Monday, November 18

Tag: mark zuckerberg

Facebook Nears 2 Billion Users Mark: Report
News

Facebook Nears 2 Billion Users Mark: Report

Popular social network Facebook is set to become the first 2 billion-user company this year, according to a media report which attributed its "impressive" user growth to "promotional data plans" from countries like India. Facebook had 1.86 billion monthly active users as of the end of 2016, up from 1.79 billion the previous quarter and 1.59 billion a year earlier, the company said in its fourth quarter earnings report. Chief Financial Officer David Wehner said Facebook added more users this quarter compared to a year earlier than any quarter since the company went public in 2012. Wehner attributed the "impressive" user growth to "promotional data plans" from third parties in countries like India as well as Internet.org, Facebook's free stripped-down Internet offering in developing...
Facebook’s Oculus Ordered Pay $500 Million in Suit on Stolen Tech
Tech

Facebook’s Oculus Ordered Pay $500 Million in Suit on Stolen Tech

A US jury has ordered Facebook and creators of its Oculus Rift to pay USD 500 million to gaming software firm ZeniMax in a lawsuit that claimed the virtual reality technology was stolen. The Texas jury made the award yesterday in a trial in which Oculus was accused of basing its Rift headset on technology stolen from ZeniMax's virtual reality software, court documents showed. The lawsuit claimed Oculus founder Palmer Luckey and his colleagues developed the virtual reality gear using source code illegally obtained from the gaming firm. Luckey was ordered to pay USD 50 million of the award and another former Oculus executive, Brendan Iribe USD 150 million. The two executives were accused of violating a non-disclosure agreement with ZeniMax and copying the source code and other do...
Mark Zuckerberg Criticises Donald Trump on Immigration Limit, Gave Example of His Wife
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Mark Zuckerberg Criticises Donald Trump on Immigration Limit, Gave Example of His Wife

America is a nation of immigrants and should be proud of it, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said as he criticised President Donald Trump's decision to severely limit immigrants and refugees from certain Muslim-majority countries. "Like many of you, I'm concerned about the impact of the recent executive orders signed by President Trump," Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page. "We need to keep this country safe, but we should do that by focusing on people who actually pose a threat ... We should also keep our doors open to refugees and those who need help. That's who we are." "We should also keep our doors open to refugees and those who need help. That's who we are. Had we turned away refugees a few decades ago, Priscilla's family wouldn't be here today," he wrote of his wife, Priscilla ...
Ex-Xiaomi India Head Hugo Barra Appoint as a Facebook Virtual Reality Head
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Ex-Xiaomi India Head Hugo Barra Appoint as a Facebook Virtual Reality Head

Social media giant Facebook has announced it had recruited Hugo Barra, who recently quit a top position with Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi, as its new head of virtual reality. "I'm excited that Hugo Barra is joining Facebook to lead all of our virtual reality efforts, including our Oculus team," CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on his personal Facebook page yesterday. "Hugo shares my belief that virtual and augmented reality will be the next major computing platform. They'll enable us to experience completely new things and be more creative than ever before," Zuckerberg wrote. "Hugo is going to help build that future, and I'm looking forward to having him on our team." Barra caused a sensation in 2013 by leaving Google to become a vice president at Xiaomi. The firm, created in 2010...
Facebook’s Zuckerberg Discloses Steps to Fight Fake News
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Facebook’s Zuckerberg Discloses Steps to Fight Fake News

Facebook Inc, facing withering criticism for failing to stem a flood of phony news articles in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election, is taking a series of steps to weed out hoaxes and other types of false information, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post Friday evening. Facebook has long insisted that it is a technology company and not a publisher, and rejects the idea that it should be held responsible for the content that its users circulate on the platform. Just after the election, Zuckerberg said the notion that fake or misleading news on Facebook had helped swing the election to Donald Trump was a "crazy idea." Zuckerberg then said last Saturday that more than 99 percent of what people see on Facebook is authentic, calling "only a very small amount" fa...
Facebook Sets $6 Billion Buyback; Accounting Chief to Leave
News

Facebook Sets $6 Billion Buyback; Accounting Chief to Leave

Social media giant Facebook on Friday set a $6 billion buyback programme for its Class A shares, beginning in the first quarter of 2017. Facebook's shares were up 1.1% at $118.24 in after-hours trading. The company had a market value of about $337 billion at close. The company also said Chief Accounting Officer Jas Athwal had resigned, effective Feb. 17. Athwal has spent nearly nine years at the company and was formerly the director of revenue at Yahoo. The company said it planned to launch a search for a replacement.
Facebook Has Invested $250M in VR “Oculus” To Make it More Social
FUNDING

Facebook Has Invested $250M in VR “Oculus” To Make it More Social

Zuckerberg said his company has invested $250 million to back developers building new games and other virtual-reality programs for Oculus, and is vowing to double that amount. The investment will make virtual reality more social as the industry gets more crowded. Facebook's Oculus division is hoping to distinguish its offerings from other leading tech companies whose selling their VR products. At an event on Thursday, the company announced a long-awaited shipping date - Dec. 6 - for its Oculus Touch hand controllers. In a two-hour presentation, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, meanwhile, donned one of those headsets for an onstage demonstration in which he visited Mars, played virtual cards with two other people, then made a video call to his wife while standing in a digital simulation ...
Facebook Rolls Out Light Messenger App For Emerging Markets
News

Facebook Rolls Out Light Messenger App For Emerging Markets

Facebook Inc launched a stripped down version of its popular Messenger app for emerging markets on Monday as it seeks to expand its international footprint. Messenger Lite, which uses less data and is designed to work in areas with slower internet connections, will roll out in Kenya, Tunisia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Venezuela. Facebook said it will expand to other countries in the coming months. Facebook has largely saturated Western markets, including North America and Europe, and has set its sights on developing countries, in part by rolling out "lite" versions of its main Facebook app and now Messenger, which have fewer capabilities than the main apps. Users with Android phones will still be able to use the core features of Messenger, including the ability to send text messages...
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Pledge $3 Billion to Cure All Diseases
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Pledge $3 Billion to Cure All Diseases

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan will spend USD 3 billion over the next ten years on their ambitious goal aimed at helping to eradicate all diseases by the end of this century. The goal is to "work together to cure, prevent or manage all diseases within our childrens lifetime," Chan, who is a pediatrician, said during an event in San Francisco for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the couples philanthropic group. Speaking through tears, Chan recalled telling parents their child had an incurable disease or could not be revived, experiences she said made her even more determined to work with scientists and engineers to build new tools that can save lives by the end of the century. The investments will include creating research tools from software to hardware to...
Facebook CEO Says Group Will Not Become a Media Company
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Facebook CEO Says Group Will Not Become a Media Company

Facebook will not become a media company, its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Monday, telling students the firm would remain a technology platform. An increasing number of users are turning to social media networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, to find their news, but Zuckerberg said his firm had no ambitions to become a content provider. "No, we are a tech company, not a media company," said Zuckerberg, after a young Italian asked him whether Facebook intended to become a news editor. While acknowledging the role Facebook has in supplying users with news through their connections and stressing the advantages of obtaining information from different parts of the world, Zuckerberg said Facebook was "a technology company, we build the tools, we do not produce any content". ...
Mark Zuckerberg Donates $95M Facebook Shares in Charity
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Mark Zuckerberg Donates $95M Facebook Shares in Charity

IANS- In the first gesture to fulfill his pledge that he and his wife made last year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has sold $95 million of the social networking giant's shares. According to a US regulatory filing, The Chan Zuckerberg Foundation and CZI Holdings LLC sold Facebook shares worth $95 million before taxes, Forbes reported on Saturday. The sales likely netted more than $85 million after capital gains taxes, the report added. The couple plans to give away no more than $1 billion worth of stock each year through 2018. Last December, Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan pledged to donate 99% of their Facebook shares - about $45 billion - to advance human potential and promote equality for children. Declaring the "Chan Zuckerberg Initiative" as they welcomed their first...
Facebook Investors Announced New Share Class To Remove Zuckerberg’s Control over Facebook
News

Facebook Investors Announced New Share Class To Remove Zuckerberg’s Control over Facebook

<span class="articleLocation" style="transform: translate3d(0px, 0px, 0px);">Facebook Inc shareholders approved a proposal to create a new class of non-voting shares, a move aimed at letting Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg give away his wealth without relinquishing control of the social media company he founded. The company's plan to issue two "Class C" shares for each Class A and Class B share held by shareholders, in what is effectively a 3-for-1 stock split, was approved by Facebook shareholders at the company's annual general meeting on Monday. The Class C shares will be publicly traded under a new symbol. Zuckerberg said in December that he intended to put 99 percent of his Facebook shares into a new philanthropy project focusing on human potential and equality. ...