By Gerry Shih, Michael Martina and Joseph Menn BEIJING/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Draft Chinese government regulation would force technology vendors to meet stringent security tests before they can sell to China’s banks, an acceleration of efforts to curb the country’s reliance on foreign technology that has drawn a sharp response from U.S.
Read moreBy Gerry Shih BEIJING (Reuters) – The National Basketball Association and Tencent Holdings Ltd said Friday the Shenzhen-based Internet giant will be the only company in China to stream the league’s online content. The exclusive, five-year deal will allow Tencent to offer for the first time in China the NBA’s League Pass package, which allows subscribers to watch a full season’s worth of games live and on-demand.
Read moreBy Maria Tsvetkova MOSCOW (Reuters) – One of Vladimir Putin's main opponents may have broken a taboo by publishing what he says is the pseudonym used by one the Russian president's daughters to stay out of the spotlight. Putin has made his and his family's private life little less than a state secret, keeping his rarely-photographed daughters Yekaterina, 28, and Maria, 29, out of sight and managing his divorce with the minimum fuss.
Read moreBy Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Snapchat has partnered with CNN, ESPN and nine other media companies to feature videos and articles on its mobile messaging service, a move that heightens the competition with social networks such as Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc. Snapchat's new Discover service features individual “channels” for its various media partners that include five to 10 stories a day, according to Snapchat, which announced the move on its official blog on Tuesday. After 24 hours the stories disappear, in keeping with Snapchat's trademark feature of private messages that disappear a few seconds after they are viewed by users of the service.
Read moreBy Deepa Seetharaman SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – EBay Inc plans to cut its workforce by 7 percent, or 2,400 jobs, in the current quarter and is exploring a sale or public offering of its enterprise unit as the e-commerce company prepares to split from its payments division, PayPal, this year. The jobs will be cut across the marketplace, payments and enterprise divisions, eBay said on Wednesday in its fourth-quarter earnings report.
Read moreBy Alexei Oreskovic and Bill Rigby SAN FRANCISCO/SEATTLE (Reuters) – Virtual reality goggles, drones and data centers are all driving a hiring spree at Facebook Inc that is set to swell its ranks as much as 14 percent in the near term, according to a review of job listings on the company's website. Oculus Rift, the maker of virtual reality headsets that Facebook acquired in a $2 billion deal last year, is among the key areas slated for growth, with 54 jobs listed on its website, according to a review by Reuters of listings. Among the roles that Facebook needs to fill for the Oculus business are managers to oversee logistics, procurement and global supply chain planning – a sign, some analysts say, that the product is nearing its commercial release
Read moreBy Marty Graham SAN DIEGO (Reuters) – The trial of a California man accused of running a so-called “revenge porn” website, featuring nude pictures of women often posted by jilted ex-lovers, began in San Diego on Friday in a test of state efforts to clamp down on such sites. Kevin Boellart, 28, was arrested in 2013 shortly after Governor Jerry Brown signed a first-in-the-nation law to target “revenge porn,” defined as the posting of private, explicit photos of others on the Internet to humiliate them. Prosecutors have said Boellart’s site, which is no longer operational, had featured over 10,000 sexually explicit photos, and that he charged women up to $350 each to remove them
Read moreBy Marty Graham SAN DIEGO (Reuters) – The trial of a California man accused of running a so-called “revenge porn” website, featuring nude pictures of women often posted by jilted ex-lovers, began in San Diego on Friday in a test of state efforts to clamp down on such sites.
Read moreBy Alina Selyukh WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sprint Corp will keep investing in its networks even if U.S. regulators adopt stricter “net neutrality” rules as long as they are applied with a “light touch,” the company said in a letter to the FCC released on Friday.
Read more(Reuters) – Ride-sharing company Uber has been ordered by South Carolina regulators to cease operations in the state while it remains in the process of seeking permission to legally do business there.
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