Daily Archives: February 18, 2023

Proud Boys member drafts subpoena to call Trump as a witness in Jan. 6 …

Posted: February 18, 2023 at 5:48 am

Washington Amid numerous investigations at county, state, and local levels into his political and economic activity, former President Donald Trump finds himself at the center of a brewing legal fight, this time in the ongoing Proud Boys seditious conspiracy trial.

Attorneys for one of the defendants, Joseph Biggs, briefly mentioned in court on Thursday that they had drafted, and hoped to serve, Trump with a subpoena to compel his testimony in the proceedings connected to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

Norm Pattis, a lawyer for Biggs, told the court Trump's role in the Capitol riot might warrant his presence as a witness for the defense in the case.

According to a copy of the drafted subpoena obtained by CBS News, Biggs' legal team wants Trump's compliance by the beginning of next month, but the legal paper has yet to be served to the former president, and no attempt to actually compel his testimony has been made. If it continues to go unsuccessfully delivered, the subpoena will carry no legal weight unless further legal action is taken.

Judge Timothy Kelly presiding over the trial in which five Proud Boys, including leader Enrique Tarrio, are accused of sedition has yet to make his position on subpoenaing a former president known, but the Justice Department will likely ask the court to toss the request as irrelevant and inappropriate.

Biggs' attorneys declined a request for comment.

In the high-profile proceedings that have so far spanned numerous weeks, prosecutors have argued before the jury that the Proud Boys heeded Trump's calls to oppose Joe Biden's presidency and violently took to the Capitol grounds in support of the former president. Using their fellow rioters in the mob as a component of their broader conspiracy, the Justice Department alleges, the defendants attempted to use force to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.

Defense attorneys have argued Trump's influence over the Proud Boys' alleged crimes warrants further examination.

Other Jan. 6 defendants have made similar attempts to call Trump as a witness, to no avail, after judges and prosecutors alike opposed the moves. Last year, an Ohio man tried to argue Trump's speech near the White House authorized his actions. Dustin Thompson was convicted by a jury after less than three hours of deliberation and later sentenced to three years in prison.

Like those of defendants before them, the efforts by Biggs' attorneys on Thursday face numerous legal hurdles that will likely hinder their ability to successfully secure Trump's testimony.

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Proud Boys leaders facing Jan. 6 charges say they intend to subpoena …

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Former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio and four allies are charged with seditious conspiracy, a plot to violently keep Trump in office anchored in part by preventing Congress from certifying the election on Jan. 6, 2021.

The prospect of Trump appearing on the witness stand seems remote, but until Thursday, the intention of the defendants to call the former president was uncertain.

Were going to ask the government for assistance in serving Mr. Trump, Pattis said.

The Proud Boys defense attorneys have hinted at times throughout the trial that Trump bears responsibility for the actions of their own clients and thousands of others who marched on the Capitol at his urging. Putting him on the witness stand, while still a longshot, would give them a chance to probe his mindset under oath in a way that federal investigators have been unable to so far.

Other Jan. 6 defendants have sought Trumps testimony but gotten no support from judges, who found their claims to need the former presidents testimony dubious. But the Proud Boys may have the clearest case, given Trumps explicit reference to the group during the debate and the groups centrality to the riot that unfolded on Jan. 6.

Prosecutors say the Proud Boys are singularly responsible for the violence that unfolded, helping trigger key breaches of police defenses including the actual breach of the building itself, when Dominic Pezzola, one of the five defendants, used a stolen riot shield to smash a Senate-wing window.

U.S. District Court Judge Tim Kelly didnt give any indication Thursday about whether he would permit the subpoena of the former president.

Tarrio has been a figure of interest to investigators not just for his role on Jan. 6 but for his ties to figures in Trumps orbit like Roger Stone. Tarrio took a White House tour on Dec. 12, 2020 that drew alarm from the Secret Service and may have reached the ears of then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

Prosecutors have also shown evidence of Tarrios close relationship with a D.C. police officer who appeared to repeatedly give him inside information about law enforcement matters including Tarrios own subsequent arrest on Jan. 4 for burning a Black Lives Matter flag at a pro-Trump rally in December.

Prosecutors are expected to call North Carolina Proud Boy Jeremy Bertino who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and is cooperating with the government to the stand on Tuesday. During arguments related to pieces of evidence the government intends to introduce, prosecutors displayed messages showing Bertino lamenting the groups failure to stop the transfer of power on the night of Jan. 6.

We failed. The House is meeting again. That woman died for nothing, Bertino said, referencing Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer as she attempted to breach the House chamber.

Bertino was also in a series of leadership chats ahead of Jan. 6 but didnt go to Washington in part because of injuries he suffered when he was stabbed during a melee in December.

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Delilahs Gentlemens Club bartender gets probation for storming the Capitol with aspiring Proud Boys – The Philadelphia Inquirer

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Delilahs Gentlemens Club bartender gets probation for storming the Capitol with aspiring Proud Boys  The Philadelphia Inquirer

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All hands on deck as UN meets to protect high seas

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UNITED NATIONS: UN member states are meeting in New York from Monday with the aim of launching a long-berthed high-seas treaty, a crucial step toward the goal of protecting 30 percent of the planet by 2030.

After more than 15 years of informal and formal talks, the meeting is the third time in less than a year that negotiators are gathering for what is due to be the last round.

Another two weeks of negotiations ended with no agreement in August last year, but advocates and officials have expressed cautious optimism ahead of the coming session.

"There are a lot of negotiations and discussions happening between delegations trying to find middle ground on some of the key sticky issues... at a level that we haven't seen before," Liz Karan, of the Pew Charitable Trusts non-profit, told Agence France-Presse.

"That gives me a lot of hope that the delegations are taking this upcoming meeting to be the final final."

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This hope was bolstered in January when the United States joined the EU-led High Ambition Coalition on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction in pushing for quick and robust finalized treaty.

The 51 countries in the coalition share "the goal of urgently protecting the world's oceans," said EU Commissioner for Environment Virginijus Sinkevicius, underscoring the new round of talks were "crucial."

The ocean's high seas start where nations' Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) end, at a maximum of 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from coastline and are not under the jurisdiction of any country.

Even though these waters make up more than 60 percent of the oceans and nearly half the planet, they have long been ignored in favor of coastal areas and certain species.

But, said Nathalie Rey, the campaign lead for the High Seas Alliance non-profit, there is "just one ocean and a healthy ocean means a healthy planet."

Ocean ecosystems, threatened by pollution and overfishing, produce half the planet's oxygen and limit global warming by absorbing a large part of the CO2 emitted by human activities.

"You can't ensure a healthy ocean if you ignore two thirds of the ocean which make up the high seas," Rey said, underscoring that it would be "an absolute disaster if we ended up with nothing" from the treaty talks.

The future treaty "will be a key milestone in ensuring we achieve this 30x30 target," she added, referencing a historic agreement in December in which every nation committed to protecting 30 percent of all the planet's land and ocean by 2030.

A deal at all costs?

The 30x30 goal would be almost impossible without including the high seas, of which only around one percent is protected today.

One of the pillars of the future treaty on the "conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction" is to allow the creation of marine protected areas in international waters.

This principle is included in the negotiating mandate voted by the UN General Assembly in 2017, but delegations are still divided on the process of creating the sanctuaries, as well as on the terms of obligations to assess the environmental impact of potential activities on the high seas.

Another contentious issue is the sharing of possible profits from use of genetic resources found in international waters, where the pharmaceutical, chemical and cosmetic industries hope to discover bankable resources.

Without the ability to carry out costly research, developing countries fear they will miss out on potential benefits of high seas resources.

At the August session, observers accused rich countries, including the EU, of resisting to offer compromises down to the wire.

With the complex and wide-ranging treaty, which will also have to contend with other organizations that have strangleholds on parts of the ocean, such as fishing and seabed mining, the devil is in the details, ocean advocates worry.

"It would be better to take more time and ensure a strong agreement with political momentum, rather than hurriedly adopt a subpar agreement," said Glen Wright, senior researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations.

Even if, he added, another delay "would be a huge disappointment."

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Ascension | Description, Significance, Feast, & Art | Britannica

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Summary

Ascension, in Christian belief, the ascent of Jesus Christ into heaven on the 40th day after his Resurrection (Easter being reckoned as the first day). The Feast of the Ascension ranks with Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost in the universality of its observance among Christians. The feast has been celebrated 40 days after Easter in both Eastern and Western Christianity since the 4th century. Prior to that time, the Ascension was commemorated as a part of the celebration of the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

The meaning of the Ascension for Christians is derived from their belief in the glorification and exaltation of Jesus following his death and Resurrection, as well as from the theme of his return to God the Father. Thus, the Gospel According to John uses both the sayings of Jesus and his post-Resurrection appearances to indicate a new relationship between Jesus and his Father and between him and his followers, rather than a simple physical relocation from earth to heaven.

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church year: Ascension

According to the first chapter of The Acts of the Apostles, after appearing to the Apostles on various occasions during a period of 40 days, Jesus was taken up in their presence and was then hidden from them by a cloud, a frequent biblical image signifying the presence of God. Although belief in the Ascension is apparent in other books of the New Testament, the emphasis and the imagery differ. In the Gospel According to John, the glorification described by the Ascension story seems to have taken place immediately after the Resurrection. The imagery of the account in the Gospel According to Luke is similar to that of Acts, but there is no mention of a period of 40 days. The Ascension of Jesus is mentioned in the Apostles Creed, a profession of faith used for baptism in the early church.

A distinctive feature of the feasts liturgy in the Western churches is the extinguishing of the Paschal candle, first lit on Easter, after the Gospel has been read, as a symbol of Christs leaving the earth. Despite the idea of separation indicated in this act, which might be expected to set a note of sadness, the whole liturgy of Ascensiontide, through the 10 days to Pentecost, is marked by joy in the final triumph of the risen Lord. One of the central themes of the feast is the kingship of Christ, and the theological implication is that the Ascension was the final redemptive act conferring participation in the divine life on all who are members of Christ. In other words, Christ was lifted up into heaven so that he might make us partakers of his Godhead.

In the European Middle Ages the peoples delight in the visual and dramatic found an outlet in various ritual practices that came to be associated with the feast. Popular customs included a procession in imitation of Christs journey with his Apostles to the Mount of Olives, as well as the raising of a crucifix or a statue of the risen Christ through an opening in the church roof.

In Christian art the Ascension is an old theme, appearing since the 5th century. The earliest version of the Ascension, which persisted in the West until the 11th century, shows Christ from the side, climbing to the top of the hill and grasping the hand of God, which emerges from a cloud above to pull him into heaven. The Apostles, assembled below, watch the event.

In the 6th century a different version of the Ascension was developed in Syria and was later adopted in Byzantine art. This version emphasizes Christs divinity, showing him frontally, standing immobile in a mandorla, or almond-shaped aureole, elevated above the earth and supported by angels. He holds a scroll and makes a gesture of benediction. A curious detail of this version is the regular inclusion of the Virgin Mary, who is not mentioned in the biblical account of the event, and St. Paul, who, on historical grounds, was not present. The inclusion of these figures has not been adequately explained, but they may represent, with the figure of St. Peter, an allegory of the church that Christ leaves behind. This type of Ascension, which follows the Roman tradition of representing the apotheosis of an emperor, often figured prominently in the monumental decoration of Byzantine churches as the emblem of one of the principal church feast days.

By the 11th century, the West had also adopted a frontal representation. In the Western version, however, the humanity of Christ is emphasized: he extends his hands on either side, showing his wounds. He is usually in a mandorla but is not always supported or even surrounded by angels; thus, he is no longer carried to heaven but ascends by his own power. In the 12th century this version of the Ascension had an especially prominent place in French Romanesque church decoration. The Ascension remained important as a devotional subject in the art of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, both of which retained the iconography of Christ displaying his wounds.

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Welcome to Waveland | Waveland Mississippi

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Our beginnings date back to March 18, 1888, when the area was incorporated as the Town of Waveland. As the town grew, Waveland became a city in 1972 and operates under a Mayor-Aldermen form of government, which provides for an elected Mayor and a four-member Board of Aldermen.The Mayor and Board of Aldermen are elected every four years. The Mayor is the only city-wide elected position. Residents elect aldermen within a city's geographical area, known as a Ward.

The City of Waveland is seeped in community and history that is as rich as its beautiful natural surroundings. This is a city that perfectly blends modernity and old-world charm, not just in its unique architecture but in the everyday life of its residents.

Waveland is a small Gulf-front town that takes pride in its people and traditions. Known as The Hospitality City, its the only community on the Gulf Coast which prohibits commercial buildings on its beachfront. Instead, youll find the Veterans Memorial Monument, honoring all veterans, and the adjacent Garfield Ladner Pier, frequented by residents and visitors alike for fishing, walking, and enjoying a picnic.

One of Waveland's many jewels is Buccaneer State Park, which encompasses 343 acres of beachfront property. The Park features a 4.5-acre water park, more than 300 campsites accommodating RVs and tents, an 18-hole disc golf course, and a 1.8-mile nature trail and is a natural host for nature-based activities such as birding, crabbing, and kayaking.

The enthusiastic, innovative officials meet regularly to ensure that Waveland remains a place that will thrive for generations to come. This passion continues with the devoted community members, who quickly welcome all with warm smiles. Come visit and feel at home.

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Waveland, Indiana – Wikipedia

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Waveland was platted by John Milligan in 1835.[5] The settlement began as a resting place at a good spring between Terre Haute and Lafayette, Indiana. After a trading post and post office were established, Milligan developed the surrounding property. By 1850, the town had three general stores, three churches, two inns, two wagon shops and a blacksmith.Waveland was the boyhood home of American Impressionist T. C. Steele. His parents, Samuel and Harriett, moved to the thriving settlement when Steele was five years old, around 1852. Steele's father rented a saddle shop from John Milligan. Young Steele was enrolled in the outstanding Waveland Academy. The Presbyterian Church had recognized the need for higher learning in this community and provided a new brick building for the education of children. Steele family records show that, until 1870, they owned the cottage at 110 Cross Street in Waveland, built on one of Milligan's lots.[6]

The George Seybold House and T.C. Steele Boyhood Home are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[7]

As of the census[11] of 2010, there were 420 people, 169 households, and 118 families living in the town. The population density was 1,312.5 inhabitants per square mile (506.8/km2). There were 202 housing units at an average density of 631.3 per square mile (243.7/km2). The racial makeup of the town was 98.1% White, 0.2% Native American, and 1.7% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.6% of the population.

There were 169 households, of which 35.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 52.7% were married couples living together, 13.0% had a female householder with no husband present, 4.1% had a male householder with no wife present, and 30.2% were non-families. 24.9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 19.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.49 and the average family size was 2.93.

The median age in the town was 36.8 years. 27.1% of residents were under the age of 18; 6.6% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 23.4% were from 25 to 44; 23.6% were from 45 to 64; and 19.3% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the town was 48.1% male and 51.9% female.

As of the census[3] of 2000, there were 416 people, 168 households, and 115 families living in the town. The population density was 1,151.6 inhabitants per square mile (444.6/km2). There were 194 housing units at an average density of 537.0 per square mile (207.3/km2). The racial makeup of the town was 97.36% White, 2.16% from other races, and 0.48% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.44% of the population.

There were 168 households, out of which 34.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 56.5% were married couples living together, 5.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 31.5% were non-families. 28.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 16.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.48 and the average family size was 3.01.

In the town, the population was spread out, with 26.4% under the age of 18, 7.7% from 18 to 24, 29.6% from 25 to 44, 18.0% from 45 to 64, and 18.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 98.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.3 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $43,036, and the median income for a family was $46,250. Males had a median income of $37,250 versus $23,125 for females. The per capita income for the town was $17,970. About 1.6% of families and 2.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 6.0% of those under age 18 and none of those age 65 or over.

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As Big Tech cuts workers, other industries are desperate to hire them

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Workers who jumped from one high-paying job to another as Big Tech companies staffed up at a dizzying pace in recent years are now considering leaving the sector entirely as those same large employers lay off tens of thousands of workers. MarketWatch spoke with several recently laid-off tech workers who are looking for jobs at companies that dont focus solely on technology many of which say they are still hiring.

Anna Naumova was laid off in January after nearly four years as a contract worker at Apple Inc. AAPL, -0.75%, where she was a product manager of internal sales tools for Apples marketing team. Now shes looking into a nontech job at grocery chain H-E-B, where she would be able to use the same skills.

Its a really hard situation, said Naumova, who also recently started a consulting business to help immigrants land jobs in the U.S.

Todd Erickson, meanwhile, has spent nearly two decades in tech, working for the last six years at Phase Change Software. Now hes exploring marketing and communications openings at nontech companies in sectors like healthcare, government and financial services.

Longtime tech workers like Naumova and Erickson are considering making these kinds of career changes as tech giants like Apple, Meta Platforms Inc. META, +0.26%, Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, -0.97%, Alphabet Inc.s GOOGL, -1.21% GOOG, -1.24% Google, Microsoft Corp. MSFT, -1.56%, Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO, -0.43%, HP Inc. HPQ, -0.36% and Intel Corp. INTC, -2.09% pink-slip thousands of employees in an effort to cut costs. The shift would help explain why the U.S. continues to exceed forecasts for job growth, as Januarys jobs report showed, despite massive tech layoffs.

Silicon Valley added 88,000 jobs in the year ending in June 2022, according to the recently published Silicon Valley Index. More than 16,000 of those jobs were in the tech industry, leaving the regions unemployment rate at about 2%, compared with the national rate of 3.4%.

On Friday, during the annual State of the Valley conference, Joint Venture Silicon Valley CEO Russell Hancock said most local jobs are in infrastructure, and parts of that sector including healthcare, social services and banking and financial services are rebounding and adding jobs. The 11,000 tech layoffs through February amounted to about 0.7% of the total Silicon Valley workforce and 2% of tech workers, he said, noting that 22,000 jobs were added to the region in the second half of 2022.

Another employment wrinkle is placing non-tech workers at pure-tech companies. Ed-tech platform Careerist has helped place 1,000 people in jobs as office workers, drivers, and sales reps at Apple, Amazon, Google, Samsung Electronics 005930, -1.73%, and Intel Corp. INTC, -2.09% over the three years, company CEO Ivan Tsybaev told MarketWatch.

For more: Heres why the jobs report was so good despite Big Tech layoffs

The sudden influx of laid-off workers has not only intensified competition for jobs but has added to harsh feelings among some tech workers toward their employers and the tech industry in general.

The honeymoon period with tech ended five years ago with the tech backlash, 2016 elections, data breaches, federal legislation and antitrust lawsuits, Spencer Greene, a general partner at venture-capital firm TSVC, told MarketWatch. There is a sense of disillusionment.

Stephen Deasy, chief technology officer at Benchling, a biotech-research platform, predicts that many jobless tech workers will land at more traditional businesses, which he says is an invaluable opportunity to transfer their skills.

Industries outside of tech have undergone massive digital transformations and are in need of workers with skills in artificial intelligence, cloud computing and data services, and companies in sectors such as banking, pharmaceuticals, biotech, healthcare and the defense industry are now hiring from a huge pool of newly available talent.

Former Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO, -0.43% CEO John Chambers has repeatedly said Fortune 500 companies have no choice but to adapt or perish. Have of these companies wont exist in 10 years, he famously said in 2020.

For years, those industries struggled to recruit against Big Tech, which offered legendary perks and lofty compensation. But now, industries such finance and insurance are hoping to hire while tech companies are on pause.

Wells Fargo & Co. WFC, +0.57%, for example, is in the midst of a tech-hiring binge. After filling more than 1,000 tech-related job openings in 2022, the financial-services company plans to hire 1,500 additional software engineers, systems architects and people skilled in user-experience design, operations and AI and machine learning. Wells Fargo already employs 40,000 technology workers globally.

It remains hard to recruit and get through to top talent. They are never looking for a job. We have to reach out to them, Jason Strle, chief information officer and head of enterprise-functions technology at Wells Fargo, told MarketWatch.

At the same time, early-stage tech startups are finding it easier to hire from the growing pool of qualified workers who have been let go recently by the industrys biggest names.

Seed-stage startups had difficulty hiring in 2021, but that is freeing up now, TSVCs Greene said. In 2021, there was so much competition for talent. Now it is a question of how much of more than 100,000 [laid-off tech workers] can you absorb now? I dont know, but startup people are really excited about [the available talent pool].

Somesh Dash, a general partner at Silicon Valley VC firm IVP, said 90% of people laid off at his portfolio companies, which include Uber Technologies Inc. UBER, -4.00% and Netflix Inc. NFLX, -0.78%, found jobs within a year.

If there is any consolation for recently unemployed tech workers, its that they are in high demand, as companies like Wells Fargo and State Farm Insurance build out their IT operations and need workers with AI, software and cloud skills.

This has happened before, said Muddu Sudhakar, CEO of Aisera, a service-desk platform. After the dot-com implosion in 2001, nontech employers ramped up hiring of tech talent. Now, we are having it happen again 20 years later.

This time around, there is a twist. Some tech workers are reluctant to take a job at another Big Tech company because of misgivings over companies damaged reputations as well as a general feeling that the industry is more interested in profits and market value than innovation.

Nick Hirsch started out as a software engineer intern at Google and later worked at Amazon and Microsoft before leaving Big Tech in 2015 to start his own venture. He also does freelance work for nontech companies such as McGraw Hill through A.Team, a marketplace for people with tech skills.

He says that his career path reinforces the idea that highly skilled tech workers dont have to be full-time employees at Big Tech firms. Like Hirsch, many have made the choice to do meaningful work at other kinds of companies.

Every company is a tech company to a certain degree, Deasy said. As banks, healthcare and customer service move into the application of AI, [machine learning] and cloud computing, there are more job opportunities than ever. So if you lost a job at a Big Tech company, dont despair. You have options.

Jeremy Owens contributed to this report.

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Worlds 22 Biggest Tech Companies of 2023 – UserGuiding

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According to statistics, the technology industry makes up 35% of the total market. And its steadily growing: the growth rate was 5.3% for 2022. There are more than 500 thousand tech companies alone in the United States, over 6,600 of which are in Silicon Valley.

Almost each and every company -no matter which industry theyre originally in- depends on technology companies in one way or another. It might be hardware, software, online services/tools, cybersecurity solutions

And my friends, this means money.

For this article, I went through Forbes The Global 2000, the annual ranking of public companies based upon 4 metrics (sales, assets, profits, and market value).

Here are the biggest tech companies of 2023

Amazon, one of the most valuable companies in the world, was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos.

Initially an online marketplace, the company started to produce its own technological devices and offer cloud services over time.

As well as ranking as the worlds 6th largest company in Forbes list, its listed among the top 25 tech and IT companies to work for -a.k.a. best workplaces!

Another tech giant on our list is Apple, which is not very surprising.

Specialized in electronics, software and online services, Apples annual revenue was $365.817B last year, in 2021.

The company was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne in 1976. Since then, Apple has been producing various tech devices, from computers to wearables.

Apple was one of the most popular tech companies in the industry when I was a little kid, it still is, and it doesnt seem like this will change in the near future.

Alphabet is a multinational conglomerate company, with $257.637B annual revenue for 2021.

After the restructuring Google went through in 2015, Alphabet Inc. was founded, and it became the parent company of Google businesses.

The company also invests in various start-ups and companies of different sizes in the tech industry: smart home projects, self-driving cars, cloud-gaming systems, and more.

Founded by Bill Gates and Paul Ellen in 1975, Microsoft is another tech giant rises from the United States.

It produces consumer electronics and computer software, as well as offering related solutions.

One of Microsofts best products, MS Office, has become an indispensable part of our lives. Spreadsheets, presentations, meeting notes You are ready for any meeting, any time with Office tools.

Also; LinkedIn, Skype, and GitHub can be listed among the companys subsidiaries.

Founded in 1969 in South Korea, Samsung Electronics operates through business divisions, as they manufacture and sell a wide range of electronics and software.

These are Consumer Electronics, IT & Mobile Communications, and Device Solutions.

Samsung Electronics does not only manufacture TVs, phones, and wearables; it also has smart home and digital health initiatives.

Tencent Holdings is a Chinese technology conglomerate company that was founded 23 years ago. Its the first Asian tech company that crossed the $500B mark.

Among its services, there are web portals, e-commerce platforms, payment systems, social networks, and mobile games.

The holding group also owns Tencent Music and Tencent Games, the largest company in the video game industry.

Tencents most popular communication tool WeChat has over 1.2 billion monthly active users. And its sibling app, QQ, has 564 million monthly active users.

The company also provides marketing solutions and cloud services. Tencent is dedicated to being a digital assistant they say. Through their digital services and technologies, they aim to help every industry.

Launched by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 to connect Harvard students with one another, Facebook was an instant hit. In 2 years, it became open to public use. In 2010, more than 400 million people were using it monthly.

In 2021, Facebook Inc. changed its name to Meta Platforms to emphasize its orientation to the metaverse.Virtual/augmented reality is the future, and Meta claims to help people exist there.

In addition to their own products focusing on metaverse and web3, such as Meta Quest and Meta Portal, the company acquired many subsidiaries, including Novi Financial, Hot Studio, and WhatsApp.

Born out of the difficulties of a husband and wife working at Stanford to communicate within the organization, Cisco Systems is almost 40 years old today.

Headquartered in San Jose, Silicon Valley, Cisco is an IT and networking company specialized in routers, switches, and cybersecurity.

The cybersecurity unit is the most valuable -and the fastest growing- part of the company. Last quarter, it grew its revenue by 14%, according to company data.

With Cisco SecureX; you can detect, respond, and quickly recover from cyber attacks. Its an integrated platform that can be used across various products, which means you can secure your apps, users, endpoints, and network from a single platform.

A fun fact about the company name: Cisco stands for San Francisco, and the vertical lines on the logo represent the Golden Gate Bridge

Oracle is an American computer software company. It was founded in 1977, in California, but the corporate headquarters are in Austin, Texas now.

They have more than 400,000 customers across the world, including FedEx, Xerox, and Siemens Healthineers, as they provide specific solutions for different industries.

You can manage your restaurant, modernize your finances, secure network infrastructure solutions, connect HR/product management/marketing and increase client satisfaction.

Plus: Oracle holds developer events regularly. From machine learning to image recognition, specialists exchange ideas. You can check out old events recordings and register for the upcoming ones from here.

Yeah, software companies are worth the whole world, and hardware companies can be worth a lot too. But companies who provide both? Theyre totally different gems

Broadcom has a diverse product portfolio, including both semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions.

With their innovative vision and collaboration, they achieved excellence more than once.

SAP is a leading software company that focuses on business management solutions such as data processing and information flow.

It was founded in 1972 in Weinheim, Germany.

When they released SAP R/2 and SAP R/3 software, they set a global standard in terms of enterprise resource planning (ERP). Now they have SAP S/4HANA, the latest version of ERP software. It makes use of in-memory computing; therefore, it enables tremendous amounts of data to be processed fast and smoothly.

SAP software gathers and centralizes data, normally which would be collected and analyzed separately by each department/team. It helps to have a better view and interpretation of collected data while increasing productivity -and ultimately, profits.

ERP software includes tools and programs suitable for all teams: HR, sales, marketing, product

And SAP has different solutions for companies of different sizes. A big corporate or a small company, doesnt matter, you can get help from them!

For other business management tools, lets take you here.

Its not easy to be recognized as a successful company by business magazines and get featured. But if theres anything harder, it is to be recognized and loved by those who got featured there.

Accenture has been working with 89 of Fortune 100 companies.

Its also listed as one of the best workplaces for innovative people by Fast Company.

Now, who is this Accenture? Lets have a close look at their services

They provide a wide range of services. From AI and cloud services to services for marketing needs, security needs, data & analytics

Furthermore, Accenture helps customers understand the metaverse and shape their business plans in a way that will fit into the future. With a deep understanding of the industry and the future that awaits it, they accompany customers in their metaverse journey.

While we are at the early days of the metaverse, it will advance very quickly. If companies dont act now, theyll find themselves operating in worlds designed by, and for, someone else.

PAUL DAUGHERTY, Group Chief Executive Technology & Chief Technology Officer

P.S. Accenture leads a national tech apprenticeship program. You can read more about it here.

Salesforce is the worlds #1 customer relationship management (CRM) platform.Founded in 1999, in California, it became one of the major tech companies shortly.

It acquired several companies including Slack, Heroku, and Tableou Software.

Customer 360, Salesforces original product, is a platform that integrates all the data and information about your company into one place. Sales team, customer Support, marketing people, product engineers All teams, one workspace.

You can integrate different apps with Customer 360 for sales/marketing purposes, data analysis, etc. and actually the more you integrate the better results you get.

Dont forget to check the best Salesforce alternatives!

Founded in 1982, Adobe is an American software company that provides marketing and document management solutions as well as creative tools. The corporate headquarters are in San Jose, Silicon Valley.

The company offer services in 3 main categories:

Intuit is a software company that is specialized in finance.

Along with their own products, QuickBooks, TurboTax, and Mint, the company owns time management and scheduling app TSheets, Mailchimp, and Credit Karma, which was another finance company but now is a brand of Intuit.

Lets see what you can do with their products

TurboTax:

Work with a tax expert

Get your tax refunds

Mint:

Manage all your accounts in one place

Track your cash flow (bill payments included!)

QuickBooks:

Keep track of your income and expenses

Complete your payments

Organize your taxes

Capgemini is a French-American IT services & consulting company. Corporate headquarters are in Paris, France.

They offer companies various solutions such as business transformation, cybersecurity, and enterprise management.

Also, they are aware of the fact that industry needs differ. Capgemini follows each industry closely and offers recommendations based on their needs.

From healthcare to media, insurance to travel, banking to automotive, and even aerospace and defense! You can trust them.

Founded in 1998, in Palo Alto, California, VMware is a cloud computing company.

It provides multi-cloud services for all apps. But what is multi-cloud?

Hybrid has became the new normal for most of us. No, Im not talking about half-time office half-time home-office shifts. Im talking about online workspaces, clouds. 73% of enterprises work with two -or more- cloud accounts. Even though the wide use of cloud-based platforms and the digital transformation is good news, they might bring possible security risks and productivity problems.

That is where VMware comes into play:

It connects and secures data across data centers and clouds.

It leverages infrastructure to protect apps.

It does not only protect your apps, but also help you improve and modernize them.

And finally, it improves the work experience of your employees. Anyone can work from anywhere from now on!

Uber, one of the companies with a high-tech employment rate, is mobility as a service company. It was founded in 2009 and quickly grew to be one of the most successful start-ups of the last decade.

You can mainly do two things with Uber:

You can meet your transportation needs

Or you can order from your favorite restaurants and get delivery with Uber

Also, you can work as a Uber driver or a delivery person.

Plus, as the largest mobility as a service platform in the world, the company is aware of its responsibilities towards the environment. They will have become a full electric, zero-emission platform by the end of 2040.

Shopify, which emerged shortly after as a solution when its founders could not find an e-commerce platform that meets their needs for their own commerce ventures, is now helping millions of businesses worldwide.

You can start your business, sell your products, plan your marketing campaigns, and manage your finances from only one platform.

But it doesnt end with creating a page on Shopify. You need to be on good terms with your customers, which means, you need to welcome them.

Take a look at how to onboard your Shopify customers successfully from here.

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Worlds 22 Biggest Tech Companies of 2023 - UserGuiding

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Big techs supersized ambitions | The Economist

Posted: at 5:45 am

IS THERE ANY limit to the ambition and hubris of big tech firms? In October Mark Zuckerberg renamed Facebook Meta and described humankinds new future in virtual worlds. On January 18th Microsoft, worth more than $2trn, decided it wasnt big enough and bid $69bn for Activision Blizzard, a video-games firm, in its biggest-ever deal. These decisions are part of a vast new investment surge at five of Americas biggest firms, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoftcall them MAAMA. Together, they have invested $280bn in the past year, equivalent to 9% of American business investment, up from 4% five years ago.

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Big tech wants to find the next big opportunity, and our analysis of deals, patents, recruitment and other yardsticks shows that cash is flowing into everything from driverless cars to quantum computing. The shift reflects a fear that the lucrative fiefs of the 2010s are losing relevance, and the fact that techs titans are increasingly moving onto each others patches (the share of sales that overlap has doubled since 2015 to 40%). So they are all looking to swoop into new territory.

They also have an eye on the history of technology, which is littered with once-dominant firms that were brought down not by regulators, but by missing the next big thing. Fairchild Semiconductor ruled in the 1950s but now exists only in books. In 1983 IBM was Americas most profitable firm but eight years later was loss-making after botching the move from mainframes to PCs. Nokia, once seemingly invincible in mobile devices, fumbled the shift to smartphones. The MAAMAs spent the 2010s fortifying commanding positions, in business tools for Microsoft, e-commerce for Amazon, social media for Meta, and so on. The pandemic has boosted demand, from bored couch-surfers to startups in need of cloud computing. Apple and Alphabet are now larger than were US Steel and Standard Oil, the two mighty monopolies of the 1900s, measured by profits relative to domestic GDP. Yet past performance is not indicative of future results, and now all of them are limbering up for whatever comes next.

The problem is that nobody knows what it will be. But it will probably involve new physical devices that will supersede the smartphone as the dominant means of connecting people to information and services. Whoever makes such devices will therefore control access to users. This explains why Apple is planning a virtual-reality headset to compete with Metas Oculus range and Microsofts HoloLens. Alphabet, Apple and Amazon have also all placed expensive bets on autonomous cars. And vast sums are being spent on designing specialised chips, and pursuing new approaches like quantum computing, to provide the processing power for whatever new devices emerge.

The MAAMAs other priority is creating software platforms that will allow them to extract rents, by drawing in users, and then relying on network effects to draw in even more. Hence Facebooks renaming and its $10bn annual spending on immersive online worlds, known as the metaverse. Apple has been expanding the walled garden of services it provides to users of its devices, moving into areas such as fitness classes and television shows. Buying Activision may help Microsoft provide a richer experience for its gaming customers, while Mesh, a platform for virtual 3D workplaces, is aimed at corporate users. The cloud-computing platforms operated by Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft literally charge rent to host computing environments for other companies.

Governments, rivals and billions of customers, who already fear these firms are too powerful, may be alarmed by all this. One view is that the companies large customer bases, and control of pools of data with which to train artificial intelligence (AI), give them an insurmountable advantage. Wont the giants use that to squash rivals? Yet all these new areas look competitive for the time being. Many other firms are in the metaverse race, for example. Fortnite, made by Epic Games, has more than 300m players worldwide, while Roblox has 47m gamers who spend 3bn hours a month on its platform. Nvidia, a chip firm, is moving into the space, too. Even Microsofts Activision deal would raise its market share in gaming to only 10-15%hardly a monopoly. In autonomous cars, big tech must contend with the likes of Tesla, GM and Volkswagen. Global startups raised $621bn of venture funding in 2021, far more than big tech invested. And new rivals have emerged with unexpected speed in some areas, such as TikTok in social media.

Moreover, there is an outside chance that the new terrain will prove less prone to domination by centralised platforms. Deep-learning technology, the dominant form of AI today, relies on large amounts of data, but future forms of AI may not. Then there are the decentralised blockchain services owned and operated by users, loosely known as Web3. At the moment these have clunky interfaces, use up lots of energy and are not always as decentralised as they seem. But in one areadecentralised finance, or DeFirapid improvements are already under way.

Nonetheless, the temptation is for regulators to clamp down pre-emptively. In 2020 Lina Khan, who is now Americas top antitrust official, recommended that big tech firms be banned from expanding into adjacent areas. Some big antitrust cases may reach Americas courts by 2023. And Europe may soon pass a sweeping Digital Markets Act, aimed at regulating big technology companies ex antethat is, constraining such firms behaviour upfront, rather than punishing them later with antitrust cases (Margrethe Vestager, the EUs competition tsar, explains all on our Money Talks podcast).

Yet a lighter touch is the best policy. Investment in tech is linked to rising productivity, and the share of cashflows the tech giants are reinvesting has almost doubled since a decade ago. Trustbusters will struggle to predict the technologies of tomorrow. What they can do is block firms from doing deals that give them a monopoly position in new markets today. That is not yet a danger. Indeed, history suggests that tech giants are most often brought down by failing to master emerging technologies. If todays giants want to spend billions trying to move into new areas to avoid that fate, so far there is no reason to stop them.

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Big techs supersized ambitions | The Economist

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