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03

Aug

How Uber fought City Hall...and won

The company has closed a new round of funding of nearly $1 billion and is now the most valuable startup in the world.

Congratulations, people of Beijing! You have just won the 2022 Winter Olympics bid. Now, prepare to be disappointed: The costs will be higher and the benefits lower than you think.

The prospect of hosting the Olympics, winter or summer has lost its appeal in recent years as budgets skyrocketed and economic windfalls failed to materialize.

Two events in particular have spooked potential host cities. Russia is thought to have spent an incredible $50 billion on the Sochi Olympics - the most expensive in history. China dropped at least $40 billion on the 2008 Beijing Summer Games.

Concerns over runaway spending wreaked havoc on bidding for 2022, forcing the International Olympic Committee to make changes to the process. Never again, analysts say, does the committee want to be faced with a choice between just two cities, both with major drawbacks.

Beijing suffers from a lack of snow, and air pollution could pose a problem. China will also host some events at Zhangjiakou, about 125 miles from the capital. But it should be able to save some money because it invested so heavily in infrastructure for the 2008 Olympics.

Almaty offered a more compact competition area, and its people have a genuine affinity for winter sports -- but the city is not well known. Both countries are ruled by autocratic governments, and frequently criticized by human rights groups.

It was a final pairing Olympics officials were surely hoping to avoid. In addition to Beijing and Almaty, the initial field consisted of Krakow, Poland; Stockholm, Sweden; Lviv, Ukraine; and Oslo, Norway.

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Facebook just built a gigantic solar-powered drone that will stay in the stratosphere for months at a time, beaming broadband Internet to rural and hard-to-reach areas.

The drone, called Aquila, is the baby of Facebook's (FB, Tech30) year-old Connectivity Lab. The lab has been developing new technology as part of the social network's mission to "connect everybody in the world."

Four billion people don't have access to the Internet, and 10% of the world's population lacks the necessary infrastructure to get online. To reach these people, Facebook is working on drones, satellites, lasers and terrestrial Internet technology.

On Thursday, Facebook announced it had finished construction on its first full-sized drone and announced other project milestones. The team's researchers say they've found a way to use lasers to deliver data speeds from the drones ten times faster than the industry standard.

Facebook has been working on the Aquila for a year, building off of technology it acquired when it bought UK drone company Ascenta in 2014. The solar-powered unmanned aircraft is designed to fly far above commercial airspace and weather, and to stay in the air for three months at a time. It could give Internet access to people located in a 50-mile radius on the ground.

"It's sort of like a backbone of Internet using lasers in the sky, that's the dream we have," said Yael Maguire, the engineering director of Facebook's Connectivity Lab.

Aquila hasn't taken flight yet, but the UK-based team has done flight testing on a number of scale models. Over the next six months, the group will run structural and other tests and eventually take it for its first test flight. The technology is years away from being used in the field -- Facebook doesn't yet have an exact timeline.

The Aquila drone looks like a giant v-shaped boomerang. It's 140-feet in diameter -- about the same wingspan as a Boeing 737 -- and covered in solar cells. It is made of light carbon fiber that is two to three times stronger than steel when cured. It will weigh around 880 pounds when fully outfitted with motors, batteries and communications equipment. The Aquila will be launched by tethering it to a helium balloon and floating it straight past the weather and commercial airspace.

During the day, it will cruise in circles at 90,000 feet, soaking up solar power. At night, it will save energy by drifting down to 60,000 feet. Though current regulations require one pilot on the ground for each drone, Facebook hopes to design the Aquila so it can fly without a dedicated pilot.

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Facebook is keeping its good form.

At the end of June, nearly 1.5 billion people used Facebook (FB, Tech30) at least once a month, the company reported on Wednesday. That's more than any other technology product in the world, including Microsoft's notorious Windows operating system.

This tremendous size has allowed Facebook to build a ton of new features that capitalize on all the data it has on its users -- primarily by selling targeted ads. During the second quarter, Facebook's ad sales topped $3.8 billion, 43% growth from a year ago.

The success story was even bigger for Facebook's mobile ad business, where revenue rose 62% to $2.9 billion. That is an impressive number considering none of its sales came from phones as recently as three years ago.

Facebook's continued and steady growth comes as rival Twitter (TWTR, Tech30) has hit a wall. On Tuesday, Twitter's interim CEO Jack Dorsey explained that user growth was slowing because people remain clueless about why they need Twitter.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and CEO, credited the success to an easy to understand mission, and features that support the mission.

On the earnings call, he told investors that Facebook is all about letting people communicate with their friends and family, which is "very fundamental."

Investors have been bullish about the company because they see so much untapped potential in the massive user base and the platform's messaging tools. Facebook did not disappoint them with its second quarter performance, as it beat earnings and growth expectations. In addition, profit was up 28% to $1.4 billion.  

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Windows 10 marks a "new era" for personal computing, Microsoft's chief executive has said.

The software, launched globally on Wednesday, is the company's attempt to reverse its fortunes in the mobile industry. Windows 10 will be offered as a free upgrade to most consumers.

However, companies will have to pay for their version, as will PC-makers to pre-install it. Analysts say the strategy is designed to speed adoption.

Speaking exclusively to BBC News, Satya Nadella said: "Windows 10 is a huge milestone for us as a company, and quite frankly the industry."

Microsoft is staggering the release over several weeks, so not everyone will be able to get the upgrade on the launch day.

Microsoft has until now released a new version of Windows every few years. Windows 10 will be the last launch of this kind, the company said - from here on it will gradually update the software for free over months and years.

Mr Nadella said he hoped features like digital personal assistant Cortana - comparable to Apple's Siri, and Google Now - would set Windows 10 apart.

"If you think about our history in technology, we've had concepts that have changed how people have interacted with their computing resources.

"One of them was a graphical user interface, the second was the browser and the web. I think of Cortana as the third platform."

Speaking about possible privacy concerns, Mr Nadella took aim at companies like Google who use data to sell advertising.

"One of the foundational pieces of making anything more personal is trust," he said.

"We're not trying to sell you advertising, we're trying to in fact sell you software or devices so you as a user can trust it, that it's working on your behalf.

"I as a consumer may want to sometimes trade off my data to get a free service, and that's ok. But it's the other users of that same data - that is where trust matters.

"I absolutely want Microsoft to be trustworthy. How consumers make choices between companies, I'll leave it to them."

It's mandatory to keep a close eye on Microsoft stock following the release of their new software update. 

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Move over Toyota! Volkswagen winning global sales race

Volkswagen has stolen Toyota's crown to become the world's top carmaker by sales, at least for the year so far.

Data on vehicles sold by the companies during the first six months of 2015 show the German automaker nudged out its Japanese rival to claim the top spot.

Volkswagen (VLKAF) sold 5.04 million vehicles from January to June, a slight dip from a year earlier. That compares to 5.02 million sold by Toyota (TM) over the same period. Group sales dropped 1.5% due to a weaker performance by its Toyota and Daihatsu brands.

Automakers are being challenged by softening conditions in markets like China and Russia, and Volkswagen is cautious about the outlook.

The carmaker, which also owns the Audi (AUDVF) and Porsche (POAHY) brands, described its performance so far this year as "satisfactory" in a difficult environment.

Sales in China -- Volkswagen's largest single market -- dropped nearly 4% in the first half of the year. North America was brighter, where sales climbed 6%.

Toyota also increased production in the U.S. But it's faced other challenges in recent months.

Toyota is among a number of auto firms swept up in a massive recall over possibly faulty airbags. The automaker has recalled millions of vehicles globally on fears Takata airbags installed may explode and send shrapnel flying at drivers and passengers.

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