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Facebook’s Fifth Annual Diversity Report Shows Female Employees Have Increased 5 Percent in 5 Years

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Facebook's Fifth Annual Diversity Report Shows Female Employees Have Increased 5 Percent in 5 Years

The number of women employees at Facebook has increased five percent over the past five years and there has been a modest growth in the proportion of Asian, Black and Hispanic employees across the company, the social media giant revealed on Friday.

Releasing its fifth annual diversity report, Facebook said people from all backgrounds rely on Facebook to connect with others, and we will better serve their needs with a more diverse workforce.

“The percentage of women globally at Facebook has increased from 31 percent in 2014 to 36 percent today. We have also nearly doubled the number of women graduates we hire in software engineering from 16 percent to 30 percent,” Maxine Williams, Chief Diversity Officer at Facebook, said in a statement.

Women in technical roles have increased from 15 percent to 22 percent; women in business and sales roles grew from 47 percent to 57 percent; and women in senior leadership expanded from 23 percent to 30 percent.

“The number of women at Facebook has increased five times over the last five years. The number of women in technical roles has increased over seven times. This is despite the fact that the number of women undergraduates in the US doing computer science has remained flat at 18 percent,” Williams noted.

Black and Hispanic employees overall increased from 2 percent to 4 percent, and 4 percent to 5 percent, respectively.

Facebook said it has seen steady increases in hiring rates for under-represented people.

“We’ve worked hard at retention as well by creating an inclusive environment where people from all backgrounds can thrive and succeed,” the company said.

The report also stated that Facebook today is one of the best places to work for LGBTQ equality.

“We are happy to share that men and women at Facebook get equal pay for equal work,” said Williams.

[“Source-gadgets.ndtv”]

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Facebook’s Aquila Internet-delivery Drone Could Add Billions More Online Customers

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Facebook’s Aquila Drone Could Add Billions More Online Customers

Social networking giant Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) last week reported the first successful full-scale test flight of its ambitious Aquila solar-powered high-altitude unmanned aircraft. It’s part of an ambitious goal to bring four billion more  people online — more customers, freelancers and maybe even partners for your business.

“After two years of engineering, I’m proud to announce the successful first flight of Aquila — the solar-powered plane we designed to beam internet to remote parts of the world,” wrote Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a post on Thursday.

The maiden flight took place before dawn in Yuma, Arizona, on June 28.

Aquila Drone Beams High Speed Internet from the Sky

Facebook’s original mission was to fly Aquila for 30 minutes, but everything went so well that the company decided to keep the plane up for nearly 96 minutes.

It was a significant milestone and step forward in Facebook’s quest to use drones to beam high speed internet from the sky to the nearly four billion people (60 percent of the global population) without internet access, 1.6 billion of whom live in remote locations with no access to mobile broadband networks.

“Over the next year we’re going to keep testing Aquila — flying higher and longer, and adding more planes and payloads. It’s all part of our mission to connect the world and help more of the four billion people who are not online access all the opportunities of the internet,” Zuckerberg said.

“When complete, Aquila will be able to circle a region up to 96 km in diameter, beaming connectivity down from an altitude of more than 60,000 feet using laser communications and millimeter wave systems,” added Jay Parikh, Global Head of Engineering and Infrastructure at Facebook.

“Our goal is to have a fleet of Aquilas flying together at 60,000 feet, communicating with each other with lasers and staying aloft for months at a time — something that’s never been done before,” continued Zuckerberg.

4 Billion More People Could Soon Come Online

It’s worth reiterating that Zuckerberg and his company’s Connectivity Lab, the group working on the state-of-the-art internet-delivery drone, intend to bring four billion more people online via the Aquila project. That’s four billion more potential online customers, freelancers and maybe even partners!

The opportunities of the internet are endless, especially with more people online. From expanding the customer base for online businesses to enabling creation of new services and new revenue streams on top of traditional ones and increasing global visibility for brands, an increasingly connected world cod be good for many.

It’s not surprising, therefore, that Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), another internet giant and major Facebook rival, is also working on a similar project, pushing its Project Loon, which would use high-altitude balloons to distribute connectivity and bring people in remote parts of the world online. Elon Musk’s SpaceX, too, aspires to use satellites to cover the globe with internet connectivity.

Of course, both Facebook and Google have plans of their own on how they would tap this new pool of internet users. Their business models depend on overseas growth and they are determined to reach every single person on the planet. But, savvy entrepreneurs and small businesses also stand to benefit if the high speed internet connectivity projects are successful in bringing more people online.

Moreover, the race to bring affordable internet to hundreds of millions of people in more sparsely populated and hard-to-reach stretches of the globe could also usher in an important new era of rigorous experimentation and innovation not just from technology giants like Facebook and Google, but also from enterprising start-ups touting the next big thing.

Image: Facebook

[“Source-smallbiztrends”]

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Internet

Facebook’s Virtual Reality Ambitions Could Be Threatened by Court Order

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Facebook's Virtual Reality Ambitions Could Be Threatened by Court Order

Facebook Inc’s big ambitions in the nascent virtual reality industry could be threatened by a court order that would prevent it from using critical software code another company claims to own, according to legal and industry experts.

Last Thursday, video game publisher ZeniMax Media Incasked a Dallas federal judge to issue an order barring Facebook unit Oculus from using or distributing the disputed code, part of the software development kit that Oculus provides to outside companies creating games for its Rift VR headset.

A decision is likely a few months away, but intellectual property lawyers said ZeniMax has a decent chance of getting the order, which would mean Facebook faces a tough choice between paying a possibly hefty settlement or fighting on at risk of jeopardizing its position in the sector.

For now, Facebook is fighting on. Oculus spokeswoman Tera Randall said last Thursday the company would challenge a $500 million jury verdict on February 1 against Oculus and its co-founders Palmer Luckey and Brendan Iribe for infringing ZeniMax’s copyrighted code and violating a non-disclosure agreement.

Randall said Oculus would possibly file an appeal that would “allow us to put this litigation behind us.”

She did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

An injunction would require Oculus, which Facebook acquired for $3 billion in 2014, to stop distributing the code to developers or selling those games that use it.

Such a court order “would put a huge stumbling block in front” of Oculus, said Stephanie Llamas, an analyst with gaming market research firm SuperData. It would offer the company’s rivals in the new market, which include HTC, Sony Corp, Alphabet Inc and others an “important opportunity for them to become first movers.”

Sales of the Rift itself would not be barred, but Llamas, said a lack of available titles could hinder Facebook’s offering relative to HTC’s Vive headset and Sony’s PlayStation VR.

That market is relatively small at the moment – sales of VR hardware and software totaled $2.7 billion in 2016 – and mainly limited to gaming. But Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has predicted the technology “will become a part of daily life for billions of people,” revolutionizing social media, entertainment and medicine.

SuperData says the VR market will be worth $37 billion by 2020. Likewise, investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald last year issued a report predicting VR would account for 10 percent of Facebook revenue in four years’ time.

ZeniMax’s lawsuit arose from 2012 correspondence between Luckey and famed video game developer John Carmack, creator of the Doom and Quake series and then a ZeniMax employee. Luckey signed a non-disclosure agreement with ZeniMax covering his communications with Carmack.

Carmack joined Oculus in 2013 as chief technology officer. ZeniMax sued in 2014, claiming Carmack’s work while its employee was crucial to the Rift. At trial, Facebook said ZeniMax concocted its claims because of “sour grapes” over missing the VR trend.

Zuckerberg testified that “the idea that Oculus products are based on someone else’s technology is just wrong.”

The jury decided Oculus had not stolen trade secrets but had infringed ZeniMax’s intellectual property. It also said Oculus breached the non-disclosure agreement.

IP lawyers said the judge would consider factors such as whether ZeniMax continues to be harmed and whether money is sufficient compensation.

Edward Naughton, a Boston-based copyright lawyer with Brown Rudnick, said ZeniMax has a strong argument because its technology continues to be used without its permission and the jury’s verdict does not compensate for that.

“I think they have a pretty good shot here,” Naughton said.

Mitchell Shelowitz, a copyright lawyer in New York, noted that the non-disclosure agreement explicitly stated ZeniMax would be entitled to an injunction in the event its terms were violated.

Not all lawyers agree ZeniMax has the stronger position. Chicago-based IP lawyer Joshua Rich said he thinks Facebook has a good chance to repel the injunction by arguing that ZeniMax is not being harmed by the sale of the Oculus products because it is not direct competitor.

If Facebook can get past the injunction fight, the calculus could change, said Naughton. Facebook may believe it has strong arguments on appeal or, because it has so much cash on hand, it may hope to wear ZeniMax down to the point where it settles on favorable terms.

“Facebook has deep pockets,” said Naughton. “That allows them to put their opponent into litigation fatigue.”

[“Source-gadgets.ndtv”]

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