Author: insighter

The Federal Trade Commission is sending more than $5.6 million in refunds to consumers as part of a settlement with Amazon-owned Ring, which was charged with failing to protect private video footage from outside access. In a 2023 complaint, the FTC accused the doorbell camera and home security provider of allowing its employees and contractors to access customers’ private videos. Ring allegedly used such footage to train algorithms without consent, among other purposes. Ring was also charged with failing to implement key security protections, which enabled hackers to take control of customers’ accounts, cameras and videos. This led to “egregious…

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For the most part, Mark Cuban is firmly anti-micromanaging. The 65-year-old billionaire entrepreneur weighed in on the common leadership style in a recent post on social media network X. If you find yourself constantly micromanaging the people around you, something’s wrong, Cuban noted. The only exception, he added: When you’re early in a process — think building a brand-new startup or training a new employee —  sweating every small detail can help. “Micromanage early. Trust the process or fix what’s broken if you always have to micromanage,” Cuban wrote in his March 11 post. Cuban’s post was a response to a…

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Mortgage rates continued to rise for the week ending April 25. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 7.23% APR, up seven basis points from the previous week’s average, according to rates provided to NerdWallet by Zillow. (A basis point is one one-hundredth of a percentage point.) Rates for 30-year fixed-rate loans have been hovering in the general neighborhood of 7% for the past year-plus, causing considerable pain for home buyers. The rise of mortgage rates in recent years has drawn lots of attention — and ire. As buyers attempt to wrestle their way into affordable homes, it feels like interest rates…

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In an aerial view, brand new Tesla cars sit parked in a lot at the Tesla Fremont Factory on April 24, 2024 in Fremont, California. Justin Sullivan | Getty Images Former Tesla executive Drew Baglino, who announced his resignation earlier this month, sold shares in the electric vehicle company worth around $181.5 million, according to a filing on Thursday with the SEC. Baglino, who joined Tesla in 2006, is selling about 1.14 million of his shares, the filing said, listing an “approximate date of sale” of April 25, and describing it as an exercise of stock options. Tesla announced on…

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It’s now illegal to sell weight-loss and muscle-building supplements to minors in New York, under a first-in-the-nation law that went into effect this week. Experts say loose federal regulation of dietary supplements has resulted in these products sometimes including unapproved ingredients, like steroids and heavy metals, putting kids at risk. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration oversees the market, but it doesn’t test products before they’re sold. “The law that we crafted reflects the lack of regulation from the FDA and the lack of regulation in the industry,” said Jensen Jose, a regulatory counsel member with the Center for Science in the…

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ARK Invest is betting big on private tech companies. “It’s an amazing time to invest in innovation,” the firm’s chief futurist, Brett Winton, told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week. “Both venture exposures and public innovation companies are incredibly well valued today to take a long-term investment.”  Winton worked with the ARK Invest team to create the ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX), a closed end interval fund, in September 2022. Closed-end interval funds allow investors to invest in private companies at their net asset value at any time, regardless of market volatility. Investors can then sell back to the fund quarterly during…

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People with dementia who live in long-term care facilities are spending a significant portion of their income each month on care, according to an October 2023 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association (JAMDA). The study found that the median adult with dementia in an assisted living facility spent nearly all of their income (97%) each month on care, and those with dementia living in nursing homes spent 83% of their income each month on care. Currently, there are nearly 7 million Americans who are living with Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia, says…

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After Meta’s stock meltdown late Wednesday afternoon and Thursday, the tech sector is roaring back in after-hours trading on the strength of strong earnings reports from Alphabet, Microsoft, and Snap. Snap shares were up more than 30% after its earnings release and Alphabet was up 13%. Microsoft shares, meanwhile, jumped 5.5%. There were numerous reasons for the surges. Alphabet announced its first-ever dividend (of 20 cents per share) and a $70 billion stock buyback. And Snap gave guidance into future quarters, saying it expects daily active users to jump by 9 million in the second quarter to 431 million, a…

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CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Thursday said companies that perpetually generate “self-help” are poised to do well in this market. In other words, they find ways to grow and perform well despite what might be happening in the broader economy. He pointed specifically to Chipotle Mexican Grill, saying the restaurant chain can succeed even as the economy starts to slow and inflation remains high. “When we’re looking for reasons to buy a stock in this environment, we want companies that generate constant self-help. Chipotle does it by improving throughput — how many people that they can serve, say, every 15 minutes,”…

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Singapore made global headlines last year when the government announced that biometric processing will replace travel document verifications at Changi Airport in the first half of 2024.But the city-state is going “passport-free” in another area: its land border with Malaysia.From Tuesday, people traveling by car between Singapore and Malaysia can show self-generated QR codes rather than handing over their passports at two checkpoints.The new rule, which applies to those traveling via the country’s Woodlands and Tuas checkpoints, will expedite immigration clearance “without compromising on security,” according to Singapore’s Immigration & Checkpoints Authority.Who is eligibleSingapore residents and foreign travelers can generate…

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