Here are today’s Top 5 News & Events from Around the World. Take a look!
#5
Julian Assange in Custody of UK Police, Faces US Extradition
Julian Assange the Wikileaks co-founder has been arrested by UK police today. The Ecuadorian embassy has removed the asylum benefit for Assange. As soon as the Ecuadorian President in an interview declared that Ecuador would stop giving safe heaven to Julian Assange, the UK police entered the Ecuador embassy in London and dragged out Assange and took him to jail. For the past seven years, Julian Assange was in Ecuador embassy. The arrest followed shortly after Assange was found guilty by Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday for not surrendering to the court. The Wikileaks co-founder is wanted in the US for releasing several classified documents including the hacked emails of Hillary Clinton. It’s now up to the UK government to take a call on his extradition to the United States. If it happens, he might face at least five years of jail time for hacking the US government computers. Jennifer Robinson, Assange’s lawyer has said that they will fight against his US extradition charges. She said it’s a “dangerous precedent” where any journalist could face jail time for revealing the truth. Link.
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#4
Disney CEO Says Hitler Would Have Loved Social Media
The Disney CEO, Bob Iger has said that social media is a “powerful marketing tool” for extremism and that Hitler would have loved social media. He said this during an award ceremony where he was given a humanitarian award. The CEO blasted the use of social media for the spread of hate and polarising politics. Additionally, he also said that social media by design amplify “our deepest fears.” As reported by Variety.
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#3
The Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick Will Make Windfall Gains From IPO
The ousted Uber CEO Travis Kalanick will make huge profits from the company’s IPO. Travis holds almost 8.3% of the Uber, while Softbank is the largest stakeholder with 16.3% shares. Uber is one of the top ten company’s that will reach $100 billion dollars on the day of IPO. The ride-hailing firm is going to offer $10 billion worth of shares to the public and will end up with $100 billion capitalisations. Meanwhile, the company is reportedly giving away $10,000 to its prolific drivers, so that they too could buy up some shares in the IPO. Link.
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#2
Ford CEO Admit that they Overestimated Self-Driving Cars, Tech Too Complex?
The Ford company has accepted that it overestimated the abilities of self-driving cars. Now they believe that this technology will have its limited use. This week, the Ford CEO, Jim Hackett said that the company had big hopes from automated driving technology, but now they would need to cut back on this trajectory. The Ford will be launching its self-driving cars by 2021, but there are certain problems with this technology which is just too complex, according to him. As reported by Engadget.
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#1
Is Alexa Snooping on You?
Amazon has revealed that its company employees listen to bits and pieces of your conversation if you are a user of the firm’s Alexa devices. In effect, the employees are listening to what you tell to Alexa. A global team at Amazon studies these audio data to help the technology deliver the best results. But for some critics, this is a warning sign. Questions have been raised whether there’s a constant snooping involved here? But the e-commerce giant has assured that this activity is strictly under its monitor and the sole purpose is to provide superior services to its customers of voice-activated devices. As reported by Bloomberg.
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