The Haystack (Video)

The Haystack

2016

The modern era of sophisticated hacking techniques, and the increasingly dangerous terrorist organizations that often employ them, demand a new approach from law enforcement. That's why the British Parliament is currently reviewing the Investigatory Powers Bill, a crucial piece of legislation that would provide more leniency in the interception of private email and phone communications. The Haystack examines whether this bill would prove effective or necessary, and what everyday citizens would have to give up if it's ultimately implemented.

The UK government possesses the technology to tap into anyone's phone and determine their location, service provider, personal email account and the content of their communications. But should they have the right to access these things? Their argument lies firmly in the need for enhanced security; the threat of terrorism makes such measures essential to enhancing public safety. They contend that the new bill would expand the scope of their capabilities, but would also provide greater levels of oversight.

The filmmakers behind The Haystack feel the issue needs more scrutiny, so they've assembled a group of interview subjects from both sides of the debate. Their journey of investigation begins in America, where the revelations revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden placed Britain's role in potentially unlawful surveillance practices under a microscope. In effect, the UK seeks to extend these practices, and opponents claim it's all a ruse to further trample on the privacy rights and civil liberties of the people.

The film goes through many of the major provisions presented in the bill, including the warrant and oversight process. Supporters of the bill applaud it as an important step to ensuring democracy and improved judgement. Naysayers claim that while the bill may give the appearance of transparency on the surface, each of its provisions contain loopholes which can easily be exploited. In addition to the insights of mass surveillance insiders and representatives from area watchdog groups, we're also shown clips from a series of debates currently taking place in Parliament over this contentious issue.

Above all else, The Haystack urges for less apathy and more vocal involvement from the citizens this bill is likely to affect. In the absence of that, the people of the UK may be denied many of the freedoms they most treasure.

Directed by: Olivia Cappuccini

Nintendo shares are getting destroyed as the Pokémon Go effect wears off

• Chris Pash, Business Insider Australia

• 10h
• 24,004
 
• 4

A "Pidgey" Pokémon seen on the screen of the Pokémon Go mobile app in a photo illustration taken in downtown Toronto on July 11.REUTERS/Chris Helgren

The amazing ride of Nintendo shares, fueled by the wild spread of the smartphone game Pokémon Go, appears to be over.

The Japanese tech giant's shares more than doubled in value after the launch of Pokémon Go on July 6, putting its market value on Tuesday at $42 billion.

On Wednesday, however, shares in the world's largest video game company by revenue started to slip.

A short time ago, Nintendo was down 13.9% to 27,350 yen on the Tokyo Exchange. The broader Nikkei 225 index was down just 0.7% at time of writing.

Wednesday's share-price drop was the biggest for Nintendo in 16 years.

There is most likely some profit-taking going on after the explosive rally over the past week, but it also shows that the market demand has eased.

Analysts have been trying to work out what the direct benefit of the new craze will be for Nintendo, but this has been difficult to assess, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Nintendo has only partial ownership of the app through its holdings in The Pokémon Company and the Google spin-off Niantic, which is the developer and the distributor of the game.

According to analysts, the rise in Nintendo shares makes sense only if half of all humanity has the Pokémon Go app.

But the popularity of the game marches on as the app gets released in different countries.

The app was due to be launched in Japan, the home of Pokémon Go, on Wednesday, but the launch was delayed, apparently over fears that high demand would soon overload the system.

TechCrunch reported: "The postponement will frustrate many in Japan who are still waiting but, on the positive side, Niantic, Nintendo, and The Pokémon Company — the three firms behind the smash game — are confident that, if the game is launched right, their servers can handle the undoubtedly huge demand."

McDonald's will be a paying sponsor in Japan, using 3,000 of its stores there as venues for players.

Business Insider Australia

Read the original article on Business Insider Australia. Copyright 2016. Follow Business Insider Australia on Twitter.

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Microsoft crushes on earnings and revenue, stock pops

• Matt Weinberger
 

• 20h
• 12,214
 
• 7
 

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.Robert Galbraith/Reuters

Microsoft  $56.74

MSFT

+/-+1.94

%+3.50

Disclaimer

Microsoft announced earnings for the fourth quarter of its just-finished fiscal year 2016 on Tuesday afternoon after the stock market's closing bell.

You can read the full results here, from a Microsoft press release.

For the quarter, Microsoft announced:

• Earnings of $0.69 per share on an adjusted basis, up from $0.60 a year ago. Analysts were expecting $0.58.
• Revenue of $22.6 billion, up from $22.18 billion a year ago. Analysts were expecting $22.14 billion.

At the time of this writing, Microsoft stock is up about 3% in after-hours trading.

Even amid the solid earnings and revenue, Wall Street is keeping a very close eye specifically on the growth of Microsoft's cloud business — a crucial business with a strong potential for leading the company to further revenue growth, even amid a shrinking PC industry.

Microsoft says that it had a $12.1 billion "run rate" for commercial cloud products in the last quarter. If you took the amount it generated from business-focused cloud services, like Azure and Office 365, and extrapolated it out for a year, then it would total $10 billion.

The company's stated goal is to reach $20 billion by 2018, a milestone that investors really want to see.

Statista

To that end, Microsoft announced that its Intelligent Cloud unit, which houses the Microsoft Azure cloud business and the rest of the company's tools for servers and data centers, grew 7% to $6.7 billion. Revenue from Microsoft Azure cloud, specifically, grew 102% from the last quarter. That's a positive sign for Microsoft investors.

Revenue in the More Personal Computing segment, which includes Windows and the Surface, Xbox, and phone-hardware businesses, sank by 4%. Microsoft blames this largely on lowered phone-hardware sales, amid layoffs and changes to the business, as the overall devices business lowered by 35%.

Last is the Productivity segment, which grew 5% as the Microsoft Office 365 cloud productivity subscription service continues to attract subscribers. Still, while Office 365 is making money, Microsoft says that overall Office volume is down, as people buy less of the boxed software and more of the cloud-based service.

SEE ALSO: Satya Nadella is making a double-or-nothing bet to rebuild Microsoft

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British unemployment just fell to a new record low — but prepare for a post Brexit storm

• Will Martin

• 7h
• 235
 

Getty

British unemployment fell to another record low in May, but the huge hit UK employment will inevitably take as result of the UK's vote to leave the European Union has yet to materialise.

UK unemployment stood at 4.9% in the three month period up to May surveyed, according to the latest data, released by the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday morning.

That marks a fall from 5% in the previous month, and is the first time since 2005 that the UK has seen unemployment below 5%.

The fall from 5% to 4.9% reflects a fall of 54,000 in the number of people "not in work but seeking and available to work." The total number of those unemployed in the UK currently stands at 1.65 million.

By contrast, the number of people in employment is at a record high. According to the ONS, there are 31.70 million people in work, 176,000 more than for the 3 months to February 2016 and 624,000 more than for a year earlier.

Here are two of the key charts from the release from the ONS:

ONS

ONS

While the numbers are incredibly strong, it is vital to understand that the data was collected by the ONS before the UK voted to leave the EU, meaning that the shock that is widely expected to hit the employment market in Britain's post-Brexit economic landscape. 

As Pantheon Macroeconomics noted on Tuesday evening ahead of the release, any fall reflects "both a statistical quirk and the tendency of the labour market to lag the economy. Surveys of employment growth weakened sharply in the run-up to the referendum, and employment intentions likely deteriorated immediately after last month’s Brexit vote."

Earlier in July, analysts at Credit Suisse argued that the UK's decision to leave the European Union will push the unemployment rate up to 6.5% over the next 18 months, costing around 500,000 jobs.

"On the back of our forecast for GDP growth falling to 1.0% in 2016 and -1.0% in 2017, we can expect the unemployment rate to jump up to 6.5% by the end of 2017. This expected rise in unemployment is likely to squeeze nominal household incomes as wage growth takes a hit," a CS report — authored by Anais Boussie and other analysts — argued.

It is worth noting that even if unemployment jumps to 6.5%, Britain's unemployment rate will be substantially lower than in countries like France and Italy. Eurozone unemployment is currently at roughly 10.1%, something that has led notorious perma-bear Albert Edwards to describe it as a "toxic effluent running through the veins" of the continent.

Here is the chart, courtesy of Societe Generale:

Societe Generale

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More: Unemployment Rate UK Economy ONS Brexit 

BANK OF ENGLAND: Brexit might not kill us after all

• Will Martin
 

• 6h
• 810
 
• 1

No big slowdown just yet Flickr / Audrey

The economic fallout from the UK's vote to leave the European Union might not actually be having as huge of an impact on the British economy as first expected, according to a new report from the Bank of England.

The BOE released its July "Agents' summary of business conditions"— a monthly review of what businesses in the UK are up to and their expectations for the future are — on Wednesday, and the findings are slightly better than might have been expected following the referendum.

In the summary of its Agents' survey, the BOE argues that its research showed that: "As yet, there was no clear evidence of a sharp general slowing in activity."

Warnings have abounded that as soon as Britain voted to leave the EU, business conditions would suffer massively with investment and activity slowing drastically, however the central bank's assessment seems to suggest that while there is going to be an obvious hit to the UK's economy, it has yet to manifest itself so far.

Things may not be as bad as some might have expected in the month since the vote, but the BOE notes that there have been some negative consequences since the referendum result. Here is an extract from the survey:

"Following the EU referendum, business uncertainty had risen markedly. Many firms had only just begun to formulate new business strategies in response to the vote and, for the time being, were seeking to maintain ‘business as usual’. A majority of firms spoken with did not expect a near-term impact from the result on their investment or staff hiring plans. But around a third of contacts thought there would be some negative impact on those plans over the next twelve months."

Last week, the BOE shocked the markets and many economic commentators by leaving interest rates on hold for an 88th consecutive month. A rate cut from 0.5% to 0.25% was widely expected but did not materialise. 

At the time of the release on Thursday, the Bank pretty much telegraphed a rate cut at its next meeting in early August, saying: "The MPC is committed to taking whatever action is needed to support growth and to return inflation to the target over an appropriate horizon. To that end, most members of the Committee expect monetary policy to be loosened in August."

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More: Bank of England Mark Carney UK Economy EU Referendum 

Yahoo earnings are right on track, no word on sale

• Eugene Kim
 

• 17h
• 5,343
 
• 1

Yahoo CEO Marissa MayerReuters/Pascal Lauener

Yahoo  $37.64

YHOO

+/--0.31

%-0.80

Disclaimer

Yahoo just reported its second quarter earnings after the bell Monday afternoon.

It was mostly an in-line quarter with a slight miss on earnings per share. It beat revenue estimates by a small margin.

Yahoo stock remains largely flat in after hour trading.

Yahoo said that its board has made "great progress on strategic alternatives” but did not provide any details on the current auction to sell the company.

Here are the most important numbers:

• Q2 adjusted earnings per share (EPS): $0.09 per share vs $0.10 per share expected 
• Q2 Revenue: $1.31 billion vs. $1.08 billion expected (up 5% year-over-year)
• Q2 Revenue ex-TAC: $841 million vs. $810 million-$850 million expected

Yahoo pointed out that without the change in accounting that went into effect this quarter, its revenue would have been $1.06 billion, down 15% year-over-year. 

Mavens revenue, short for mobile, video, native, and social, came in at $504 million, up 25% from last year. That's a huge bounce back from the previous quarter when Mavens growth came to a halt at around 7%. But excluding the change in accounting, Mavens revenue would have dropped 4% to $385 million. Growing Mavens revenue has been one of the focal points of Mayer's Yahoo since she took over the company in 2012.

Tumblr, the social network Yahoo bought for nearly $1 billion, saw another big write down. Yahoo reported that it will be writing off $395 million in impairment charges, and $87 million in intangible impiarments, for a total of $482 million write off. In February, Yahoo reported a write off of $230 million to Tumblr's goodwill value.

Both search and display revenue saw declines, dropping 13% and 7% year-over-year, respectively. Search revenue was $711 million for the quarter, while display revenue was $470 million.

Yahoo also reduced its headcount by 2,100 employees compared to the same quarter of last year, to 8,800 in total. Yahoo previously announced that it would cut 15% of its workforce this year.

For the third quarter, Yahoo expects revenue in the range of $1.275 billion to $1.325 billion, and ex-TAC revenue in the range of $840 million to $880 million.

We'll be covering the earnings results as they come out, so hit refresh or click here to view the latest.

At this point of course, most investors are focused on the potential sale of Yahoo, as opposed to the ongoing challenges in its business. The company is reported to be accepting the final rounds of bids from interested buyers of its core internet business on Monday afternoon.

It's unclear if the company will disclose any details around the bids during the earnings call. Companies like Verizon, AT&T, and a number of private equity firms are reported to be in the race to buy Yahoo's core assets. There's also a chance that the company might not get sold at all, if the bidding prices are too low.

During last month's annual shareholder meeting, Mayer said the company was "continuing to make great progress" in the sales process and that she was "heartened by the interest in Yahoo."

SEE ALSO: The exec who lost his job to Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer slams the company with a classic 'Rocky' quote

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More: Yahoo Earnings Marissa Mayer