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Marvel Studios' Avengers Endgame 'Mission' Spot

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Watch the first official trailer for Ukrainian animated feature film The Stolen Princess, coming soon to theaters! Subscribe to The Popsicles: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbnG...

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Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has removed gaffe-prone Olympics Minister Yoshitaka Sakurada.

Shunichi Suzuki, Sakurada’s predecessor as the Olympics Minister, returns to the post for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

“I want (Suzuki) to regain trust and bring the Olympics to a success,” Abe told reporters.

Sakurada has submitted his resignation to Abe on Wednesday after coming under increasing pressure over a series of gaffes, including the most recent, which concerned the recovery effort in the quake- and tsunami-damaged Tohoku region.

Sakurada quit after saying that a Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker from the North-Eastern region, which was hit hard by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that triggered the Fukushima nuclear crisis, is “more important than the (region’s) recovery,” when he gave a speech on Wednesday at the lawmaker’s fundraising party, Japan Times has reported.

“I’m really sorry for making a remark that could offend people suffering from the disasters,” he told reporters. “I felt I had to take responsibility and submitted my resignation.”

Sakurada was in charge of the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics to be hosted by Tokyo.

After accepting Sakurada’s resignation on Wednesday night, Abe expressed regret over the situation. “I would like to apologize as prime minister,” Abe said. “I bear the responsibility of appointing him.”

Organisers of the Tokyo 2020 summer Olympic and Paralympic Games have sought to use the event as a focal point to demonstrate recovery efforts in the region, but the government’s efforts have been criticised ahead of local elections across Japan on April 21 and the House of Councillors election scheduled for July.

Sakurada’s departure means a return to the role of Olympics Minister for Suzuki, who had served in the position from 2017 to 2018. “The whole of our Cabinet will make utmost efforts to regain trust and work toward the recovery (of the disaster-stricken areas),” Abe said, according to Japanese news agency Kyodo. “We should sincerely accept this criticism. All Cabinet ministers need to take the situation seriously and be even more diligent.”

Suzuki added: “The comments (from Sakurada) were inappropriate, hurting the feelings of people in the disaster-hit areas.”

The Olympics Minister reshuffle comes after Tsunekazu Takeda, the embattled president of the Japanese Olympic Committee, last month confirmed that he will stand down from his role rather than seeking re-election in June, following bribery and corruption allegations linked to the 2020 Olympic bid.

The post Japan replaces Olympics Minister after latest gaffe appeared first on InsideSport.

from InsideSport http://bit.ly/2IcI3gh

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The 156th edition of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, released on Thursday, has slammed English cricket’s controversial new 100-ball professional competition as ‘Brexit of cricket’ and added that the innovation has “hung over the game like Sword of Damocles”.

The Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, described as the ‘Bible of Cricket’, has offered a highly sceptical take on The Hundred, cricket’s shortest format to debut on English domestic circuit next year. “All the while The Hundred hung over the English game like the Sword of Damocles, suspended only by the conviction of a suited few. Some preferred a modern analogy: this was cricket’s Brexit, an unnecessary gamble that had overshadowed all else, gone over budget and would end in tears,” writes Wisden Editor Lawrence Booth.

“But the analogy was imperfect: where Brexit had plenty of advocates, it was difficult to find anyone beyond a small group within the ECB’s offices who believed that cricket – its fixture list already unfathomable – needed a fourth format.”

The editorial has slammed the “shambolic launch” of the competition. It also scrutinises ECB chief executive Tom Harrison, The Hundred’s most passionate supporter. “When he (Harrison) denies the game is taking an almighty punt, you wonder whether ambition has clouded his judgement,” states the article.

The post Wisden slams ECB’s 100-ball cricket competition as ‘Brexit of cricket’ appeared first on InsideSport.

from InsideSport http://bit.ly/2X2DvMT

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LaLiga has emerged as the eighth biggest brand in Spain. There is no other sports’ entity among the top 100 in the country.

Spain’s elite football competition has been evaluated at € 487 million ($ 548 mn) by a report by Brand Finance, a valuation and strategy consultancy. This net worth places LaLiga in the top ten list of Spain’s top business brands. The Spanish football league thus becomes the first sports competition ever to feature among the European nation’s top 100 brands list. 

Fashion brand Zara SA tops the list whereas NH Hotels, Bershka, Stradivarius, BBVA, Melia and Loewe are the other top ten brands placed ahead of LaLiga, which has received an 81/100 score in the ratings.

“The growth of LaLiga as a brand is the consequence of our commitment and that of the club’s in the development of our industry,” says Enrique Moreno, LaLiga’s global brand director. “The promotion of strategic initiatives, the search for opportunities in new markets and the determination to take on new challenges.”

The report places La Liga above major Spanish brands such as the insurance provider Mapfre and telecommunications company Movistar. Using its brand strength score metric, a figure based on calculations regarding emotional connection, financial performance and sustainability, Brand Finance gave La Liga a score of 80.7 out of 100, states a Sports-Pro Media report.

The new 2019 report marks the first time a sports league has appeared in Brand Finance’s top ten, highlighting the continued growth of La Liga. Brand Finance values the league body at €487 million (US$548 million). Based on monetary value along it occupies 50th place on the list, a considerable drop.

However, taking into account the value of participating league clubs – which includes the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid – La Liga’s overall value jumps to €4 billion (US$4.5 billion), which would place it sixth on that list.

The post LaLiga first sports entity to rank among Spain’s top 100 brands appeared first on InsideSport.

from InsideSport http://bit.ly/2IcHYJv

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Andre Russell will be playing high on the minds of the Delhi Capitals, just like any other team, when captain Ricky Ponting says that his team “need to make sure Kolkata Knight Riders star players don’t get away from us (Delhi Capitals)”. 

Delhi Capitals will take on Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens today (Friday). 

With three wins and three losses in their first six matches, JSW and GMR co-owned franchise, Delhi Capitals, have had an inconsistent start to the IPL season, but their Head Coach Ricky Ponting believes that his team is in the right frame of mind to perform in the upcoming matches. The legendary Australian spoke to the media ahead of the match against the Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens.

Going into the game, the Delhi team have their share of injury worries ahead of the crucial tie. “Harshal Patel has been ruled out of the tournament as he suffered a fracture to his right hand in the game against Kings XI Punjab. It took us a few days to get to the bottom of it as we got done some x-rays done. Hence we have had a few players on trials today. Manjot Kalra also has a slight niggle so we will be accessing him ahead of tomorrow’s game,” said Ponting 

Analysing Prithvi Shaw’s performance so far for the Delhi Capitals, Ponting said, “Prithvi is a player I have seen develop a lot in front of me.  We did take a risk last season in the IPL Auction when we bought him, but what I saw last season in training and then in the IPL, was great to see. He has always looked like he is ready to play and has shown glimpses of his brilliance in this tournament as well, and I was really heart-broken for him when he couldn’t get the hundred in Mohali. So far he has got off to some good starts this year, but I would want to see him bat deeper into the innings. But nonetheless, he’s developing well, he is learning more every day and learning more about his batting, and if he continues to learn, he will be one of the leading run-scorers this tournament.” 

Delhi Capitals had hosted KKR in their last meeting of the IPL 2019, where hosts had prevailed in the exciting Super Over with Kagisho Rabada delivering the victory punch. Ponting believes that the win in Delhi will give his side a psychological edge. “When you’re playing a team twice in a tournament, it’s always nice to win the first game against them. We understand that they are a very, very good team and we know that they rely on couple of their stars to get them over the line more often than not. So we need to make sure that those players don’t get away from us tomorrow. Andre Russell has been outstanding, so we need to be on our toes and especially in his case because he took the game away from us last time in Delhi as well. We are coming off a win, and the guys have had a couple of days’ rest here in Kolkata, so the boys are pretty refreshed. We will go into tomorrow’s game in the right frame of mind and with confidence of giving tough competition to the home side, and winning.” 

The 44-year-old Australian legend also spoke about the pitch at the Eden Gardens, “We have seen a little bit of grass on this wicket so we might play with all the seamers in Rabada, Boult, Ishant and Morris. But we also have some great spinners in Mishra, Axar, Lamichanne. So I feel we are very well equipped with dealing with the conditions. It’s a pretty good wicket and the conditions are always great for cricket, so I am looking forward to the boys making the most of them tomorrow.” 

While counting the positives for his team, Ponting dismissed the concern about his team’s frequent batting collapses. “I am not really worried about the collapses if it means that we secure the win early. But the defeat to Kings XI was something that I am definitely worried about. But the thing that I did not mind about the RCB game was that the boys were looking to finish the match early and taking the challenge on. And I like that mind-set, because when it comes to the big games, you need to have that mind-set that you need to get across the line. The batting group are aware of the collapses, we just need to make sure that we do not lose the matches in this process,” he said. 

Asked whether Delhi Capitals is a team led completely by young captain Shreyas Iyer, or whether the senior players and coaching staff play a major role in building the team, Ricky said, “It is actually both. It is 100% Shreyas Iyer’s team, he is the captain of our team. And as we know with captains of any team, once the game starts, the captain is also the coach. So it is my job and the rest of the coaches’ job that we make sure that we are making his job as easy as possible. He is a terrific, determined young man. He is developing his leadership very well. He has been here for a very short time as captain, but he has captained Mumbai this year, and India A as well. It is definitely a high-pressure job and environment but I am very happy with the way he has taken the responsibility.” 

The coach also hailed young Kagiso Rabada for his exceptional show with the ball. “Kagiso is an extremely determined man. He is bowling well, and is still the leading wicket-taker which is something we are very proud of. He bowled beautifully in Bengaluru as well, and that Super Over against KKR in Delhi was exceptional. Look, his performances prove exactly why the owners pay the huge money for the overseas’ players, and he has been able to prove his worth yet again. I am really happy with how he has bowled over the course of the tournament so far.” 

The corresponding fixture last season saw KKR produce a stunning all-round display as they beat Delhi by 71 runs at the Eden Gardens. Batting first, KKR ended up with a score of 200/9 in their 20 overs as Nitish Rana (59 off 35), Andre Russell (41 off 12) and Robin Uthappa (35 off 19) powered them to a huge score. In reply, Delhi lost three quick wickets but Glenn Maxwell’s 47 off 22 and Rishabh Pant’s 43 off 26 gave them some momentum. However, KKR’s Sunil Narine and Kuldeep Yadav took 3 wickets each to restrict Delhi to a low total of 129 all out in just 14.2 overs. 

The two teams have faced each other on 24 occasions, with Kolkata Knight Riders having won 13 matches while Delhi registered their 10th win over the home side when they won the match in Super Over earlier in the season in New Delhi. One match between the two teams has ended in a No-Result.

The post DC vs KKR: Ponting hints at targeting Kolkata Knight Riders’ stars appeared first on InsideSport.

from InsideSport http://bit.ly/2X8fBzz

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Formula 1 motor racing has entered into a multi-year global partnership with RM Sotherby’s, the international automobile auction company.

RM Sothery’s, as part of the deal, will collaborate with F1 to stage auctions at selected Grands Prix to sell Formula 1 cars and memorabilia.

Through the partnership the two parties “plan to grow in both scope and scale, incorporating both live Grand Prix-based sales and online auction capability”. The focus in the first year of this ground-breaking collaboration will culminate at the season-ending Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2019, with a sale of significant cars and memorabilia which will form the Middle East’s first ever major international collector car auction.

Sean Bratches, Managing Director Commercial Operations, Formula 1, said: “Everyone at Formula 1, along with our global community of fans love cars, old and new. The chance to work with RM Sotheby’s is a perfect marriage showcasing the beauty of classic cars alongside the most technologically advanced cars on the planet. And while, not all of us can drive away with a priceless piece of automotive art, our collaboration gives all the race-goers the opportunity to see these beautiful cars up close over the race weekend. It is going to be another way to deliver on our promise of making the spectacle more spectacular.”

Shelby Myers, Global Head of Private Sales, RM Sotheby’s, said: “Formula 1 has an unrivalled track record for working with the some of the world’s most innovative and prestigious international companies. With its passionate global audience of over 560 million fans, and 21 events across five continents each year, F1 provides a unique platform for RM Sotheby’s and the wider Sotheby’s Group, to excite, entertain and engage with our global customer base of collectors. 2019 marks our 40th anniversary and for us there is no better way to celebrate this landmark year than by sharing our love of cars on the biggest stage possible.”

The event will take place on November 30, Saturday, evening at the Yas Marina Circuit. The sale will focus on bringing together an expertly curated selection of significant Grand Prix racing single-seaters and road-going sports cars with an historical connection to the world of motorsport, alongside a broader collection of hand-picked, blue-chip classic and supercars.

The partnership is planned to grow in both scope and scale, providing F1 fans and collector car enthusiasts around the world the chance to acquire their own piece of motorsport and automotive history.

The post Formula1 and RM Sotheby’s form alliance for auctions appeared first on InsideSport.

from InsideSport http://bit.ly/2IcHSl7

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Chennai Super Kings captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni escaped a ban and was let off with a 50 per cent fine on his match fee for an unprecedented confrontation with the on-field umpire during the IPL encounter against Rajasthan Royals here.

In a rare instance, Dhoni, who was not even meant to be on the field of play, lost his cool and rushed out of the dug-out to challenge umpire Ulhas Gandhe after he flip-flopped on a no ball on Thursday night.

“MS Dhoni, the Chennai Super Kings captain, was fined 50 percent of his match fees for breaching the VIVO Indian Premier League’s (IPL) Code of Conduct during his team’s match against Rajasthan Royals at Jaipur,” the BCCI stated.

Gandhe had tried to rule a waist high full toss as no ball by RR all-rounder Ben Stokes. But he reversed his decision after square leg umpire Bruce Oxenford did not signal for it.

“Dhoni admitted to the Level 2 offence 2.20 of the IPL’s Code of Conduct and accepted the sanction,” it further stated.

As it is the case with IPL teams, it’s the franchise that will pay the fine on the player’s behalf.

Dhoni was seen angrily gesturing at Gandhe for backtracking after initially signalling a no ball.

It took some convincing from Oxenford for Dhoni to head back to the dugout even though he seemed far from convinced.

But the confusion and the ensuing confrontation did not have a bearing on CSK’s fortunes.

Stokes failed in the final over and Mitchell Santner finished the match with a six to take his team to a four-wicket win in a chase of 152.

According to the ICC Code of Conduct, which governs the IPL, showing serious dissent at an umpire’s decision by words or action can lead to a maximum punishment of one-Test or two-ODI ban.

The post Dhoni let off with 50 per cent fine after angry reaction to umpire’s call appeared first on InsideSport.

from InsideSport http://bit.ly/2X3Xfj9

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DARPA wants to be able to launch anywhere, any time, and several times in a row. Is that too much to ask? Not for Vector Space, Virgin Orbit, and an unnamed startup that just qualified to take place in the agency’s Launch Challenge, which will push their responsive and mobile launch capabilities to the limit.

In the challenge, the teams will be notified that they need to launch a payload to orbit from a given location only days beforehand. After doing so, they will then be told a second location from which they must launch again just days later. The winning team will receive up to $12M, with $11M and $10M available to the runners up, depending on how they perform.

“Today, most military and government launches are national events that are planned years in advance and require large, fixed infrastructure,” said DARPA program manager Todd Master in a release. “We want to move to a more risk-accepting philosophy and a much faster pace so we can put assets into space at the speed of warfighter needs.”

Speaking at the 35th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Master announced the three companies that would be taking part in the competition, which the agency announced around this time last year. Interestingly, none of them has yet put a payload into orbit.

These are the potential locations for launches.

Vector Space recently raised $70M to pursue the first orbital launch of its Vector-R rocket and get manufacturing started at its Tucson facility. Its goal, to provide short-turnaround micro-launch services at a cadence measured in weeks.

Virgin Orbit — technically VOX Space — has a 747-based first stage that takes the two-stage rocket up to launch altitude, an assisted-launch strategy that has worked well for small payloads in the past. It may also be a uniquely good fit for this particular challenge, given that mobility of the rocket and payload are inherent to the aircraft first stage style.

The last company has requested anonymity for now, as it is still operating in stealth mode. I thought at first it might actually be Stealth, which is in fact a launch startup currently in stealth mode, but it could just as easily be one of the unknown number of companies quietly working on launch tech.

DARPA’s Launch Challenge offers $10M prize for short-notice, rapid-turnaround rocketry

Each company received $400,000 for qualifying and making sure they’re legal (each needs FAA permission, among other things). The launches will take place sometime in 2020; A prize of $2M is available to each team that gets the first payload into the air, then $10M, $9M, and $8M prizes are available for completing the second task. They’ll be judged on a variety of metrics.

All told that’s somewhere around $34,000,000 up for grabs. Of course, it will probably cost more than that to accomplish what DARPA asks. But that’s kind of how these competitions work.

We’ll know more when DARPA gives us more. Obviously we won’t know the dates of the launch until they are announced, but it’ll be some time before that happens (these companies need to finish their launch vehicles) so you can relax for now. Unless you work at one of the participating teams, in which case get cracking.

Falcon Heavy’s first real launch is the dawn of a new heavy-lift era in space

from TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2G7v7EK

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When you buy cryptocurrencies on Coinbase, many users simply don’t know what to do with them. Customers in the U.K. can now get a good old plastic card and spend cryptocurrencies in-store and on any online website.

This is a Visa card so it should work with any merchant on the Visa network. The company is launching a separate mobile app called Coinbase Card to manage your cryptocurrency balances. For instance, you’ll be able to choose whether you want to use your Bitcoin, Ethereum or Litecoin balance with your card.

The app supports any cryptocurrency currently available on Coinbase. There’s no need to transfer crypto assets from the main Coinbase app to the Coinbase Card app — the card grabs cryptocurrencies directly from your Coinbase account.

The card supports contactless payments as well as ATM withdrawals. Transactions appear instantly in the app with the details of the exchange rate.

Now let’s talk about fees. Ordering a card costs £4.95 ($6.50) — the first 1,000 customers can get it for free. Each transactions costs 2.49 percent in fees — 1.49 percent in conversion fee and 1 percent in transaction fee. If you spend money in other European countries, it costs 2.69 percent in fee. Outside of Europe, it costs 5.49 percent per transaction — maybe you should consider using another card in this situation.

The chargeback processing fee is quite expensive as well as it costs £20 ($26.20). There’s no maintenance fee, no additional cost for ATM withdrawals as long as you withdraw less than £200 per month.

Behind the scene, Paysafe is issuing the card. Apto Payments, the company formerly known as Shift Payments, is developing the Coinbase Card app. You may remember that Coinbase previously partnered with Shift Payments to issue a card in the U.S. But you can’t get a Coinbase card in the U.S. anymore.

Eventually, Coinbase plans to roll out the Coinbase Card in other European countries.

from TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2P1BEoE

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Issi Romem Contributor

Issi Romem is chief economist for Trulia and a fellow at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California at Berkeley. His work has been featured in the The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and more.

The impending wave of San Francisco tech IPOs is substantial and will influence San Francisco real estate, but the hype about its impact is likely overblown. In particular, despite being centered on San Francisco instead of Silicon Valley, its impact is still likely to diffuse throughout the broader Bay Area. Rather than breaking with the past, the current wave of IPOs is likely to reinforce existing trends: undulating but maintained pressure on the gas pedal, not an abrupt kickdown.

Lyft’s recent offering, combined with a series of anticipated IPOs this year — headlined by Uber, Airbnb, Pinterest, Slack, Zoom and others — has prompted numerous alarming headlines suggesting a coming flood of stock-enriched home buyers. “[E]ven conservative estimates predict hundreds of billions of dollars will flood into town in the next year, creating thousands of new millionaires,” reports The New York Times. “And they want houses,” warns the report, quoting a real estate agent promising investors that single-family homes in the city selling for a mere one to three million dollars will soon be a thing of the past.

The estimated value of the companies going public sums up to about $200 billion, and their combined San Francisco workforce probably ranges somewhere from 10,000 to 15,000. But does that mean 15,000 new home buyers will descend on the City of San Francisco in 2019 and spend $200 billion on homes? Certainly not, for several reasons.

Employees’ share of the pie is but a fraction. Investors, founders and a few key executives usually own the lion’s share of stock before an IPO. The Information estimates that as of late 2017, only 17 percent of Uber shares were in the hands of employees (excluding its founder and two other key executives).*

The vast concentration of wealth going to investors, founders and key executives may result in a handful of grand estates exchanging hands, but it generally won’t find its way into the Bay Area’s common housing stock. If we conservatively take 25 percent of $200 billion to be employees’ share, we arrive at a $50 billion figure, but that too is an overestimate of the employees’ likely windfall in the wake of the offerings.

Most employee equity hasn’t fully vested, stock options need to be exercised and taxes need to be paid. Employees’ initial equity grants typically vest over a four-year period. Given the rapid growth of these companies over the past few years, most employees are relatively new and their equity grants won’t fully vest for years. Uber, for example, had about 5,000 employees in San Francisco in early 2018 — but in 2014, it had only 550 employees in total (not just in the Bay Area).

Despite the stereotypes, not all San Francisco tech workers are young, city-dwelling millennials.

At best, those employees that joined more recently will have only a fraction of their full equity grant available to sell this year, diminishing their immediate buying power (and if the past is a good indication, many won’t stay long enough to see the full equity grant vest). In addition, many employees obtain their equity in the form of stock options, and for all but the earliest employees the strike price is not negligible, i.e. an employee exercising an option and selling $100 worth of stock will generally pocket far less. Finally, employees must pay tax on their IPO windfall, keeping yet another slice of it out of the housing market.

Not everyone receiving an IPO windfall will buy a home. Those compelled by the windfall to purchase a home in the next few years — and who wouldn’t have done so otherwise — are likely a small subset of the total employee pool. Suppose they number 5,000 and each buys a home during the next three years: That’s about 2 percent of the 243,575 homes purchased in the Bay Area over the past three years. Also: Some of these firms’ employees own homes already. And some employees may not want to buy a home: Maybe their personal life is in flux, maybe they appreciate the freedom of renting or maybe they would like to use the IPO cash for other purposes (ever dream of bootstrapping a startup?).

The IPOs won’t happen all at once, and many would-be buyers won’t buy immediately. Among those compelled to buy a home, many will wait: For the hype to pass, for their partner to say “yes” or for their second child to fully illustrate the inadequacy of their rent-controlled two-bedroom. And the IPOs themselves aren’t all going to happen on the same day either. In fact, part of the 2019 wave is already anticipated to take place in 2020.

A large portion of IPO-enriched home buyers will seek homes outside the city. Despite the stereotypes, not all San Francisco tech workers are young, city-dwelling millennials living nearby. Downtown San Francisco and adjacent SOMA (where the wave of IPOs is headquartered) are arguably within the single most accessible section of the Bay Area, drawing commuters from throughout the region. The immediate housing impact of the IPO windfall will extend in all possible directions: South along the San Francisco Peninsula, north along the ferry lines to Marin County and east past Oakland and Berkeley to the I-680 corridor. And the secondary impacts — those that occur if and when those selling to IPO-enriched buyers use the proceeds to make another home purchase — will extend even farther, diffusing the housing component of the IPO windfall throughout the region.

Newly wealthy employees are likely to bid up home prices only to a certain point. An early employee with $10 million in newfound wealth might decide to pay $4 million to ensure they get what is otherwise a $3 million home. But they probably won’t put down the full $10 million, because even very wealthy people don’t like to give away money. And despite this buyer’s personal $10 million infusion of wealth, it’s only the $1 million difference between the IPO-driven buyer’s bid and the price that would have been obtained otherwise that fuels appreciation.

IPOs are just one of many ways in which wealth arrives in the Bay Area.

Some spectacular bidding wars could make headlines when IPO-fueled buyers compete for homes against each other, but they will most often be competing with everyday buyers, and while they may have more resources to bring to bear, they won’t be eager to spend more than they must.

IPO-driven buyers will add an affluent but small contingent to the Bay Area buyer pool and they will help support the Bay Area’s ongoing price appreciation — perhaps even substantially — but they will be extending a long history of price appreciation in which IPOs have played a part, not breaking from it. Between 1970 and 2017 there were 1,987 IPOs by California-based companies, with a large share being in the Bay Area. The scale of the current wave of IPOs, although it is exceedingly large, is not very different from Facebook’s in terms of home-buying power. After its 2012 IPO, Facebook was valued at $104 billion — but because Bay Area housing prices have roughly doubled since, that’s equivalent to the same home-buying power as $200 billion-plus today.**

The underlying cause of concern around this latest IPO surge and housing — the long-term erosion of housing affordability in the Bay Area — is serious. But the wise way of mitigating the upward pressure of the IPO wave on home prices is not to stoke fear of it, and certainly not to demonize the employees rewarded for creating it. Indeed, IPOs are just one of many ways in which wealth arrives in the Bay Area. Instead, the wisest course is “simply” to add more homes, allowing the local housing stock to accommodate more people — the well-heeled and less well-off alike.

The short-term fears of an IPO wave flooding San Francisco with cash are overblown, but the long-term fears of the Bay Area failing to accommodate people and growing unaffordable to all but the most affluent — those fears are very real.

* Part of the reason current IPO valuations are so high is that IPOs are currently taking place later in the company life cycle, at which point employee equity tends to constitute a decreased fraction of the total.

** To put that $200 billion number into perspective, consider that only a small fraction of that wealth will find its way into the housing market — for the reasons spelled out here — and that as of 2018, residential real estate in the Bay Area was worth a total of about $2.38 trillion.

from TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2G8GPzd

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Democratic lawmakers have proposed a bill to address the algorithmic biases lurking under the surface of tech’s biggest platforms. The bill, known as the Algorithmic Accountability Act, was introduced by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Representative Yvette Clarke (D-NY) will sponsor parallel legislation in the House.

The bill is well timed. Over the last month alone, Facebook found itself settling over discriminatory practices that affected job ads as well as drawing civil charges from the Department of Housing and Urban Development over similar issues with its housing ad targeting tools. The present bill targets companies that make more than $50 million a year, though any company holding data on more than one million users would be subject to its requirements.

HUD hits Facebook with housing discrimination charges over ad targeting

Like yesterday’s proposed Senate bill addressing dark pattern design, the Algorithmic Accountability Act (PDF) routes its regulatory specifics through the Federal Trade Commission. Under the bill, the FTC could require companies to perform “impact assessments” on their own algorithmic decision-making systems. Those assessment would assess potential consequences for “accuracy, fairness, bias, discrimination, privacy and security” within automated systems and companies would be required to correct any issues they uncovered during the process.

In a statement on the proposed legislation, Booker denounced discriminatory tech practices that lead to “houses that you never know are for sale, job opportunities that never present themselves, and financing that you never become aware of.”

“This bill requires companies to regularly evaluate their tools for accuracy, fairness, bias, and discrimination,” Booker said.

Bias on tech’s major platforms is a hot topic right now, though the political parties are approaching the issue from very different vantage points. Just today, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution held a hearing chaired by Senator Ted Cruz, who led Republicans in repeating recent unsubstantiated allegations that Facebook and Twitter disproportionately punish users on the right.

Democrats for their part have been more interested in the off-platform implications of algorithmic bias.

“By requiring large companies to not turn a blind eye towards unintended impacts of their automated systems, the Algorithmic Accountability Act ensures 21st Century technologies are tools of empowerment, rather than marginalization, while also bolstering the security and privacy of all consumers,” Rep. Clarke said.

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‘Hateful comments’ result in YouTube disabling chat during a live-streamed hearing on hate

from TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2X33lAh