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Facebook Opens Up About Libra its New Cryptocurrency Project

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Only over ten days ago, an article from ‘The Information’ talked about Facebook’s rumoured cryptocurrency project, ‘Libra’, and today, the company has come out in open to announce that it will be launching its own cryptocurrency by the first half of 2020.

The biggest social network company, Facebook Inc., revealed on Tuesday, that it is ready to launch its cryptocurrency in 2020, in order to move its focus from social media to eCommerce and online payments.

libra cryptocurrency
Image Source: fortune.com

The company reported that the new cryptocurrency won’t be a speculative asset, like Bitcoin or the other major cryptocurrencies, but will be a type of digital currency, as stable as the dollar, that people will be able to use for normal expenditures or to transfer money globally.

According to one of the spokespersons from Facebook, the company aims to establish Libra as the first mainstream cryptocurrency, by offering people to pay for online as well as offline services through it. In the beginning, Libra will support online money transfer for the countries that lack traditional banking facilities. And, after some time, it will be used for day-to-day transactions.

Along with the cryptocurrency, the company is also working on its subsidiary, Calibra, a digital wallet, that will be used for the online transactions through the cryptocurrency. According to the company, Libra will be backed by the reserve of assets. Also, the new cryptocurrency will have its own new blockchain platform.

Facebook is excited about Libra but has also got the regulatory concerns. It has been facing backlashes from its users and the regulatory authorities due to the data breaches alligations it holds. A cryptocurrency from a company which has been responsible for these hacks and breaches is quite questionable for the lawmakers and the regulators.

The company has already in talks with the regulators in the United States, Europe and from the other countries, about the launch of its own cryptocurrency. And, these regulators are also going in depth of the announced project from Facebook to get to know more about it. Since it is not purely a cryptocurrency, many of these regularities doubt its privacy.

Facebook revealed that it has partnered with the Geneva-based association Libra for the development of its cryptocurrency. The organisation have been founded by some major companies from around the world, including Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, Stripe, eBay, Uber, Lyft, Spotify, Coinbase, Xapo, Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, Mercy Corps, and Women’s World Banking, along with Facebook. So these companies will also be playing a crucial role in decisions to be taken for Libra.

Nvidia and Arm Collabs to Build Energy-efficient Supercomputers

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Continuing with the collaborations with Arm, a British semiconductor design company, now Nvidia is again working together with the company to support the processors built by the former. Nvidia announced the news at the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) going on in Frankfurt, Germany, saying that the partnership will be able to build supercomputers which will “exascale” on performance.

nvidia
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According to Nvidia, the two companies are working towards developing the energy-efficient supercomputers that will be carrying out at least a quintillion (a billion) floating point, i.e. Flops, computations per second. Noticeably, one flop is equal to the multiplication of two 15-digit numbers.

Nvidia’s founder and CEO Jensen Huang, while announcing the news at the event, said, “As traditional compute scaling has ended, the world’s supercomputers have become power constrained. Our support for Arm, which designs the world’s most energy-efficient CPU architecture, is a giant step forward that builds on initiatives Nvidia is driving to provide the HPC industry with a more power-efficient future”.

The company will be extending its support for Arm with its high-performance computing and AI-focused software by 2020. The other services that the company will be offering Arm, includes software development kits, profilers, CUDA-X libraries, PGI compilers with OpenACC support, and graphics-accelerated frameworks, etc.

The partnership between the two companies will help Arm to expand its business and build trust among the investors, as no computer architecture from the company will be without the support of Nvidia. Though it is not the first time that the two are working together, previously, the two had joined hands for Nvidia’s AGX platform that incorporated Arm-based chips and also Nvidia’s Deep Learning Accelerator (NVIDIA).

On the other hand, with this partnership, Nvidia will be getting access to the most energy-efficient chip designs, specially built for mobile devices. According to Nvidia, the energy saving products are the next big thing that is going to be the most important in the coming future.

Alibaba Seeks to Split Shares to Eight Ahead of a Reported $20B HK Listing

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Alibaba, the biggest eCommerce giant from China, is all set for its IPO listing, which the company has filed in Hong Kong. The IPO may take place in Q3 this year, and it is expected that it may raise up to $20 billion, biggest in Hong Kong after 2010.

Alibaba
Image Source: yahoo.com

Reportedly, Alibaba has proposed to split its one ordinary share into eightfold, in order to raise more funds. The company’s single ordinary share stands at 4 billion, and dividing one to eight will make it $32 billion.

Alibaba will be proposing the idea at its annual general meeting to be held on July 15, in Hong Kong. Here, the investors will be asked to vote for in favour or against the proposal, as they would want to. And, if the proposal gets the winning votes, the company will carry out the spilt by July 2020.

“The Board of Directors is proposing the Share Subdivision to increase the flexibility for the Company in future capital market activities. Among other reasons, the one-to-eight share subdivision will increase the number of shares available for issuance at a lower per share price, and the Board of Directors believes that this will increase flexibility in the Company’s capital raising activities, including the issuance of new shares,” stated Alibaba in the filing,explaining the reason behind the splitting up of share.

According to the reports, the company’s board is already in favour of the proposal and just waiting for the investors to poll. The reports also suggest that Alibaba has already submitted its papers for IPO.

The company went for an IPO in 2014 in the U.S. citing the lack of flexibility, as one of the reasons to not to go for Hong Kong for the listing. It was one of the biggest IPOs and had raised $20 billion at that time. But almost two years ago Hong Kong made some relaxation in its listing rules, such that most of the Chinese companies, now, are seeking for filing IPOs in Hong Kong.

Walmart Launches Delivery Unlimited, a Subscription Service for Grocery Delivery

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Amazon announced its own delivery service to support its one-day delivery service, and recently, another tech giant, Target, also launched its one-day delivery service for the online purchases. And now, Walmart also revealed that it is going to start an unlimited grocery delivery service called Delivery Unlimited for its customers.

walmart
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Grocery deliveries are picking quite a hike, and now, Walmart is also looking forward to serving its customers with unlimited deliveries. The company is already providing its customers with delivery services, costing them between $5 and $10 fee per delivery, for the purchases they make online. The company also has been providing its customers with a monthly fee for a limited number of deliveries through sign-ups.

But now, with a $98 yearly subscription, the customers will get access to the unlimited deliveries on online purchase from the Walmart website. The company is also offering its customers a monthly subscription of $12.95 for the deliveries, such that they do not have to pay the pre-order fees on the deliveries. The users just need to go to the Walmart website, and after, making purchases, they will be asked for the delivery options upon the checkout, from where they can opt for monthly or yearly subscription.

The subscription service from Walmart can be a big money saver for those customers, who regularly purchase grocery from Walmart. Unlike the other grocery sellers, Walmart does not have its own delivery service or has got a contract with a single delivery partner. In fact, it is tied up with various delivery providers, including Point Pickup, Skipcart, AxleHire, Roadie, Postmates, and DoorDash.

Walmart has even introduced a free and one-day delivery service to its customers for orders above $35. Along with that, it has also started an in-house delivery, through which the delivery boys will place the ordered food items directly into the customer’s refrigerator.

The news was first reported by TechCrunch, while the company has not given any statements over the matter, not even over its site’s FAQ section. Though, one of the Walmart Store’s Instagram account had mentioned the same in a post in March this year.

Amazon Closes Down Spark Before it Completes its Two Years Anniversary

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Most of the people might not know, but approximately two years ago, Amazon had launched a social networking platform named Spark. And since it has not made it to the global audience, it seems, Amazon has shut the platform down, even before it completes its two year anniversary.

Amazon Spark
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Amazon Spark was a similar platform to most of the other social media platforms, where users could post pictures, stories and could connect with people. One of the most important features, that Amazon had added to it, was the ability to sell and purchase things over it. The app was launched in a hope that people will come to the app through their influencers and will make purchases, accordingly. Users were even allowed to tag the products available on the Amazon website.

Like Instagram, the users could react to the posts through smiles and post comments on it. In fact, Spark was considered as one of the competitors of Instagram. But the platform was primarily developed for the Amazon Prime members and was focused more on shopping and sales.

“Whether you’re looking for inspiration for home décor or seeking advice for the best long-distance running shoes, Spark makes it easy to discover and shop stories and ideas from a community that likes what you like.” Amazon has said during the launch of Spark in 2017.

Though the platform entirely focused on sales and shopping, it had copied a few features from its rival Instagram, like the posts from fashion and travel bloggers. But the problem was that it was restricted to only the Prime members, and only they were able to use it. The reach of the platform was limited, and the users did not have anyone familiar to connect with over this very platform.

Though Amazon has not given any statement on the matter, meanwhile the link to Amazon Spark is redirecting to #FoundItOnAmazon site, one of the other easy shopping tools from Amazon. Earlier the Amazon’s notification section had been changed for including updates from Spark. But now the navigation has once again been simplified.

Stratolaunch, the World’s Largest Airplane is Up for Sale for $400M

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World’s biggest plane and the dream project of late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Stratolaunch is for sale. The cost of the plane has been set to be $400 million by the holding company Vulcan Inc. reported an anonymous spokesperson.

stratolaunch
Image Source: technology.inquirer.net

Stratolaunch is the only biggest plane in the world and is manufactured by Stratolaunch Systems, a company founded by Paul Allen, after eight years of research and production process. It was a dream of Paul Allen to build a 5,00,000 pound plane, and noticeably, it has not even been two months when the plane took its first and only flight.

Based in the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, the giant aeroplane has a 385-foot wingspan, six engines, 28 wheels and has a capability to fly up to an altitude of 35,000 feet. The plane has been manufactured as a flying launchpad for rockets from where they can self lunch themselves, from the air to space. The plane had successfully completed its first flight in April, where it flew for over 150 minutes and reached an altitude of 15000 feet at a speed of 189mph.

According to the sources, Vulcan is already in talks with the British billionaire and the founder of Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson, about selling the plane. Another potential buyer for the plane includes Northrop Grumman, the company that is in an agreement with Stratolaunch to provide rockets for the plane’s air-launch operation. Though there have been no comments on the matter from either party as yet.

Along with the plane, the company would also be giving away the intellectual property and Mojave facilities to the buyer. But a price equal to $400 million is a big amount, and it seems even bigger when the scope of the success of the plane is unclear. Since there has been no such planes or such services, that can convince the buyers with the profits it may gain, it is natural for them to be sceptical about buying it.