Month: May 2019

S&P 500 posts best four-month run in nearly nine years; Apple jumps after hours

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The S&P 500 eked out another record high close on Tuesday and capped its best four-month stretch in nearly nine years after a recent rally that helped to restore investors’ belief in the decade-long bull run.

Apple shares jumped about 5 percent following its quarterly results after the bell, which will help to ease worries about the earnings outlook for the S&P 500, even as Google-parent Alphabet tumbled during the session in the wake of a revenue miss.

S&P 500 e-mini futures were last up 0.2 percent and jumped following the report from Apple, which forecast stronger-than-expected third-quarter revenue. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook also said iPhone sales had begun to stabilize in China.

Besides a mostly better-than-expected earnings season, analysts said market-positive economic data, a dovish Federal Reserve and hints of progress in US-China trade talks have all helped drive recent gains.

“All in all, things for the market are looking pretty decent: a friendly Fed, low rates, growing earnings. It doesn’t get much better than that,” said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.

With more than half of the S&P 500 companies reporting, analysts now expect first-quarter earnings to have risen slightly from a year ago, a stark reversal from the 2 percent fall estimated at the beginning of the month, according to Refinitiv data.

But not all results have been upbeat. During the regular session, Alphabet shares fell 7.5 percent in their worst decline since October 2012 after the company reported its slowest revenue growth in three years.

Apple shares were down 1.9 percent during the day.

The S&P communication services sector slid 2.5 percent, dragged down by Alphabet, and registered its biggest percentage drop in about four months.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 38.52 points, or 0.15 percent, to 26,592.91. The S&P 500 gained 2.8 points, or 0.10 percent, to 2,945.83, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 54.01 points, or 0.66 percent, to 8,095.39.

For the month, the Dow rose 2.6 percent, the S&P 500 gained 3.9 percent and the Nasdaq added 4.9 percent. All three indexes posted their best monthly percentage gains since January.

The S&P 500 now up 17.5 percent since the end of December.

The Dow was boosted by gains in Chevron Corp. The company’s shares rose 2 percent after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc committed $10 billion to Occidental Petroleum Corp’s bid for Anadarko Petroleum Corp, boosting its chances of snatching a deal from Chevron.

Pfizer Inc and Merck & Co Inc rose more than 2 percent each after the drugmakers beat quarterly earnings estimates.

General Electric Co jumped 4.5 percent after the industrial conglomerate’s first-quarter profit rose and its negative cash flow was smaller than expected.

Mastercard Inc rose after the card company beat estimates for quarterly profit.

The Fed’s two-day meeting that ends Wednesday will be in focus for hints on the direction of US interest rates.

Investors will also pay close attention to the next two rounds of US-China trade negotiations after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he hopes to make “substantial progress” with Chinese negotiators.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.20-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.41-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 49 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 78 new highs and 45 new lows.

Volume on US exchanges was 7.22 billion shares, compared to the 6.56 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Government notifies taking over of NHB from RBI

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The government has issued a notification taking over the National Housing Bank (NHB) after buying entire stake for Rs 1,450 crore from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

The RBI has exited the NHB, thus making it a fully government-owned entity. The central bank was holding 100 percent stake in the NHB, the housing finance regulator.

The move is part of ending the cross-holding in regulatory institutions and follows the recommendation of Narasimham-II committee report of October 2001 and the RBI’s own discussion paper on the same, titled ‘Harmonising the Role and Operations of Development Financial Institutions and Banks’.

“The central government hereby notifies that the subscribed capital of Rs 1,450 crore of the NHB by the RBI, stands transferred to, and vested in the central government upon payment of the face value of the subscribed capital, to the RBI, with effect from the 19th day of March, 2019,” said the finance ministry notification dated April 29.

The Narasimham panel had said the RBI could not own those entities which are regulated by it.

The RBI has also divested its shareholding in Nabard. The central bank held 72.5 per cent equity in Nabard worth Rs 1,450 crore, of which 71.5 per cent amounting to Rs 1,430 crore were divested way back in October 2010 and the residual shareholding was divested on February 26, 2019.

Earlier, based on the second Narasimham committee recommendations, the RBI had proposed to transfer its ownership in State Bank of India, NHB and Nabard to the government in October 2001.

The decision to establish NHB was announced in the Budget 1987-88. Following that, the National Housing Bank Bill, providing a legislative framework for the NHB, was passed by Parliament in the winter session of 1987 and it became an Act on December 23, 1987.

The National Housing Policy of 1988 envisaged setting up of the NHB as the apex institution to promote the housing sector

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Apple optimistic as iPhone price cuts help in China, watches pull in new buyers

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Apple Inc on Tuesday forecast stronger-than-expected third-quarter revenue and Chief Executive Tim Cook said iPhone sales had started to stabilize in China, a sign that Apple’s price cuts there are helping limit sales declines.

IPhone sales marked their steepest decline ever, falling 17 percent in the fiscal second quarter from a year earlier and slightly missing analyst expectations. But Apple executives said a pickup in iPhone sales toward the end of the second quarter, along with growth in sales of services and wearable devices, made them optimistic about the current quarter.

Apple beat analyst expectations for its wearable business, bringing in sales of $5.13 billion compared with estimates of $4.79 billion, according to FactSet data.

Wearables include the Airpods wireless headphones and the Apple Watch. Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri told analysts on a call that 75 percent of Apple Watch buyers were new to the product.

Shares rose more than 5 percent in after-hours trading after Apple announced the results and plans for a new $75 billion share buyback.

Apple said it expects revenue between $52.5 billion and $54.5 billion for the current quarter ending in June, above analysts’ average estimate of $51.93 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

In an interview, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said that iPhone sales started to strengthen during the last few weeks of the fiscal second quarter.

“As we look at the iPhone results through Q2, the results were stronger on a year-on-year basis for the last few weeks of the quarter. We also saw a similar result in China,” Cook told Reuters in an interview. “These, along with the continued success with wearables and so forth, give us some confidence that things are getting a bit better.”

Apple reported net earnings per share of $2.46 for the March quarter, compared with Wall Street’s average estimate of $2.36.

Apple said iPhone revenues were $31.05 billion, slightly below analyst estimates of $31.10 billion, according to data from FactSet.

Services revenue, which includes sales from Apple Music, the App Store and other businesses, reached $11.45 billion, compared with analyst estimates of $11.32 billion, according to FactSet.

Apple has wrestled with a slowdown in iPhone sales in key markets such as China and saw its first ever year-over-year decline in iPhone revenue for the holiday shopping season.

The slowdown stemmed in part from the iPhone’s high cost and competition from rivals such as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, Xiaomi Corp, Oppo and Vivo – all of which sell cheaper phones with features similar to the iPhone.

But Cook said price adjustments in China, along with lower Chinese taxes on the iPhone and the trade-in and financing deals Apple offered, helped iPhone sales start to recover toward the end of the quarter. Cook also said he is “optimistic” that the United States and China will soon reach a trade deal.

“The trade relationship, versus the previous quarter, is better. The tone is better,” Cook told Reuters. “The sum of all of this together, it helped us.”

Investors are looking to Apple’s services business to fuel growth as iPhone sales slow. Last month, Apple revealed a new credit card offering and subscription services for news, television and gaming, though only the news subscription is currently available to purchase.

Apple on Tuesday said it has 390 million total subscribers to both its own and third-party services on its devices. The company has set a goal of 500 million by 2020.

Tom Plumb, founder of Wisconsin Capital Management and an Apple shareholder, said the results looked good, especially the uptick toward the end of the quarter. But other shareholders such as Brian Pirri, a principal at Apple shareholder New England Investment and Retirement Group, said they took the results with a “grain of salt” because expectations were low heading into the report.

“I don’t think the phones are the answer. (Apple) is going to need to continue to innovate, and I don’t see a ton out of this report that excites me,” Pirri said.

For its fiscal second quarter ended in March, Apple reported revenue of $58.02 billion, above analysts’ average estimate of $57.37 billion, according to Refinitiv data.

Apple said it spent $27 billion on share buybacks and dividends during the fiscal second quarter, which is a record for the company. Apple also said its board had authorized an additional $75 billion in share repurchases and raised its dividend by 5 percent.

“I imagine people are extrapolating the positive developments in China near quarter end and looking forward to a better environment there,” said Hal Eddins, chief economist at Apple shareholder Capital Investment Counsel. “For me, the driver for tonight’s (share price) move is the dividend hike … and more importantly the $75 billion buy back. Either way, I’ll take it.”

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

IndiGo grounds A320 Neo after hard-landing in Nagpur

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Budget carrier IndiGo was forced to ground one of its Airbus A320 Neos at the Nagpur airport after the pilot made a hard-landing on arrival from Kochi on
Sunday, according to sources at the airline and at the airport.

A senior Nagpur airport official confirmed to PTI the grounding of the IndiGo plane since April 28. But the airline, in a statement claimed that the said aircraft is back in operations, without disclosing since when, though.

“IndiGo was forced to ground one of its A320 Neo planes, VT-IZS, on April 28 when the pilot made a hard-landing at the Nagpur airport. The aircraft landed on the nosewheel instead of the rear wheels, which was a grave safety risk,”
the source said.

The hard-landing also resulted in damages to the plane, he added.

A senior DGCA official said the aviation regulator is looking into the incident, adding both the pilots have been grounded pending a probe.

An airline spokesperson however admitted that its flight had a “suspected” hard-landing.

“On April 28, an A320 Neo (VT-IZS) the pilot reported a suspected hard-landing while landing at Nagpur. The aircraft was inspected satisfactorily,” IndiGo said in the statement.

“The aircraft is back into operations,” IndiGo claimed, even though the plane is on ground since day of the incident on April 28, as per a global flight tracking website Flightradar24, the screenshot of which was shared with the
airline.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

More than just a livable space — built environment to turn top urban job creator

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The built environment (BE) is a social-science term for ‘the human-made spaces in which people live, work and recreate on a day-to-day basis’.

Today, BE transcends just a livable place. It is a multifaceted field that comprises design, construction, management, and use of advanced technologies over conventional ones. BE also draws aspects from various other disciplines such as economics, law, public policy and public health. Within the realm of public health, the term is referred to as renovating areas for improving the living standard, health and environment of people living within a community or place.

The growth in urban India may be fast-paced, yet 70 percent of its BE requirement by 2030 is yet to take shape, making it a lucrative sector for investments. But India has its problem matrices too — a rapidly growing population, infrastructure scarcity and alarmingly increasing pollution — within the constraints of which, our BE needs to be flexible and adaptable too.

In the past two years, there have been drastic changes in the business processes of Indian real estate and urban infrastructure sectors owing to a host of reforms including Real Estate Regulatory Act, the introduction of the Goods and Service Tax, Real Estate Investment Trusts, Infrastructure Investment Trusts, Relaxation of norms for foreign direct investment and external commercial borrowing. These reforms have brought with it the ease of doing business in this sector and have forced this traditionally unorganised sector to shift to an organised format which is also professionally managed now. With the need for professional management openings in the sector, BE now needs people with technical and managerial skills.

It is predicted that Indian BE will be the third largest industry in the world by 2030. With a year-on-year growth predicted at 7-8 percent, it is set to create ample employment opportunities for future generations.

According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 35 percent growth in world’s urban population till 2050 is expected to come from only three countries — India, China and Nigeria. Also, the absolute growth in urban population of India is predicted to be the highest. And the Indian real estate and infrastructure industry will be a crucial contributor to this growth.

According to another study, the Indian BE sector will face an acute shortage of manpower, to the extent of almost 85 percent — a gap of mammoth proportions! And the reason for this dearth will be lack of skilled professionals due to obsolete programmes and technologies imparted in most colleges and universities. The study curriculum needs to change if students are to be industry-ready. The need of the hour is industry-institute partnerships with practical pedagogy and ‘case studies method’ taking precedence over theoretical dissemination of knowledge. Higher education institutes need to be cognizant of the fact that students seeking career opportunities in the BE sector need to understand the requirements of the industry so that they can create a better place for themselves. They need to be technically updated and should also have top managerial skills for professional growth. Techno-managerial courses offered by various top-level accredited universities and colleges are the best options for students to develop a strong mix of these skills and abilities.

Dependent on a number of metrics like skilled manpower, flexibility and technological advancement, the BE is transforming the country as India’s real estate sector is expected to contribute 13 percent to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 2025 and the market size is expected to be $1 trillion by 2030.

Amol Shimpi is the director and associate dean of RICS School of Built Environment.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Let’s travel green: Here are some eco-friendly ideas to make tourism sustainable

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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We are living in a world wherein urban professionals are increasingly feeling the need to go on holidays and weekend getaways to unwind themselves. No wonder, a report has revealed that about 10.7 percent of the world’s GDP is being contributed by tourism alone. However, an increasing number of travellers is constantly putting pressure on the environment in several ways. While travelling is becoming more of a necessity in the global scenario, sustainable tourism has become the need of the hour.

The good news is that travellers across the world are embracing the concept of sustainable tourism more than ever. When it comes to the Indian scenario, the trend is catching up at a steady pace. A 2018 survey by a leading travel e-commerce company revealed that as much as 97 percent of Indian travellers wanted to travel sustainably, of which 88 percent were even willing to pay an extra premium to ensure the same.

This data is a call to action that travels entrepreneurs across the country need to answer with haste. Considering the increasing need among travellers to explore new destinations, most of the hotel and resort groups should start responding to this trend by having a presence in those offbeat destinations and offer end-to-end experiences to travellers. This will not just revolutionise the way Indians travel, but also create job opportunities for the local folk living in places that are far from the main towns and cities.

Local hiring is one of the basic steps that travel entrepreneurs should take towards making their businesses aligned with the etiquettes of sustainable tourism. Providing a means of livelihood to the local folk not just aids them in the overall development of their lives, but also ensures that the preservation of the local cultures and tradition are in continuity, which happens to be one of the major goals of sustainable tourism.

The involvement of the local community in tourism holds more importance than we realise. Travelling has become more about experiencing the local life of a destination than just simply touching upon the officially created sightseeing spots for tourists. Naturally, interaction with the locals is an experience that travellers look forward to these days. Guided village tours, local meals and folk performances at the resort are just some of the ways in which the travel industry can actually ensure a simultaneous development of tourism and the local community — thus ensuring a symbiotic step towards sustainable tourism.

One of the key ethics of sustainable tourism is the preservation of local culture and tradition. Entrepreneurs need to realise that it’s not just the creation of job opportunities that ensure the preservation of these things, they need to go out of their way to look for local talent and provide them a platform for the world to discover them. There are skilled artisans, folk musicians and other performing artists who should be provided a platform to showcase their skills to travellers. This can be done in the form of events like puppet-making workshops, folk music nights, theatre shows and dance performances among other things. These events can make an all-around impact on sustainable tourism — the local talent gets an audience, travellers get to experience the local culture, and the local community finds yet another way to add on to their earnings.

While tourism ought to be initiated at any location with the help of the local community, it is also important for entrepreneurs to focus more on eco-tourism. Simple modifications can make a huge difference to the environment and act as a big step towards sustainability — replacing normal electricity with solar power, and replacing the usual water supply with rainwater harvesting are just a few examples. When it comes to accommodation for travellers, brick-and-mortar construction can be replaced with mud and wood, for instance. Such living spaces are not just eco-friendly, but also make for an experience so unique that a traveller won’t even mind spending a little extra for that.

Sustainable tourism can be complete only when travel entrepreneurs ensure that adequate steps have been taken to complete the cycle of taking from and giving back to the environment. Whenever tourism is initiated in any place, there are several things that are taken from the environment in the form of basic supplies and more. The tourism industry should focus more on giving the same amount of things back to the environment and then leave scope for the carbon footprints to increase. A large number of environment-friendly practices, including the use of natural resources for construction, rainwater harvesting, installation of solar power, plantation of trees and organic farming should be adopted by the entrepreneurs to make tourism sustainable. Putting it in perspective, the primary goal of any travel entrepreneur must be to take adequate steps towards making the world a better place to live in, and things shall automatically align themselves in favour of sustainable tourism.

Aditi Balbir is the founder and chief executive officer of V Resorts.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Starting up? To get your ideation right, do this

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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“One of the strangest things is the act of creation.”

— Vera Nazarian

Not often in life do we get to start with a blank slate. Here we are, sitting across from each other, trying to figure out what we are going to do with the next decade of our lives.

Where do we start? Where do ideas come from? What is a good idea? Which industry should we pick?

The investor survey

So we started where I knew best — asking investors in my network what tickles their fancy these days. After meeting a few, we realised what should have been obvious: they had a broad sector focus, but not much beyond that.

Inspirations and ideas usually came from startup entrepreneurs, while investors reacted to them.

Through this exercise, we realised that we need to draw some boundary conditions around our search.

Boundary conditions

First, we started a conversation to understand ourselves. Are we lifestyle entrepreneurs or growth entrepreneurs? Will we be tech-driven or tech-enabled?

After a lot of introspection (some high spirits were involved), we decided that some pre-conditions were necessary for what we wanted to do:

• The market has to be large

At least $1 billion in size. Then picking a market gap and attacking it with focus and energy would be worth the effort.

• The product has to be differentiated

We realised that we enjoy using design to differentiate our business. There are folks who like to create a cheaper version of an existing product, playing on price and cost structure. We aren’t those guys.

• It has to interest both of us

There are a million problems to solve. We wanted to pick something that both of us would like to do for the next 10 years or more.

So, what did we pick? Stay tuned for the next article!

Ganesh Balakrishnan is an entrepreneur currently building a consumer brand in the footwear space. He founded two startups earlier – Momoe (mobile payments) and Windsleeve (retail tech). You can read his previous articles here.

Startup Stories is a series of accounts by startup entrepreneurs on how they built their businesses and found success. Read them here.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

‘Privacy-focused’ Facebook unveils new design, puts the spotlight on groups

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Facebook is launching a major redesign of its app and website built around letting people connect with groups that share their interests — an attempt to shift its focus away from the untrammeled public sharing that has helped spread hate speech, extremism, misinformation and live-streamed video of massacres.

The new features, announced Tuesday at the company’s annual F8 developer conference, are part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s broader strategy for countering Facebook’s growing array of critics, emboldened regulators and competitors.

Zuckerberg, who at one point stood in front of a giant display reading “The future is private,” acknowledged widespread skepticism of his plan to turn Facebook into a “privacy-focused” social network.

“Look, I get that a lot of people aren’t sure that we are serious about this,” he said to laughter from the crowd. “We are committed to doing this well and to starting a new chapter for our products.”

The redesign isn’t without risks of its own. When Snapchat rolled out major changes in late 2017, people hated them so much the service lost 3 million users in a single quarter ; analysts think it still hasn’t recovered.

Zuckerberg and his chief lieutenant, Sheryl Sandberg, have apologized repeatedly over the past year for Facebook’s ever-expanding list of mishaps over privacy, data misuse and security problems. Last week, the company said it is setting aside $3 billion to cover a possible fine from the Federal Trade Commission over privacy violations.

Amid all that, Zuckerberg is encouraging Facebook users to rely more on private messaging and “communities.” The redesign is structured to make it as easy to connect with groups as it is with individual friends, he said.

The groups cover a wide range of interests and topics — hiking, hair care, parenting, rare diseases. Recommended groups will appear on users’ homepages. (The redesign will also do away with Facebook’s signature blue banner.)

Groups have also caused controversy for the company, especially as communities pop up around extremist topics. Facebook is working to remove groups that have “harmful content,” Zuckerberg said, and to de-emphasize those that share misleading information.

The redesigned mobile app is live for U.S. users now, while the desktop version is coming later this year. This is Facebook’s fifth major mobile app redesign since it launched more than a decade ago.

A desktop app for Messenger is also coming later this year. And Messenger will eventually make end-to-end encryption the default setting for all messages, rather than an opt-in choice. End-to-end encryption protects messages as they travel between people, making it impossible to see them unless you are on the sending or receiving end.

Inside WhatsApp — by far Facebook’s most secure app — the company is making status updates more private. Only people in each other’s contact books will be able to see such updates.

The privacy changes extend to Instagram as well. Facebook executives say the company is starting to test new features that hide “likes” from photos. Users will still be able to see how many likes their photos get, but the number won’t appear at the bottom of each post.

Facebook’s dating service will come to U.S. users later this year. Facebook also announced a way to date friends — but only if each user separately adds the other to his or her own “secret crush” list.

Zuckerberg said last week that Facebook’s focus on private communications will be built out over the next five years or more.

A few years ago, the company probably would have rolled out these changes right away and dealt with problems as they came up, Zuckerberg said. But no longer. “We have to change a lot of the ways we run this company,” he said.

Last year’s F8 conference took place weeks after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which a political data-mining firm accessed personal data on tens of millions of Facebook users without their consent.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Shun these 4 triggers to limit smartphone addiction

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Researchers have decoded four common triggers for the compulsive use of smartphones which, if addressed, can help shun the screen addiction.

The four triggers for habitual smartphone use are: During unoccupied moments, like waiting for a friend to show up; before or during tedious and repetitive tasks; when in socially awkward situations and when people anticipate getting a message or notification.

“For a couple of years, I’ve been looking at people’s experiences with smartphones and listening to them talk about their frustration with the way they engage with their phones,” said study co-author Alexis Hiniker, Assistant Professor at the University of Washington’s Information School.

“But on the flip side, when we ask people what they find meaningful about their phone use, nobody says, Oh, nothing”.

Researchers conducted in-depth interviews to learn why people compulsively check our phones.

They found a series of triggers, common across age groups, that start and end habitual smartphone use. The team also explored user-generated solutions to end undesirable phone use.

“The solution is not to get rid of this technology; it provides enormous value. So the question is: How do we support that value without bringing along all the baggage?” asked Hiniker.

The study group also had common triggers that ended their compulsive phone use.

These were: Competing demands from the real world, like meeting up with a friend or needing to drive somewhere; realizing they had been on their phone for half an hour and coming across content they’d already seen.

“This doesn’t mean that teens use their phones the same way adults do. But I think this compulsive itch to turn back to your phone plays out the same way across all these groups,” Hiniker noted.

To the team, the finding pointed to a more nuanced idea behind people’s relationships to their phones.

“If the phone weren’t valuable at all, then sure, the lockout mechanism would work great. We could just stop having phones, and the problem would be solved,” Hiniker said. “But that’s not really the case”.

Instead, the researchers saw that participants found meaning in a diverse set of experiences, particularly when apps let them connect to the real world.

When it comes to designing the next wave of smartphones, Hiniker recommends that designers shift away from system-wide lockout mechanisms.

Instead, apps should let users be in control of their own engagement and people should decide whether an app is worth their time.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Eros Group to invest Rs 125 crore on new housing project in Greater Noida

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Realty firm Eros Group on Tuesday said it will invest Rs 125 crore to develop a new housing project at Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh.

The company, which is also into hospitality sector, will develop 258 units in the new project called ‘Eros Sampoornam I’.

The project will be adjacent to the company’s existing project Eros Sampoornam wherein 1,800 flats have been delivered.

“After the successful delivery of 1,768 units at this location, we have launched a new phase of development. We will be developing a little over 250 units in four towers.

The project will be delivered in 2023,” said Avneesh Sood, Director, Eros Group.

The company has launched this project at Rs 3,800 per sq ft and the size of the units range from 835-1,560 sq ft, he said.

“Eros has been around for more than 70 years and we have a legacy of providing the highest quality and excellence in our products. This new Sampoornam I project is a testament to that legacy,” Sood said.

He said the company will meet project cost from internal accruals and advance payments from customers.

Eros Group has two hotels — Shangri-La’s Eros in central Delhi and Eros Radisson Blu Hotel in Faridabad, Haryana. It also runs Vishal Cineplex in West Delhi.

In real estate, the group has developed many housing and commercial (office and shopping mall) projects in the Delhi-NCR property market.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow