Third quarter 2023 financial results for Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG) will be made available at approximately 4:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, November 2 through a press release posted to the company's In

Booking Holdings to Make Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Press Release Available on Company's Investor Relations Website on Thursday, November 2

There are troubling reports that airlines are engaged in unfair, abusive, and deceptive practices,” the bipartisan letter reads.

Two senators are looking to end airline loyalty programs as you know them

Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. (NYSE: NCLH) (together with NCL Corporation Ltd., “Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings”, “Norwegian”, “NCLH” or the “Company”) today reported financial results for the third quarter ended September 30,

Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Reports Strong Third Quarter 2023 Financial Results

Cruising is back with a vengeance. If you want to take a cruise vacation, book ahead and be prepared to pay more.

Good luck booking a cruise: your favorite cruise lines are running low on cabins

Whether you’re starting from scratch or pondering what card deserves a spot in your wallet, this guide will point you in the right direction so you can travel more for less in 2024. Keep reading to learn how to unlock hundreds of dollars in potential value for your next trip.

Travel for cheaper with travel credit cards in 2024

We expect the company’s stock to likely trade higher with revenues and earnings beating market expectations marginally.

Up 36% This Year, Will Booking Holdings’ Stock Rally Further Following Q3 Results?

Fintel reports that on October 30, 2023, Oppenheimer reiterated coverage of Booking Holdings (NASDAQ:BKNG) with a Outperform recommendation.  Analyst Price Forecast Suggests 26.27% Upside  As of October 5,

Oppenheimer Reiterates Booking Holdings (BKNG) Outperform Recommendation

Booking Holdings Inc. price-eps-surprise | Booking Holdings Inc. Quote Booking Holdings’ growing momentum in booking trends, owing to continued strength in travel demand, is expected to have benefited its top-line growth in the third quarter of 2023.

What's in Store for Booking Holdings (BKNG) in Q3 Earnings?

This article takes a look at the 18 best vacations for retired couples. If you wish to skip our detailed analysis on the golden gap year, you may go to 5 Best Vacations for Retired Couples. Golden Gap Year If you think gap years are exclusive only to the youth,

18 Best Vacations for Retired Couples

Wall Street moved lower again last week. I thought my three stocks to avoid for that week -- Altria, Southwest, and Charter Communications -- were going to lose to the market. They fell 8%, 8%, and 13%, respectively, for an average decline of 9.7% for the week.

3 Stocks to Avoid This Week

Booking Holdings

bookingholdings

Micheal Burry, the investor who rose to fame for anticipating the collapse of the US housing market and a subsequent Wall Street crash in 2008, has decided to bet big once again against semiconductor markets. Has the ‘Big Short’ star made another major call? Burry’s hedge fund, Scion Capital, in recent weeks, one focused on shorting 100,000 shares of BlackRock’s semiconductor ETF, the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX), and the second shorted 2,500 shares in the online travel website Booking Holdings Inc. (BKNG). opened two new positions Scion Capital’s shorting activity has ramped up in 2023, with the hedge fund recently closing out ‘put’ positions on the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) and Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) at the end of September, with QQQ tracking the performance of the Nasdaq 100 index. But why has BlackRock’s iShares Semiconductor ETF been targeted? And should Wall Street be worried about Burry’s latest ‘Big Short’ coming to fruition? Shorting SOXX The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) is an exchange-traded fund that has gained almost 50% in the 2023 calendar year thanks to sustained exponential growth among key players like Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., among other chipmakers. In shorting 100,000 shares in SOXX, Burry’s bet against the ETF according to Scion Capital’s 13-F filing with the SEC in mid-November. , amounts to around $47 million Opting to short SOXX is likely to raise many eyebrows throughout Wall Street and comes as a clear indication that Burry believes the ETF to be overvalued. Despite significant volumes of hedge funding arriving into semiconductor firms off the back of 2023’s boom, it’s clear that some investors believe that the market has begun to overvalue some key semiconductor firms like Nvidia, which power artificial intelligence services. generative AI While Nvidia’s stock has grown nearly 250% in 2023, the iShares Semiconductor ETF has consistently shown outperformance in recent years, exhibiting 38% growth over the past year, 207% growth over five years, and a monumental 600% growth since its launch in July 2001. Should the Semiconductor Market be Worried? As one of the stars of the semiconductor landscape, it’s worth looking at the sustainability of Nvidia as an indicator of the long-term viability of the semiconductor industry. Because of the AI boom, demand for Nvidia’s semiconductors is growing, even in spite of China’s export ban on high-end AI chips. But rapid growth can often lead to inflated valuations, and accompanying Michael Burry’s SOXX short is renowned investor George Soros, who through Q3 2023, according to recent 13F filings. cut his stake in Nvidia Should the semiconductor market be worried about this falling positive sentiment among some of Wall Street’s most notable players? Probably not when it comes to factoring in long-term growth. Nvidia is a stock that has built a key presence across multiple emerging industries that extend way beyond generative AI. In a future that could be built on autonomous driving and transport, semiconductors are likely to find an even greater purpose. In terms of Nvidia’s exposure to the automotive industry, an annual revenue run rate of around $1 billion once the technology gathers pace, the semiconductor giants anticipate. could become $300 billion Furthermore, Maxim Manturov, head of investment research at , has suggested that Nvidia’s prospects extend even further, with GPUs capable of enhancing “the user experience on computing platforms, particularly in PC gaming applications.” Freedom Finance Europe “Nvidia offers not only GPUs for artificial intelligence but also the Cuda software platform used to develop and train artificial intelligence models. Nvidia is also expanding its data center networking solutions to help connect GPUs to handle complex workloads,” Manturov explains. Competitivity and Innovation Remain a Long-Term Challenge Although it’s highly likely that demand for semiconductors won’t be declining any time soon, we may see more volatility arrive in the industry as competition intensifies and the quest for innovation becomes more challenging. In November, Microsoft into creating bespoke chips for AI programs in the cloud as Nvidia’s market dominance begins to come under new levels of scrutiny. announced its entry The development of two new processors, one built on a general-purpose chip based on Arm designs called Cobalt and another specialized AI accelerator named Maia, is set to be deployed through Microsoft’s Azure data centers and will provide support for services such as OpenAI and Copilot. In addition to this, shrinking semiconductor transistor sizes are making the steady progress experienced in years gone by considerably more difficult. “Deep learning was powered by hardware. We feel great pressure to continue,” , chief scientist at Nvidia. warned Bill Dally “It’s getting harder, but we still have good ideas…out to like four years out, we’ve got a pretty good idea of where the performance is coming from. And we have a lot of exploratory efforts to answer the question about where the performance is going to come from after that.” Volatility and Sustainability This uncertainty could bring more volatility to the high-performing semiconductor stocks of today, but a dedication to innovation is likely to ensure their long-term relevance to the market. While the likes of Michael Burry and George Soros appear to be anticipating a semiconductor market correction, the stocks remain as pertinent as ever in a world likely to lean heavily on the future of artificial intelligence.

‘Big Short’ Investor Michael Burry Turns Attention to Semiconductors: Does Nvidia Have to Fear?

'বিগ শর্ট' বিনিয়োগকারী মাইকেল বুরি সেমিকন্ডাক্টরদের প্রতি মনোযোগ দেন: এনভিডিয়াকে কি ভয় করতে হবে?

„Big Short“-Investor Michael Burry richtet seine Aufmerksamkeit auf Halbleiter: Muss Nvidia Angst haben?

El inversor de la 'gran apuesta' Michael Burry centra su atención en los semiconductores: ¿Nvidia tiene que temer?

L'investisseur « Big Short » Michael Burry se tourne vers les semi-conducteurs : Nvidia doit-il avoir peur ?

'बिग शॉर्ट' निवेशक माइकल बरी ने सेमीकंडक्टर्स पर ध्यान दिया: क्या एनवीडिया को डरने की ज़रूरत है?

「大物ショート」投資家マイケル・バーリー氏が半導体に注目：NVIDIAは恐れる必要があるのか？

'빅쇼트' 투자자 마이클 버리(Michael Burry)가 반도체로 관심을 돌리다: 엔비디아는 두려워해야 하는가?

O investidor ‘Big Short’ Michael Burry volta a atenção para os semicondutores: a Nvidia precisa temer?

«Большой короткий» инвестор Майкл Берри обращает внимание на полупроводники: стоит ли Nvidia бояться?

'Büyük Açık' Yatırımcı Michael Burry Dikkatini Yarı İletkenlere Çevirdi: Nvidia'nın Korkması Gerekiyor mu?

Nhà đầu tư 'Big Short' Michael Burry chuyển sự chú ý sang chất bán dẫn: Nvidia có phải lo sợ không?

“大空头”投资者迈克尔·伯里将注意力转向半导体：英伟达需要恐惧吗？

HackerNoon Reporter: Please tell us briefly about your  background. I’m a serial entrepreneur, and previously the Regional Director at momondo and CMO of the Swedish electric car company Uniti. What's your startup called? And in a sentence or two, what does it do? Cogo gathers all shared electric scooters, bikes, cars, and mopeds from 190 different mobility operators in 500 cities worldwide. We want to help the transition from private car ownership to shared electric vehicles to improve the cities we live in. What is the origin story? I saw the increased popularity of shared mobility, and specifically for electric scooters in 2018. Back then I was involved in another mobility startup in Sweden called Uniti (electric car), and I saw this new industry growing in front of my eyes and I felt that I was missing out. I really wanted to be part of this transition and help reduce our dependency on private gasoline cars. I thought long and hard to figure out how I could bring value into this space, another scooter operator wouldn't change the world as there were literally already hundreds of them. I realised that I had over 10 different apps to move around in Copenhagen and Malmö, and for me as a user it was a very complex and annoying experience. It dawned on me that no one had solved this problem yet, and this is where I could really have an impact, so I started working on it! Luckily my co-founder Bibi heard about the idea through mutual friends so we started talking and launched the company together last year. What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem? Everybody is so passionate about the fundamental problem that we’re trying to solve and the team has a relevant background from building momondo, from foundation to internationalisation and a finally $550 million acquisition by Booking Holdings. Just like we transformed the airline industry we’ve now set out to do the same in the shared mobility space. If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing? Probably work on another business idea, and hopefully do some more kitesurfing. At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics? User growth and user stickiness (our retention rate). We’re building Cogo to help our users, and we’re monitoring closely how new features are being received. Many of the features that we’re currently working on come from our users. What’s most exciting about your traction to date? We have the best operator coverage in the Nordics, were finalists as ‘newcomer of the year’ at Nordic Startups awards 2020 (and nominated again this year) and we have received a lot of great press coverage in Sweden, Denmark and even internationally. What’s most exciting is that Cogo has already been used in over 100 countries without any paid marketing! What technologies are you currently most excited about, and most worried about? And why? Excited about Bitcoin and other cryptos: because they will change how we do commerce. Worried about AI robots: You just know it’s going to go wrong at some point What drew you to get published on HackerNoon? What do you like most about our platform? We were nominated and after looking into Hackernoon I really like the way you write your content. For us, as a startup, this is also a great way to showcase all the good things we’re working on! What advice would you give to the 21-year-old version of yourself? Trust the process and know that things usually turn out just fine if you keep working hard. What is something surprising you've learned this year that your contemporaries would benefit from knowing? A humpback whale eats up to 2,5 tons of plankton, krill and small fish every day! Be sure to vote for Cogo as Startup of the Year in Copenhagen: https://startups.hackernoon.com/northern-europe/copenhagen-denmark

Startup Interview with Robin Eriksson, Co-founder/CEO of Cogo

Facebook has finally disclosed the details of its cryptocurrency Libra with the long-awaited Libra whitepaper. Libra will allow its users to buy things or transfer money to others with zero fees. Libra cryptocurrency holders will also be able to cash out Libra online or purchase things at local exchange points like Grocery stores and pay out using third-party wallet apps or Facebook’s own Calibra wallet which will be integrated into Messenger, WhatsApp and its own app. Released Tuesday Morning on 18th June 2019, the 29-page Libra whitepaper explains a protocol designed to grow with a new global currency. The document outlines the information about Libra and its testnet for experimenting with the twists of its blockchain system before launching it to the public in the first half of 2020. The whitepaper opens up by trumpeting the Libra’s mission: Libra’s mission is to enable a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people. In order to achieve the decentralization, a new organization called Libra Association has been established whose members will have separate tokens which will provide them with on-chain voting rights to govern decisions about Libra. Facebook is not only responsible for fully controlling Libra, but Facebook has also got a single vote in Libra’s governance like other founding members of Association including Uber, Andreessen Horowitz and Visa. Each of these organizations has invested at least $10 million into the project’s organizations. The Libra Association will market the open-source Libra Blockchain and Developer Platform with their own Move programming language. Facebook will also launch a subsidiary company named “Calibra” that will manage crypto transactions and ensure user’s privacy by never integrating Libra payments with Facebook data to avoid ad targeting. Also, the users’ identity will never be mingled to publicly transparent transactions. Source: New Atlas Facebook/Calibra and founding members of Libra Association will earn interest when users cash in money held in reserve, to maintain the stability of Libra. After evaluating the existing blockchain platforms, Facebook decided to build a new platform, Libra based on the following requirements: Highly secure, ensuring the safety of financial data and funds.
Flexibility to power the Libra’s ecosystem governance and innovation in financial services.
Ability to scale to billions of accounts that need low latency, high capacity storage system and high transaction throughput. The Libra Blockchain has adopted the BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerance) approach with the LibraBFT consensus mechanism to facilitate agreement among validator nodes on transactions to be executed. Also, the data on the Libra Blockchain implements Merkle trees to enable detection of any changes made to the existing data, thereby storing transactions securely. How does Libra Blockchain work? Libra does not allow real identity on its blockchain system like other platforms. It is only public-private key pairs that exist. The Libra protocol never links to a real-world identity. However, a user can make multiple accounts with multiple key-pairs. Accounts managed by the same user have no link to each other. The consensus mechanism for Libra Blockchain will be dozens of organizations that will run nodes on the network to validate transactions. Every time consensus is voted for new transactions; a leader is selected randomly to count up the votes. Libra has opted to depend on familiarity instead of democracy to establish consensus in initial days. Founding members of the Libra Association are the entities who can vote at the outset by holding Libra Investment Tokens. Libra Investment Tokens provide founding members with the voting rights on the network to make decisions about letting new validators join the network and handling the reserve. Unlike Ethereum, Libra has come up with two essential changes in smart contracts. First of all, it restricts how much users can do at the protocol. Secondly, it breaks out the data from software so that one smart contract can be directed to a pool of assets, known as “resources” by Move programming language. Libra will never use a burning mechanism to improve the value of the coin. Instead, tokens will be issued and burned consistently when the association will respond to demand shifts for reserve with no minimum or maximum supply. Similar to Corda, Libra’s Blockchain Ledger is also disposable, meaning that the historical data can grow beyond the limit managed by an individual server. However, validators can choose to discard historical data when it is no more needed for the processing of new transactions. The Libra Blockchain is open source with Apache 2.0 license and developers can build apps on it using the Move programming language. Libra has launched its testnet today and it’s in developer beta mode until it officially gets launched in 2020. The Libra Association has collaborated with HackerOne to create a bug bounty system that will reward security researchers for identifying glitches and flaws safely. The Libra Association Every founding member of the association has paid a minimum amount of $10 million to join and become a validator node on the Libra Blockchain Network. In return, they have gained one vote in the Libra Association Council and are entitled to a share of dividends from interest earned on the Libra reserve. According to the report by The Block’s Frank Chaparro, the following are 28 soon-to-be founding members of the association: Source: Libra.org Technology Marketplaces: eBay, Lyft, Booking Holdings, Facebook/Calibra, Farfetch, Spotify AB, Uber Technologies, Inc. and Mercado Pago.
Telecommunications: Vodafone Group and Iliad.
Payments: PayPal, Stripe, Visa, Mastercard and PayU.
Venture Capital: Andreessen Horowitz, Ribbit Capital, Breakthrough Initiatives, Union Square Ventures and Thrive Capital.
Blockchain: Bison Trails, Xapo Holdings Limited, Coinbase, Inc. and Anchorage.
Nonprofit and multilateral organizations and academic institutions: Kiva, Mercy Corps, Creative Destruction Lab and Women’s World Banking. Who can be a part of Libra Governance? In order to join the Libra Association, members must have a half rack of server space, the dedicated internet connection of 100Mbps or above, enterprise-grade security and a full-time reliability site engineer. Businesses must hit two of three goals of a $1 billion USD market value, reach 20 million people in a year and/or recognition as a top 100 industry leader by a group like S&P and Interband Global or $500 million in customer balances. Wrapping up If Facebook achieves the success and a lot of people cash in money for Libra, the founding members of the association could obtain big dividends on the interest. Once it becomes super quick to buy things using Facebook’s cryptocurrency, businesses would also like to boost their ad spend in it. The announcement news of the launch of Libra cryptocurrency has made every tech enthusiast more excited and everyone is curious for more updates from Facebook’s Blockchain Team. Visit our website to know more about our blockchain work and technologies we understand. Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to stay updated with developments around Blockchain. Facebook has finally disclosed the details of its cryptocurrency Libra with the long-awaited Libra whitepaper. Libra will allow its users to buy things or transfer money to others with zero fees. Libra cryptocurrency holders will also be able to cash out Libra online or purchase things at local exchange points like Grocery stores and pay out using third-party wallet apps or Facebook’s own Calibra wallet which will be integrated into Messenger, WhatsApp and its own app. Released Tuesday Morning on 18th June 2019, the 29-page Libra whitepaper explains a protocol designed to grow with a new global currency. The document outlines the information about Libra and its testnet for experimenting with the twists of its blockchain system before launching it to the public in the first half of 2020. The whitepaper opens up by trumpeting the Libra’s mission: Libra’s mission is to enable a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people. Libra’s mission is to enable a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people. Libra’s mission is to enable a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people. In order to achieve the decentralization, a new organization called Libra Association has been established whose members will have separate tokens which will provide them with on-chain voting rights to govern decisions about Libra. Facebook is not only responsible for fully controlling Libra, but Facebook has also got a single vote in Libra’s governance like other founding members of Association including Uber, Andreessen Horowitz and Visa. Each of these organizations has invested at least $10 million into the project’s organizations. The Libra Association will market the open-source Libra Blockchain and Developer Platform with their own Move programming language. Facebook will also launch a subsidiary company named “Calibra” that will manage crypto transactions and ensure user’s privacy by never integrating Libra payments with Facebook data to avoid ad targeting. Also, the users’ identity will never be mingled to publicly transparent transactions. Source: New Atlas Facebook/Calibra and founding members of Libra Association will earn interest when users cash in money held in reserve, to maintain the stability of Libra. After evaluating the existing blockchain platforms , Facebook decided to build a new platform, Libra based on the following requirements: blockchain platforms Highly secure, ensuring the safety of financial data and funds. Flexibility to power the Libra’s ecosystem governance and innovation in financial services. Ability to scale to billions of accounts that need low latency, high capacity storage system and high transaction throughput. Highly secure, ensuring the safety of financial data and funds. Flexibility to power the Libra’s ecosystem governance and innovation in financial services. Ability to scale to billions of accounts that need low latency, high capacity storage system and high transaction throughput. The Libra Blockchain has adopted the BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerance) approach with the LibraBFT consensus mechanism to facilitate agreement among validator nodes on transactions to be executed. Also, the data on the Libra Blockchain implements Merkle trees to enable detection of any changes made to the existing data, thereby storing transactions securely. How does Libra Blockchain work? Libra does not allow real identity on its blockchain system like other platforms. It is only public-private key pairs that exist. The Libra protocol never links to a real-world identity. However, a user can make multiple accounts with multiple key-pairs. Accounts managed by the same user have no link to each other. The consensus mechanism for Libra Blockchain will be dozens of organizations that will run nodes on the network to validate transactions. Every time consensus is voted for new transactions; a leader is selected randomly to count up the votes. Libra has opted to depend on familiarity instead of democracy to establish consensus in initial days. Founding members of the Libra Association are the entities who can vote at the outset by holding Libra Investment Tokens. Libra Investment Tokens provide founding members with the voting rights on the network to make decisions about letting new validators join the network and handling the reserve. Unlike Ethereum, Libra has come up with two essential changes in smart contracts. First of all, it restricts how much users can do at the protocol. Secondly, it breaks out the data from software so that one smart contract can be directed to a pool of assets, known as “resources” by Move programming language. Libra will never use a burning mechanism to improve the value of the coin. Instead, tokens will be issued and burned consistently when the association will respond to demand shifts for reserve with no minimum or maximum supply. Similar to Corda, Libra’s Blockchain Ledger is also disposable, meaning that the historical data can grow beyond the limit managed by an individual server. However, validators can choose to discard historical data when it is no more needed for the processing of new transactions. The Libra Blockchain is open source with Apache 2.0 license and developers can build apps on it using the Move programming language. Libra has launched its testnet today and it’s in developer beta mode until it officially gets launched in 2020. The Libra Association has collaborated with HackerOne to create a bug bounty system that will reward security researchers for identifying glitches and flaws safely. The Libra Association Every founding member of the association has paid a minimum amount of $10 million to join and become a validator node on the Libra Blockchain Network. In return, they have gained one vote in the Libra Association Council and are entitled to a share of dividends from interest earned on the Libra reserve. According to the report by The Block’s Frank Chaparro, the following are 28 soon-to-be founding members of the association: According to the report by The Block’s Frank Chaparro , the following are 28 soon-to-be founding members of the association: report by The Block’s Frank Chaparro Source: Libra.org Technology Marketplaces: eBay, Lyft, Booking Holdings, Facebook/Calibra, Farfetch, Spotify AB, Uber Technologies, Inc. and Mercado Pago. Telecommunications: Vodafone Group and Iliad. Payments: PayPal, Stripe, Visa, Mastercard and PayU. Venture Capital: Andreessen Horowitz, Ribbit Capital, Breakthrough Initiatives, Union Square Ventures and Thrive Capital. Blockchain: Bison Trails, Xapo Holdings Limited, Coinbase, Inc. and Anchorage. Nonprofit and multilateral organizations and academic institutions: Kiva, Mercy Corps, Creative Destruction Lab and Women’s World Banking. Technology Marketplaces: eBay, Lyft, Booking Holdings, Facebook/Calibra, Farfetch, Spotify AB, Uber Technologies, Inc. and Mercado Pago. Technology Marketplaces: Telecommunications: Vodafone Group and Iliad. Telecommunications: Payments: PayPal, Stripe, Visa, Mastercard and PayU. Payments: Venture Capital: Andreessen Horowitz, Ribbit Capital, Breakthrough Initiatives, Union Square Ventures and Thrive Capital. Venture Capital: Blockchain: Bison Trails, Xapo Holdings Limited, Coinbase, Inc. and Anchorage. Blockchain: Nonprofit and multilateral organizations and academic institutions : Kiva, Mercy Corps, Creative Destruction Lab and Women’s World Banking. Nonprofit and multilateral organizations and academic institutions Who can be a part of Libra Governance? In order to join the Libra Association, members must have a half rack of server space, the dedicated internet connection of 100Mbps or above, enterprise-grade security and a full-time reliability site engineer. Businesses must hit two of three goals of a $1 billion USD market value, reach 20 million people in a year and/or recognition as a top 100 industry leader by a group like S&P and Interband Global or $500 million in customer balances. Wrapping up If Facebook achieves the success and a lot of people cash in money for Libra, the founding members of the association could obtain big dividends on the interest. Once it becomes super quick to buy things using Facebook’s cryptocurrency, businesses would also like to boost their ad spend in it. The announcement news of the launch of Libra cryptocurrency has made every tech enthusiast more excited and everyone is curious for more updates from Facebook’s Blockchain Team. Visit our website to know more about our blockchain work and technologies we understand. Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to stay updated with developments around Blockchain. Visit our website website to know more about our blockchain work and technologies we understand. Follow us on Facebook , Facebook LinkedIn LinkedIn and Twitter Twitter to stay updated with developments around Blockchain.

Facebook announces the Libra Cryptocurrency with the release of Libra Whitepaper

April was rich in important news. Google launched new features for conversational interfaces, including Dialogflow Enterprise Edition. This cross-platform suit simplifies chatbot and voice-agents development and support. Sharing economy disrupts traditional business models as home sharing becomes a new hospitality trend. Marriott enters the private rental segment with one of its existing brands. Let’s talk about these and some other news and trends that defined this month in the technology world. Amazon goes international The retail giant, Amazon, beyond the USA, Western Europe, Middle East, Singapore, and Australia. The company added new shipment destinations and now shoppers can use Amazon services across more than 100 countries. Nevertheless, the retail giant isn’t establishing local presence. Amazon just made its products available for shipment in new regions via the mobile app that helps customers calculate full shipment cost and additional fees. expands operations Amazon’s expansion is an important sign for the eCommerce industry: The US retail wars go global. In April, some rumors claimed that both Walmart and Amazon are , an Indian eCommerce company. Later in May, Walmart has beaten Amazon in competition for Flipkart. The offline retailer will buy 77 percent stake in the Indian eCommerce company for $16 billion. In India, the online retail market is expected to reach $200 billion by 2026. And both companies attempted to establish operations in India, nevertheless, both competitors didn’t succeed. Amazon invested billions to compete with Flipkart, while Walmart managed to open only 21 physical stores across the country being constrained by foreign investment policies. And finally, the rumors have been confirmed: Walmart is about to buy the Indian online retailer. Flipkart will benefit from the merge with the offline business of Walmart. interested in buying Flipkart Google boosts conversational interface offerings Google makes generally available. Dialogflow is a development suite to build AI-based conversational interfaces. The technology comprises 30+ pre-built templates, which speed up projects delivery. Dialogflow simplifies the development of text and voices applications, and is simple enough, that it can be used even by engineers having no prior experience with conversational interfaces. Dialogflow Enterprise Edition Dialogflow targets these four main areas The new technology is built as a cross-platform solution, which ensures that it can be used across major devices and supports Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Facebook Messenger. The expansion of Google cloud services and the cross-platform nature makes the suite even more competitive as businesses have to spend less money on supporting their products. Lyft expands operations in corporate travel Lyft with American Express Business Travel. Currently, corporate travelers can book ground transportation from the online cub company. But American Express officials claim that this collaboration will redefine traditional resale model in ground transportation as Lyft allows for building highly personalized ride sharing programs. announced its integration Being a direct competitor to Uber, Lyft is focusing a significant part of its efforts on the business travellers. As a result, Uber’s share in ground transfers on Certify, popular travel and expense management platform, declined from 99 percent in 2014 to 81 percent in Q1, 2018. This is yet another sign for traditional ground transport providers to start transforming their businesses. Otherwise, such digital ride-hailing companies as Uber and Lyft will crowd out the taxi and car rentals from the market. Marriott launches home sharing product The home sharing market is a hot spot on the travel industry map, as it attracts large OTAs and major hospitality brands. Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, , and Hyatt have already embarked on home sharing. Some of them own home sharing brands, like Expedia with HomeAway, some operate under their own brands, like Airbnb. AccorHotels The USA private accommodation rentals market has been valued at $32 billion in 2016. Phocuswright expects that the homesharing industry will grow to $37 billion by the end of 2018. The sharing economy has helped Airbnb grow from an ordinary startup into the travel industry giant, looking for ways to compete with Expedia, Booking Holdings, and other major players. Recently, Marriott joined the competition. The hotel chain with Hostmaker: Marriott clients will be able to book any of 200 shortlisted homes placed on Hostmaker via TributePortfolioHomes.com, one of Marriott’s portfolio brands. The rentals available for Marriott’s clients meet all safety, design, security, and service standards. Guests will also receive 24/7 dedicated support, in-person check-in, and participate in the loyalty program. Marriott operation model is quite unique as they are looking to transform one of the existing brands into the home sharing expert. launched a pilot project Ant Financial is close to becoming $150 billion company A Chinese startup, Ant Financial, is close to becoming . Fintech company plans to raise about ten billion dollars. As a result, its valuation will reach $150 billion. It is twice as much as Goldman Sachs, the world-famous investment bank. Ant Financial operates in business payments, wealth management, and microfinancing. The company has already been backed by Alibaba that owns about 30 percent stake. It also reached profitability earning $2.1 billion in profits last year. the largest startup in the history Ant Financial mega round is a sign of the renewal of the fintech activity in China. As fintech regulations become more transparent, the investors are ready to pour money into the industry. Today, increasingly more Chinese unicorns can successfully seal their initial public offerings (IPOs), and it’s likely that Ant Financial will raise pre-IPO funding. SenseTime is the highest valued AI startup SenseTime is a highest valued startup now on the artificial intelligence scene. The Chinese company works on dynamic and static facial recognition, ID authentication solutions, AR platform, and BI solutions. Their customer portfolio includes around 400 businesses across fintech, automotive, and hardware industries. The company managed to during the last funding round. SenseTime will use the funding to expand operations beyond Asia and develop new AI solutions. The last round allowed the company to reach $4.5 billion in valuation. raise $600 million Over 200 AI companies got $4.5 billion funding in China during 2012–2017, which allows the country to aim for the position of the worldwide leader in AI technologies by 2030. Chinese authorities have already planned to invest over $7 billion in the next several years. These investments will create opportunities for other AI startups to repeat the SenseTime success. In China, AI companies are usually independent entities backed by tech giants as opposed to US, where AI development is mostly driven by tech giants or their wholly owned subsidiaries. Biometric technology automates cross-bordering in Mexico and the UK The biometric technology has created a lot of hype in the travel industry since JetBlue and SITA have begun testing the boarding solution that employs facial recognition. SITA kiosks take passenger photos via an embedded camera or request fingerprints and check identities using machine learning. The trend is emerging and SITA’s technology is extending biometric solutions coverage to Brisbane Airport in Australia and British Airways in Orlando International Airport. The technology has also received support from the Indian government. Finally, in April Mexican government and the travel software company across three major airports. The technology will automate border control by checking identity using fingerprint recognition. have agreed to install 100 kiosks Biometrics in travel is an attractive startup opportunity due to low competition and the early adoption phase. For instance, , a facial recognition startup, plans to partner with the government to between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The company will apply the algorithms that are already used by Iproov’s customers from the financial industry: DNB in Norway and Rabobank in the Netherlands, U.K.’s tax agency. The solution mostly uses mobile devices to take a short video record and then check identity. And the company claims that their system is 100 times more accurate than a standard identity checking procedure. Iproov solve border crossing problem Apple ambitions in healthcare are too high Apple healthcare ambitions may be overhyped. We still don’t know much about their progress in glucometer integration with Apple Watch. So far, skeptics have many doubts about the success of Apple Health, health record app. The application allows for gathering, storing, and sharing patients’ medical data. Apple Health is already connected to over 39 clinical solution providers across the USA. Although the solution seems to be a great addition to the standard EHR systems, in reality, users still receive very limited access to their records. In addition, physicians say that the initiative will have a limited impact if Android users won’t be able to participate. The situation remains controversial as claims that users are optimistic about app adoption, but skeptics imply that the functionality won’t be available for patients of small hospitals and private practices. Healthcare IT News survey Final word The sharing economy is a powerful force which changes the landscape in travel and transportation. Ride-sharing and home sharing platforms disrupt traditional business models. Uber and Lyft make consistent steps to crowd out car rentals and taxi companies from the business travel domain. Airbnb enforces other digital and traditional players in hospitality to join the private rentals segment. In order to enter the market, large travel brands establish new home sharing brands, others acquire or merge with segment incumbents. Private rentals are non-standardized, less controlled, and secure. So, major hospitality brands prefer to be perceived as separate from their apartment sharing subsidiaries. In April, Marriot broke this rule and launched the private rental product under one of his portfolio brands. This decision will boost standards and regulation activities, and as a result, travelers will get cheaper apartments, and hospitality brands will benefit from acting on the $40 billion market opportunity. Originally published at AltexSoft’s blog: Liked the story? Let us know by clapping so more people can find it! 👏 “ Technology Industry News & Trends, April 2018 ”

Technology Industry News & Trends, April 2018

February, the last full month of winter, dumped an abundance of snow on some of us and a ton of interesting news on all of us. Airbnb plans to change the competitive space of the travel industry by shifting their business model from simple apartment sharing as it creates an end-to-end travel experience. With 46 percent of projects closing after fundraising campaigns, ICOs seem harmful to investor financial health. Blockchain succeeds in the travel technology space — TUI and Travel Ledger are utilizing the Ethereum platform for inventory management. We unpack these items and others in our February technology industry review. Airbnb plans to conquer the airline business Airbnb gradually moves in the direction of becoming an end-to-end travel solution. Last year, the company partnered with hospitality development companies to launch branded hotels. In early February, for hotel distribution. And then the rental giant announced further expansion into the events market, targeting the concert segment. But now they are going even further — Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky says that they are thinking about to their offerings. The most interesting question is how the company plans to enter this market: whether they will acquire an OTA, partner with GDS providers, or airlines directly. Airbnb opened up the platform adding flight booking The expansion beyond traditional rental business isn’t surprising. The company looks for additional revenue streams, so the rumors of a potential IPO may come true in 2019. If the expansion turns successful, Airbnb will become a one-stop travel shopping platform similar to Expedia and Booking Holdings (ex. Priceline Group). The changes in the Airbnb strategy confirm a big shift in demand for all-in-one solutions in the travel market. Flights, hotels, and cars are now expected to be found within a single interface. Ethereum-based blockchain makes its first footprints in the travel industry In January we said that blockchain startups failed to disrupt the travel industry — . However, there are budding blockchain initiatives worth discussing as spring approaches. TUI Group, the leading travel company, to increase transparency and improve inventory management. TUI’s problem is its organizational structure. The company owns several semi-independent brands, and as a result, it doesn’t have a unified database. TUI plans to use an Ethereum-based solution to introduce smart contracts that will unify data exchange between TUI entities. This can solve the data governance problem and potentially improve revenue management capabilities: The travel agency will be able to swap inventories between subsidiaries in the event of extreme demand. so far ses blockchain Another project worth discussing is . UK’s Intuitive, Australia’s Tourism Technology, and Dolphin Dynamics a blockchain-based billing platform for the travel industry. All payment transactions will be recorded and stored in a decentralized database. The platform will make travel payments more secure, transparent, and cost-effective. Partners will build a project on top of Ethereum technology as well. The network will be governed by a non-profit organization established by developers. Travel Ledger partnered to deliver Nearly half of last year’s ICOs failed (we’ll discuss this in the next section), but blockchain as a data exchange technology may become a strategic focus for midsize and large organizations that strive for transparency, coherent data exchange, and security. 46 percent of ICOs fail, but there are bright exceptions The shows that 46 percent of ICOs failed last year. Investors lost over $104 million on burned-out projects. The research covered 902 startups placed on Tokendata. ICO projects often behave like scams: Founders raise money and disappear. In addition to outright fraud, hundreds of zombie startups exist. These companies often have questionable business ideas and incoherent models. Once they fail to build a powerful community around their projects, these businesses opt for radio silence. Currently, about 12.5 percent of projects are half-dead. This situation will likely lead to a broader consensus about ICO regulation, which will be similar to IPO procedures and stock exchange listing requirements. News.Bitcoin.com study Source: TokenData On the other hand, some ICO representatives demonstrated impressive results in 2018. Telegram, an encrypted messaging platform, has during the pre-ICO stage and plans to raise a proportional sum during the second pre-sale. The potential Telegram deal is staggering. The company plans to get over $1.6 billion. Notably, total ICO volume in 2017 accounts for 5.6 billion. Telegram ICO may become the largest ICO so far. raised $850 million Source: Business Insider UK IBM and Unity aim to lift AR/VR technology to enterprise scale IBM and Unity , which allows for easy integration with for Unity developers. Unity is the leading graphics engine applied in AR and VR applications by far. Combining it with AI capabilities of IBM, the initiative will lay the groundwork for enterprise AR/VR use. New SDK provides powerful visual and speech recognition support. The potential use cases are language translation, voice-driven interactions, and real-time visual recognition. launched IBM Watson Unity SDK cloud-based AI services Currently, the companies aim to keep working within education and gaming industries. Further, once AR/VR technologies mature, they will be actively used across marketing, construction, and manufacturing. The mixed reality and AI markets are expected to grow fast. So, the new opportunity from IBM and Unity is a good point to consider in early adoption for companies doing complex visualization work. AI-based recommendation engines will predict best outfit choices The eCommerce and retail companies strive for personalization, the new standard in acceptable customer experience. Companies like , a retail B2B tech startup, and beauty retailer Sephora push personalization to a new level. Trendage Trendage works on the that utilizes AI and visual search. The algorithm helps match the accessories and clothes chosen by users with the rest of the items that would pull the outfit together. On top of that, the platform analyzes user body parameters, age, regional fashion trends and their changes to make predictions even more specific. Currently, the Trendage solution uses millions of outfits created by users to recommend clothes, accessories, and shoes. The company raised $1.5 million in funding this month. recommendation technology Interestingly, Trendage doesn’t suggest something revolutionary in terms of . But given the new angle of their use, it may have great impact on the existing clothing retail business. personalization technologies AI startup will use 25 million record dataset to improve cancer diagnostic IDG that 43 percent of healthcare CIOs plan to increase investment in AI next year. Generally, the study confirms that data science is being actively discussed among health industry technicians and decision-makers. But the problems related to the availability of health data significantly slow down innovation in the industry. research claims Nevertheless, investments in AI-based healthcare startups continue to grow. For instance, is a cancer pathology-detection startup. The company plans to train its machine learning algorithms using 25 million diagnosis slides. The startup aims at making cancer diagnosis more accurate and faster. solution can be very disruptive because they’ve already gathered a substantial dataset. The project funding. Paige.AI Paige.AI closed $25 million in Series A Healthcare AI/ML funding skyrocketed to over $700 million in 2017 with 126% growth year-over-year. The most demanded innovations are automation solutions, computer vision, population health, etc. Source: PitchBook Booking Holdings is a new name of Priceline Group Priceline Group . Booking.com is the core brand in the group’s portfolio. The subsidiary generates over 1 million properties and provides access to a more than 1.5 million properties inventory. Glenn Fogel, CEO of Booking Holdings, says that the new name will more accurately reflect the nature of the business. This step also helps the company boost its brand awareness. So, if you are looking for the travel API from Priceline Group, bear in mind that you should search for Booking Holdings instead. changes its name to Booking Holdings Google presents beta of the new mobile framework Google announced a beta release of a new tool for mobile developers, . It’s a new mobile cross-platform UI framework, which allows engineers to speed-up native interface development on iOS and Android. Although the framework isn’t ready for a stable release, it has already been used in production apps. Flutter requires developers to use Dart, which is marketed as an alternative to JavaScript. Similar to the , Flutter compiles source code into native code in the build stage. Flutter Xamarin approach The search giant claims that the key advantages of Flutter are: High-velocity Expressive and flexible design Native performance If you are considering , Flutter is yet another option to consider with your engineering team. which cross-platform mobile framework to choose Final word ICOs appeared to be a questionable way to invest in technology as 46 percent of blockchain startups failed in 2017. However, the technology seems to be a viable instrument for solving business problems. TUI and Travel Ledger are good examples: TUI uses it to improve data governance and information interchange. Travel Ledger works on secure and transparent payments. These projects confirm that viable and valuable blockchain projects sit far beyond the overhyped cryptocurrencies sector. Ethereum powers both these projects. It’s a good sign for the technology as the trust of key players will boost the industry interest and put adoption at a new level. Regardless of failures, ICO as the fundraising method continues to hit record numbers. Telegram made the largest ICO round in cryptoinvest history. Originally published at AltexSoft’s blog: Liked the story? Help more people find it! 👏👏👏 “ Technology Industry News & Trends, February 2018 ”

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