Jacobs alleging Uber engaged in illegal and unethical competitive tactics and had stolen trade secrets, is at the heart of Waymo’s lawsuit against Uber. The letter was sent to Uber’s in-house lawyer in May and shared ...

13Dec By reutersNo Comments

CHINA

Google Launching Artificial Intelligence Research Center In China

Alphabet Inc’s Google said on Wednesday it is opening an artificial intelligence (AI) research center in China to target the country’s local talent, even as the U.S. search firm’s products remain blocked in the country. Google said in a statement the research center is the first of its kind in Asia and will comprise a small team operating out of its existing office in Beijing. Chinese policy makers have voiced strong support for AI research and development in the country, but have imposed increasingly strict rules on foreign firms in the past year, including new censorship restrictions. Google’s search engine is banned in the Chinese market along with its app store, email and cloud storage services. China’s cyber regulators say restrictions on foreign media and internet platforms ...

Hyperlocal Tasks Management App dunzo Bags $12.3M From Google

5Dec By RishabhNo Comments

FUNDING

Hyperlocal Tasks Management App dunzo Bags $12.3M From Google

Alphabet Inc's tech giant Google has led a $12.3 million round in Bangalore based Dunzo Digital Pvt Ltd owned daily tasks management app Dunzo, ET reported. The round also saw participation from its existing investors Blume Ventures and Aspada Investment Advisors, a person familiar with the development told the source. The investment is part of Google's Next Billion Users (NBU) push. The startup, which is present only in Bengaluru right now, plans to expand to other cities across India. "We want to expand to top 5-6 cities by end of 2018 and scale up from 1 lakh transactions a month right now to 1 lakh transactions a day," Biswas told ET. dunzo provides hyper local services like employ its app for an assortment of errands such as pick up food or grocery from that don't have deli...

YouTube To Expand Teams Reviewing Extremist Content

5Dec By reutersNo Comments

News

YouTube To Expand Teams Reviewing Extremist Content

Alphabet Inc’s YouTube said on Monday it plans to add more people next year to review and remove violent or extremist content on the video platform. YouTube is taking stern actions to protect its users against inappropriate content with stricter policies and larger enforcement teams, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said in a blog post. “We are also taking aggressive action on comments, launching new comment moderation tools and in some cases shutting down comments altogether,” Wojcicki said. The goal is to bring the total number of people across Google working to address content that might violate its policies to over 10,000 in 2018, she said. YouTube last week updated its recommendation feature to spotlight videos users are likely to find the most gratifying, brushing aside concerns ...

Tech Lords Lost A Fortune In Today’s Wipeout

30Nov By RishabhNo Comments

BUSINESS

Tech Lords Lost A Fortune In Today’s Wipeout

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he billionaire founders of the top tech giants- Facebook Inc, Amazon Inc, Netflix and Google's owner Alphabet Inc lost a fortune of $7.6 billion net on Wednesday as the Nasdaq 100 suffered the worst drop in the past three months. Among these the company that suffered the most was Facebook, whose founder Mark fell $2.6 billion alone as per the source Bloomberg. This drop also affected Amazon founder Jeff Bezos that caused him to slip below the $100 billion figure which he recently acquired, breaking Bill Gates record of 1999. The shares of Amazon.com Inc tumbled $2.5 billion off his net worth. The American entertainment company Netflix founder Reed Hastings fell $133 million while multinational conglomerate Alphabet Inc founder Larry Page and Sergey Brin around ...

Lyft Raises Additional $500M On Top Of $1B

24Nov By RishabhNo Comments

FUNDING

Lyft Raises Additional $500M On Top Of $1B

Uber's hard core rival Lyft is seeking an additional cherry on top funding of $500 million, over and above $1 billion it raised in a round led by Alphabet's venture arm CapitalG last month. This has raised the bar of its valuation to $11.5 billion in comparison to previous $7.5 billion. The funding is not yet been closed and this $500 million is an extension of its previous round. This funding will be utilized to develop its passenger and driver products, the company told the source- Axios. The funding comes at a critical point where it is trying to expand outside U.S., with a launch scheduled in December in Toronto and Hamilton in Canada. Lyft has been focusing on its growth this year, aiming to cover 95% of the US population with more than a hundred new market additions. ...

Twitter Overstated Its Monthly Users Figures For 3 Years

27Oct By PriyankaNo Comments

USA

Twitter Overstated Its Monthly Users Figures For 3 Years

Twitter said on Thursday that it overstated its monthly user numbers since 2014 after accidentally including third-party application's data in its count. The revelation came when the company reported that its net loss had slowed in the third quarter and that the number of daily active users had risen by 14 per cent. The disclosure, however, could further damage Twitter's reputation as the company criticizes Russia's role in its efforts to interfere in the presidential election and complains about what critics have called scattershot efforts to prevent abuse and harassment on its platform, and skepticism among some investors, who are concerned that global growth in users is falling. At least initially investors were not particularly worried about the excessive number of users. Twit...

Google Offers Bug Bounty To Clean Up Mobile Apps

20Oct By reutersNo Comments

News

Google Offers Bug Bounty To Clean Up Mobile Apps

Google is offering security experts a bounty to identify Android app flaws as the Alphabet Inc unit seeks to wipe out bugs from its Google Play store. Each flaw will score at least $1,000 under the programme announced on Thursday to back up automated checks that have failed to block malware and other problems that security experts say infect the 8-year-old app store far more than Apple Inc’s rival App Store. Google will partner with HackerOne, a bug bounty programme management website, to target a list of apps and flaws such as those that allow a hacker to redirect a user to a phishing website or infect a gadget with a virus. Software scans cannot match a person’s ability to discover “a truly creative hack,” Vineet Buch, director of product management for Google Play Apps and Game...