IRS Tax Calendar for Businesses and Self-Employed

IRS Tax Calendar for Businesses and Self-Employed

You have the option to Subscribe to the Small Businesses calendar using Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010 or Mac iCal. Outlook 2003 does not have the ability to subscribe but you can download the tax events from the calendar. Downloading lets you add a one-time “snapshot” of the calendar events to your calendar program (e.g. Outlook).

Source: www.irs.gov

Audit suggests Google favors a small number of major news outlets

Audit suggests Google favors a small number of major news outlets

In order to account for the variability between terms, we built a statistical model that predicts an article’s referrals from Google based on how many impressions it has in the Top Stories Box or in organic search results. Impressions generated organically by Google’s search algorithm, rather than in the Top Stories box, accounted for slightly fewer referrals. Based on the proportion of impressions in our data, and using our predictive model, a very rough estimate would be that CNN received a 24 percent increase in referral traffic from Google from its article’s placements in Top Stories.

Source: www.cjr.org

Supreme Court Allows Antitrust Suit Against Apple to Proceed

Supreme Court Allows Antitrust Suit Against Apple to Proceed

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court ruled Monday that consumers can proceed with an antitrust lawsuit challenging Apple Inc.’s exclusive control over the marketplace for iPhone apps, threatening the tech giant’s slice of billions of dollars in software sales. Plaintiffs, who are suing on behalf of a class of app purchasers, allege consumers pay inflated prices because Apple requires that all phone software be sold and purchased through the company’s App Store. Apps would be cheaper if software developers could sell them directly…

Source: www.wsj.com

Fast Compilers for Fast Programs

Fast Compilers for Fast Programs

When you have a small team that write tests and a compiler that is on the boundary of interactive speed, compiler speed dominates performance. This is unfortunate, both because I have to listen to people tell me that some languages are slow and others are fast (when the language is being conflated with its compiler), and more importantly: sometimes small teams with small programs become big teams with big programs. To pick on a particular language again (because I spent some time in its compiler and will make fewer mistakes discussing it specifically), I have experienced this several times when writing Go programs because the Go compiler is on the knife-edge of interactive performance.

Source: crawshaw.io

Over $9T of Federal Debt Will Mature in the Next Four Years

Over $9T of Federal Debt Will Mature in the Next Four Years

According to the most recent United States Government Accounting Office (GOA) report on the national debt, a record $9.23 trillion of the marketable federal debt held by the public will mature in the next four years. The amount of government debt that needs to be rolled over every four years has more than doubled since 2008 and increased over five times since the statistic was first released in 2001. Because the federal government is expected to run trillion-dollar-a-year deficits for the foreseeable future, the total amount of federal debt that will need to be ‘refinanced’ in coming years will be trillions of dollars higher than forecasted.

Source: thesoundingline.com

Supreme Court Rules Against Apple in App Store Antitrust Case

Supreme Court Rules Against Apple in App Store Antitrust Case

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled 5-4 against Apple in a case involving its signature electronic marketplace, the App Store, allowing iPhone users to move forward with an antitrust suit against the company. The iPhone users argued that Apple’s 30% commission on sales through the App Store is an unfair use of monopoly power that results in inflated prices passed on to consumers. The result of the iPhone users’ litigation could affect the way that Apple, as well as other companies that operate electronic marketplaces like Facebook, Amazon and Alphabet’s Google, structure their businesses.

Source: www.cnbc.com

Audit suggests Google favors a small number of major outlets

Audit suggests Google favors a small number of major outlets

In order to account for the variability between terms, we built a statistical model that predicts an article’s referrals from Google based on how many impressions it has in the Top Stories Box or in organic search results. Impressions generated organically by Google’s search algorithm, rather than in the Top Stories box, accounted for slightly fewer referrals. Based on the proportion of impressions in our data, and using our predictive model, a very rough estimate would be that CNN received a 24 percent increase in referral traffic from Google from its article’s placements in Top Stories.

Source: www.cjr.org

Fortnite is free, but kids are getting bullied into spending money

Fortnite is free, but kids are getting bullied into spending money

Kids ask their parents for skins because they don’t want to seem like Fortnite novices in front of other people. In one video with 16 million views, a YouTuber wearing a default skin starts a Fortnite match, only to be immediately targeted and verbally harassed by other players in the game. “I asked my son why he keeps wanting skins etc in Fortnite, simply put there is a bullying regime where players mock others for not having them, this fuels that and causes emotional distress,” said Twitter user Monkenstien in a discussion about why people spend money on cosmetic items in games.

Source: www.polygon.com

Alibaba’s UC Browser is dominating in markets with lower-end smartphones (2018)

Alibaba’s UC Browser is dominating in markets with lower-end smartphones (2018)

JAKARTA, Indonesia—A mobile browser rarely used in the West has outflanked Google’s Chrome in some of Asia’s fastest-growing markets, giving owner Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. an advantage in the race among technology giants to capture the next generation of internet users. Hundreds of millions of people in India, Indonesia and other emerging markets getting online for the first time are picking UC Browser, owned by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, over ones made by U.S. rivals. Users say UC Browser works better in countries…

Source: www.wsj.com

Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

The company started adding technology to a handful of warehouses in recent years, which scans goods coming down a conveyor belt and envelopes them seconds later in boxes custom-built for each item, two people who worked on the project told Reuters. Amazon has considered installing two machines at dozens more warehouses, removing at least 24 roles at each one, these people said. Including other machines known as the “SmartPac,” which the company rolled out recently to mail items in patented envelopes, Amazon’s technology suite will be able to automate a majority of its human packers.

Source: www.reuters.com