Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Excites Users With Smarter Sharing, Suggestions And Shared Libraries

Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) is excited that it has been able to achieve so much over the years. Today it unveils its new sharing functionality in Google Photos. To be more specific, the top provider will be launching its AI-powered Suggested Sharing feature that it will provide together with Shared Libraries.

 The high end provider is seeking to transform the Google Photos app in such a way that it will become a more social experience, rather than just a personal collection of photo memories. It goes without saying that it will be a more exciting experience to the various users that subscribe to providers wide array of services.

According to Techcrunch.com, the different competing companies across the world have made efforts to look out for ways to leverage technology in order to get users to share the photos snapped on their smartphone with others. Alphabet Inc is leading towards achieving this success, and this follows numerous efforts by other rivals in the industry who unfortunately failed.

Google and Facebook, Inc (NASDAQ:FB) are the first companies globally to showcase great progress in this area. This success has been linked to their great employment of technologies like facial recognition and AI, combined with sizable user bases. This gives users quite an easy time considering that they are not compelled to rebuild their social network in some startup’s new app.

Facebook for instance, has Moments, which is capable of figuring out who’s in the photos on your phone. It moves ahead to group the photos into albums after which it prompts you to share them by simply making a mere click.

Google on its part has Google Photos which consists of a tool which effectively backs up all your photos and eventually storing them in the cloud. It is crucial to pinpoint the associated powerful virtual assistant.

A lot of people do not understand the function of the assistant. It performs roles such as the turning of your photos into collages, movies and animations. It is an amazing experience for the users since they can look back on past memories. Also, the idea of having organized photos is a great one.

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Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Glasses Will Be Bigger Than The iPhone, Analyst Gene Munster Says

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) will be launched by 2020 and are expected to presents stiff competition to iPhones. This is according to Loup Ventures’ Gene Munster. Munster, who enjoys a large audience from many of Apple watches, said the Apple Glasses will be an augmented reality (AR) wearable that would let users view digital content on top of the real world including information that users currently rely on iPhones to provide.

According to Munster, iPhone will hit its peak in 2019 before starting to decline after the introduction of Apple Glasses. Munster says iPhone revenue will grow at 15% in 2017 financial year and will account for 64% of the total revenue.

However Munster does not explain why sales might drop off, but the reason might be simple. Augmented reality glasses could offer features that are redundant on an iPhone, allowing users to interact with apps right on their faces without having to pull out an iPhone. He however says that iPhone revenues will start sinking by around 3% to 4% year on year between 2020 and 2022, with unit sales falling up to 2%.

According to Munster, Apple Glasses are expected to be the next big product from Apple. He adds that in the next 10 years, iPhone will still be on the market but with much reduced market share due to competition from Apple Glasses. Apple has in no way confirmed it’s working on smart glasses, but has discussed how it believes AR will play an important role in the future of technology.

Reports have however said that Apple plans to make augmented reality a key feature of its new mobile operating system long before 2020. It showed off some AR capabilities at the WWDC keynote earlier this month, when it also debuted its ARKit platform for software developers to create AR apps for iOS.

Apple is also said to have acquired SensoMotoric Instruments, a German company that makes “eye-tracking” technology, including glasses. Apple is however yet to confirm the reports. If Apple comes out with its own glasses, it won’t be the first big tech company to launch its own eyewear. Google debuted Google Glass in 2013

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Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) Expands Paid Leave For Family Caregivers

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is expanding its employee’s paid leave who need to take of a sick relative. The company is now offering four weeks of paid leave with an eight additional weeks unpaid time. The company was previously offering 12 weeks of unpaid leave. Workers always use this time to look after their sick or elderly family member.

The new benefits which will apply to workers who have a close relative suffering a critical health problem as defined by the Family Medical Leave Act was disclosed through a blog post on LinkedIn, the company’s chief people officer Kathleen Hogan.

This benefit is now available to Microsoft workers in 22 countries and will be spread out globally in the coming six months. The company has a workforce of around 121,000 globally.

Two years ago, consulting firm Deloitte announced that its employees will be offered 16 weeks of paid family care leave. Early this year Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) expanded its employee benefits and included 20 days of paid leave to allow its employees to grieve the loss of a family member. The company also offered six weeks of paid leave to look after sick relatives.

Many tech companies offer discretionary time off or unlimited paid time off (PTO). According to Challenger Gray & Christmas, a Chicago firm that tracks employment and benefits trends this time can be used for family care. Of these companies include Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) and HubSpot Inc (NYSE:HUBS).

LinkedIn which was bought by Microsoft last year and which focuses on social networking has been offering its employees in the U.S six weeks of paid family leave since 2014. In Microsoft’s case, the company is offering paid time off that is separate from other vacation time or holidays that its employees get. Challenger, Gray & Christmas CEO John Challenger says many companies are increasingly becoming concerned about recruiting and retaining top talents. He adds that many companies are helping their employees strike a balance between work and life.

The move by Microsoft to post this benefit publicly may be motivated by the move where many companies compare benefits offered by several competing companies before making career decisions. Many companies are keen at recruiting and retaining their employees.

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Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) Excited After Being Named A Leader In Access Management In The 2017 Gartner Magic Quadrant

Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) is today excited to announce that it has been named a leader in Gartner’s inaugural “Magic Quadrant for Access Management, Worldwide 2017” report¹.The top company says that clinching the top position wasn’t easy and that it took the exceptional service enhancements introduced by Oracle Identity Cloud Service in the course of this particular year.

The senior vice president, Identity and Security at Oracle, Peter Barker, while recently addressing a number of top news reporters said, “Our goal has been to deliver a suite of security solutions that customers can adapt and scale to help secure their digital business transformation. Oracle Identity Cloud Service is a core part of Oracle’s Identity-based Security Operations Center (SOC) framework that provides customers with an adaptive, machine learning-based security architecture.”

He saw the recognition as some form of credit to Oracle’s dedication to building an elaborate portfolio of PaaS security solutions, which is indeed an integral part of Oracle Cloud Platform.

According to Yahoo.com, Gartner narrowed down to evaluating vendors with regard to the ability they showcased in line with the provision of the access management (AM) functionalities across multiple use cases as well as over a wide array of geographies and industries. The perception by customers was important and providing real value for money was indeed something that needed to be given major focus.

Some trusted reports indicate that Leaders in the AM market are usually associated with enormous customer bases. They deliver feature sets that fit into the needs of the various customers. Over the years, the various leaders have continued to showcase strong vision and execution for anticipated requirements related to technology and the mechanism of delivery.

Eventually, they have provided evidence of how AM plays a role in a collection of related or adjacent product offerings. These leaders care about the needs of the various customers and have done a remarkable task in the demonstration of solid customer satisfaction with overall AM capabilities.

Gartner has affirmed that AM usually applies to technologies which majorly rely on the control engines in the provision of centralized authentication.

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As Yahoo! Inc (INDEXNYSEGIS:YHQ)’s Partnership With AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) Unwinds, Users Need To Switch Email Addresses

As one of the steps to finalize the corporate merger of Aol and As Yahoo! Inc (INDEXNYSEGIS:YHQ), it looks like Yahoo accounts will not be accessible through AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) email addresses.

The move has led to a lot of discontent among net neutrality advocates. This however seem more less like creating fenced gardens and more of cleaning up previous commitments together with pre-existing partnerships.

Although AT&T customers will experience some inconveniences, the whole matter is more than just net neutrality and more of getting those corporate deals moving. Basically, although unwelcome, the deal seems to be undoing the previous deal between the two companies where AT&T domains were used as quasi-Yahoo accounts which would also incorporate Tumblr. Customers who have been affected by the new move will be required to migrate their email addresses to something with a completely new domain.

AT&T Inc has signed a 15 year agreement with Yahoo Inc which is poised to initiate the evolution of the internet. The partnership will involve a number of undertakings ranging from selling high-speed broadband to selling high-speed broadband to competing against AOL dial-up service.

In a statement, AT&T said it had awarded the tender to host its mobile and web portals to Synacor Inc. Synacor Inc is not so famous outside the telecom industry. The deal will shift many of AT&T’s business away from Yahoo. In a statement, AT&T said Synacor will now be responsible for managing its next-generation AT&T-branded applications and att.net portal. The company added that Yahoo will continue to host emails for its customers. Yahoo’s spokeswoman said AT&T will remain a valued partner but declined to give additional details.

The revenue-sharing agreement between the Internet pioneer and the telecom giant had lost most of its cachet over the years due to a changing web landscape.  However, the death of the partnership seem to have at the inappropriate time for Yahoo which is currently in talks to be acquired by bidders including AT&T’s fiercest competitor Verizon Communications Inc.

According B. Riley & Co’s analyst Sameet Sinha, the partnership may have generated annual revenues amounting to $100 for Yahoo.

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Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Revives Google Glass With New Update In Nearly Three Years

Google has unveiled a new software update for its augmented reality headset Google Glass. The update comes as a surprise given that the tech giant shelved the project in 2015. The new update dubbed ‘XE23’ adds Bluetooth support that allows users to pair their headsets with Bluetooth input devices including keyboards, mice and controllers.

Google Glass Update

The update is way overdue given that it addresses long-standing complaints about the device’s connectivity deficiencies. Users can now have notifications displayed both on their Android Wear as well as on the headset, in addition to bug fixes and performance improvements.

 Google has also issued a new update for the ‘MyGlass’ app that runs the augmented reality headset. The update makes the headset compatible with the latest version of the Android operating system. The update also comes with power management policies that allow users to manage how the app operates to manage battery power usage.

It is evidently clear that Google did not abandon Google Headset completely but was working on it in the background. The device was first sold online as part of the ‘Open Beta’ program that the company was using to test it as a concept. Closure of the Explorer program and Glass Website in 2015 fueled doubts about the headset’s future.

Competition

Speculation is already rife that Google is working on a new version of the headset. Such a move would not come as a surprise given the way virtual reality headsets have become popular. HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Play Station VR are already fighting for market share as the augmented reality space continues to grow in popularity.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is reportedly developing an AR headset that will feature motion sensors and DC motors that produce sound. Snap Inc. (NYSE:SNAP) is another tech giant believed to be working on its own AR hardware. Google has a long way to go if it serious about taking the other players head on. Its first attempt in the space did not generate the good will to justify further development.

 Google stock was down by -0.20% in Wednesday’s trading session ending the day at $976.62 a share.

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53 It Is! Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Plunges 45 Places From 2016-Glassdoor

If the latest Glassdoor research rankings are anything to go by, then the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO has some work cut out. According to just released Glassdoor rankings, Tim Cook, the Apple CEO has not faired very well. It is rather astonishing how the ever high-ranking executive went 45 places on the top 100.

The top honors in 2017 went to Clorox Company CEO Benno Dorer with 99% approval rating. It has always been the norm to find Tim Cook among the top 10 CEOS worldwide. According to pundits, there could be some work for Tim to do to mitigate this.

The list also saw big names like Face book’s Mark Zuckerberg continue with the plunge. The dwindling rating is a clear sign that employees have not had a good word for them in the past year.

6 Percentage points

However, even with all these, the CEO still lost only six percentage points from last year to clock 93 percent. There is hope as Glassdoor explains that they rank top CEOs from the 67% mark. What it means is that Tim Cook still performed above par.

Surprising entrants to the top list according to the research is Microsoft’s Satya Nadella who has ranked 29 in 2017 release. Satya became Microsoft CEO in 2014 and had never made it to the elite list. Another surprise absentee on the top 10 was Goggles Sundar Pichai.

In spite of inheriting the position from the high ranking Larry page who left sometime in 2015, Pichai was no match and places at slot 17 on the list.

The research Glassdoor, top CEO research, involves employees from the top companies leaving reviews on the company job site. But because there is no concrete information on the methodology by Glassdoor, it only remains to be seen why the CEO moved that swiftly down the list.

The consolation from fortune, one of the top business reporters, pointing out that many CEOs never take much note of the Glassdoor rankings. But Fortune, one of the most reliable sources indicate that this could mean a level of dislike by the employees.

The jury is out; the rest is to the public to decide.

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