Elon Musk has taken control of Twitter after a protracted legal battle and months of uncertainty. The question now is what the billionaire Tesla CEO will actually do with the social media platform. Musk gave one indication of where he's headed in a tweet Friday, saying no decisions on content or reinstating of accounts will be made until a “content moderation council” is put in place. The council, he wrote, would have diverse viewpoints. Major personnel shakeups are widely expected, with Musk ousting several top Twitter executives on Thursday. A fourth confirmed his departure, in a tweet. But Musk, the tech guru and self-proclaimed “Chief Twit,” has otherwise made contradictory statements about his vision for the company — and shared few concrete plans for how he will run it after buying it for $44 billion. That has left Twitter's users, advertisers and employees to parse his every move in an effort to guess where he might take the company. Many are looking to see if he will welcome back a number of influential conservative figures banned for violating Twitter’s rules — speculation that is only heightened by upcoming elections in Brazil, the U.S. and elsewhere. “I will be digging in more today,” he tweeted early Friday, in response to a conservative political podcaster who has complained that the platform favors liberals and secretively downgrades conservative voices. Former President Donald Trump, an avid tweeter before he was banned, said Friday he was “very happy that Twitter is now in sane hands” but promoted his own social media site, Truth Social, that he launched after being blocked from the more widely used platform. Trump was banned two days after the Jan. 6 attacks for a pair of tweets that the company said continued to cast doubts on the legitimacy of the presidential election and raised risks for the presidential inauguration that Trump said he would not be attending. Trump has repeatedly said that he will not return to Twitter even if his account is reinstated, though some allies wonder if he’ll be able to resist as he moves closer to announcing another expected presidential campaign. His Twitter account remained suspended Friday. Meanwhile, conservative personalities on the site began recirculating long-debunked conspiracy theories, including about COVID-19 and the 2020 election, in a tongue-in-cheek attempt to “test” whether Twitter’s policies on misinformation were still being enforced. The mercurial Musk has not made it easy to anticipate what he'll do. He has criticized Twitter’s dependence on advertisers, but made a statement Thursday that seemed aimed at soothing their fears. He has complained about restrictions on speech on the platform — but then vowed he wouldn’t let it become a “hellscape.” And for months it wasn’t even clear if he wanted to control the company at all. After Musk signed a deal to acquire Twitter in April, he tried to back out of it, leading the company to sue him to force him to go through with the acquisition. A Delaware judge had ordered that the deal be finalized by Friday. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives estimated that Musk and his investors overpaid. Even Musk has said the $44 billion price tag for Twitter was too high but that the company had great potential. The payment “will go down as one of the most overpaid tech acquisitions in the history of M&A deals on the Street, in our opinion,” Ives wrote in a note to investors. “With fair value that we would peg at roughly $25 billion, Musk buying Twitter remains a major head scratcher that ultimately he could not get out of once the Delaware Courts got involved.” After months of uncertainty, a series of moves by Musk this week signaled that the deal would in fact go through. On Wednesday, he strolled into the company’s San Francisco headquarters carrying a porcelain sink and tweeted “Entering Twitter HQ — let that sink in!” Then on Thursday, he tweeted, “the bird is freed,” a reference to Twitter’s logo. The same day, Musk fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and Chief Legal Counsel Vijaya Gadde. Sean Edgett, who had been Twitter’s general counsel, confirmed on Twitter Friday that he’s also out of a job, posting that the company is full of the most amazing people. “Keep taking good care of this place, Tweagle,” he added, referring to the company name for Twitter's legal department. Gadde, meanwhile, removed all references to her former employer from her Twitter bio, while trolls continued to post thousands abusive messages in replies to her most recent tweet.   As concerns rise about the direction of Twitter’s content moderation, European Union Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton tweeted to Musk on Friday that “In Europe, the bird will fly by our rules.” Breton and Musk met in May and appeared in a video together in which Musk said he agreed with the 27-nation bloc’s strict new online regulations. Its Digital Services Act threatens big tech companies with billions in fines if they don’t police platforms more strictly for illegal or harmful content such as hate speech and disinformation. Musk has also spent months deriding Twitter’s “spam bots” and making sometimes conflicting pronouncements about Twitter’s problems and how to fix them.   He posted a note Thursday aimed at addressing concerns that his plans to promote free speech by cutting back on moderating content will open the floodgates to more online toxicity and drive away users. It showed a newfound emphasis on ad revenue, especially a need for Twitter to provide more “relevant ads” — which typically means targeted ads that rely on collecting and analyzing users’ personal information. About 90% of Twitter's revenue comes from advertising, but it's far from being the biggest digital marketing platform. Google, Amazon and Meta account for about 75% of digital ads. Twitter was just 1% of global digital ad spending in 2022, according to an Insider Intelligence projection. Lou Paskalis, former head of media for Bank of America, said Twitter’s most loyal advertisers, many Fortune 100 companies, believe in the platform and probably won’t leave unless “some really untoward things” happen. On Friday, General Motors announced that it had temporarily paused its Twitter advertising while it works to “understand the direction of the platform” under Musk's ownership. GM described the pause as a normal step it takes when a media platform undergoes “significant change.” The takeover means Twitter is becoming a private company. Trading of its shares was suspended Friday, and they will be pulled from the New York Stock Exchange next month.

Operators have inherent network advantages in connectivity and can bring unlimited interconnection value to the world if their connectivity capabilities are fully unleashed. Simon Lin, senior vice-president of Huawei and president of Huawei Asia-Pacific, said this Friday at the two-day Ultra-Broadband Forum 2022 which began in Bangkok Thursday. Huawei is cooperating with operators to help the International Telecommunication Union-Telecommunication Standardization Sector formulate standards and jointly define the network carbon intensity energy indicator system, he added. Simon also set out a roadmap for how operators can unleash the full value of connections in home and enterprise scenarios and how green networks can underpin the green development of various industries. The upgrade of home networks and the emergence of new services such as live streaming at home pose new requirements on gigabit broadband. Coupled with gigabit broadband, new services can provide users with diversified experiences, create new home network business models for operators, and enable connection monetisation, the senior vice-president of Huawei said. "Fast and large-scale deployment of optical fibres lays the foundation for operators to build a positive business cycle. Deploying optical fibres on a large scale can effectively reduce the cost per line and enable operators to launch gigabit services with higher average revenue per user (ARPU)," he added. Good network and service experiences can ensure operators' solution sales at a premium rate, Simon said. "Operators can combine gigabit home networks with new services, such as providing scenario-specific broadband services, binding Internet services, and binding smart home device services. In this way, each new service can increase the ARPU of broadband services," he added. Currently, operators have just begun to put into practice and expand new services based on optical fibre home networks. Also, a connection entry is built for the digital transformation of enterprises to monetise their private lines and networks. The digital transformation of traditional industries calls for connectivity upgrades. A variety of industries have different requirements for connectivity, driving operators to provide diverse enterprise network connectivity solutions. Currently, more and more enterprise services are migrating to the cloud, allowing operators to expand their business space. Simon said: "Enterprise private lines are a high-value market for operators and can be used for covering campus networks and enterprise data centre networks. The private line bandwidth is upgraded from Gbps to 10 Gbps to offer high-quality connections in and out of campuses and data centres." "Enterprises' digital transformation requires diverse network connection services. Operators can provide scenario-specific private lines to increase revenues. For example, they can provide ultra-high-bandwidth private lines for the media industry, and millisecond-level low-latency private lines as well as security cloud services for securities companies." "As many enterprise branches need to access multiple clouds, N x N private lines are required," Simon said. "Operators can use multi-cloud backbone and network slicing technologies to upgrade private lines to private networks, providing deterministic network assurance for enterprises," Simon said, All-optical, simplified, and intelligent green networks enable the green development of various industries, the senior vice-president of Huawei also said.    

Parag Agrawal, the ousted Indian-origin CEO of Twitter, is expected to receive $42 million following his departure from the company as Elon Musk has taken control of Twitter and fired the CEO, chief financial officer and the company’s general counsel. If Agrawal is fired within a year of a change in control at the company, he would receive an estimated $42 million, reports NDTV. Read more:Musk takes control of Twitter, fires CEO Parag Agrawal Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, closed the $44-billion deal to buy the company, the NDTV report added. Musk is in charge of the social media platform and has fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and General Counsel Vijaya Gadde. Musk had expressed his lack of faith in Twitter's management. Read more:‘Entering Twitter HQ - let that sink in!’: Musk tweets Agrawal, who served as Twitter's previous CTO, was appointed CEO in November last year. His total compensation for 2021 was $30.4 million, the majority of which came through stock awards, according to NDTV.

Elon Musk has taken control of Twitter and ousted the CEO, chief financial officer and the company’s general counsel, two people familiar with the deal said Thursday night. The people wouldn’t say if all the paperwork for the deal, originally valued at $44 billion, had been signed or if the deal has closed. But they said Musk is in charge of the social media platform and has fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and General Counsel Vijaya Gadde. Neither person wanted to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the deal. The departures come just hours before a deadline set by a Delaware judge to finalize the deal on Friday. She threatened to schedule a trial if no agreement was reached. The major personnel moves are expected to be the first of many changes made by Musk, who says he can increase Twitter's subscriber base and and revenue. Earlier in the day, Musk tried to soothe leery Twitter advertisers saying that he is buying the platform to help humanity and doesn’t want it to become a “free-for-all hellscape.” The message appeared to be aimed at addressing concerns among advertisers — Twitter’s chief source of revenue — that Musk’s plans to promote free speech by cutting back on moderating content will open the floodgates to more online toxicity and drive away users. “The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” Musk wrote in an uncharacteristically long message for the Tesla CEO, who typically projects his thoughts in one-line tweets. Also read: ‘Entering Twitter HQ - let that sink in!’: Musk tweets He continued: “There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.” Musk has previously expressed distaste for advertising and Twitter’s dependence on it, suggesting more emphasis on other business models such as paid subscriptions that won’t allow big corporations to dictate policy on how social media operates. But on Thursday, he assured advertisers he wants Twitter to be “the most respected advertising platform in the world.” The note is a shift from Musk's position that Twitter is unfairly infringing on free speech rights by blocking misinformation or graphic content, said Pinar Yildirim, associate professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.   But it’s also a realization that having no content moderation is bad for business, putting Twitter at risk of losing advertisers and subscribers, she said.   “You do not want a place where consumers just simply are bombarded with things they do not want to hear about, and the platform takes no responsibility,” Yildirim said.   Musk said Twitter should be “warm and welcoming to all” and enable users to choose the experience they want to have. “I didn’t do it to make money,” he said of the pending acquisition. “I did it to try to help humanity, whom I love. And I do so with humility, recognizing that failure in pursuing this goal, despite our best efforts, is a very real possibility.” Friday’s deadline to close the deal was ordered by the Delaware Chancery Court in early October. It is the latest step in a battle that began in April with Musk signing a deal to acquire Twitter, then tried to back out of it, leading Twitter to sue the Tesla CEO to force him to go through with the acquisition. If the two sides don’t meet Friday's deadline, the next step could be a November trial that could lead to a judge forcing Musk to complete the deal. But Musk has been signaling that the deal is going through. He strolled into the company’s San Francisco headquarters Wednesday carrying a porcelain sink, changed his Twitter profile to “Chief Twit," and tweeted “Entering Twitter HQ — let that sink in!” And overnight the New York Stock Exchange notified investors that it will suspend trading in shares of Twitter before the opening bell Friday in anticipation of the company going private under Musk. Musk is expected to speak to Twitter employees directly Friday if the deal is finalized, according to an internal memo cited in several media outlets. Despite internal confusion and low morale tied to fears of layoffs or a dismantling of the company's culture and operations, Twitter leaders this week have at least outwardly welcomed Musk's arrival and messaging. Top sales executive Sarah Personette, the company's chief customer officer, said she had a “great discussion” with Musk on Wednesday and appeared to endorse his Thursday message to advertisers. “Our continued commitment to brand safety for advertisers remains unchanged,” Personette tweeted Thursday. “Looking forward to the future!” Musk's apparent enthusiasm about visiting Twitter headquarters this week stood in sharp contrast to one of his earlier suggestions: The building should be turned into a homeless shelter because so few employees actually worked there. The Washington Post reported last week that Musk told prospective investors that he plans to cut three quarters of Twitter’s 7,500 workers when he becomes owner of the company. The newspaper cited documents and unnamed sources familiar with the deliberation. Musk has spent months deriding Twitter's “spam bots" and making sometimes contradictory pronouncements about Twitter's problems and how to fix them. But he has shared few concrete details about his plans for the social media platform. Thursday's note to advertisers shows a newfound emphasis on advertising revenue, especially a need for Twitter to provide more “relevant ads” — which typically means targeted ads that rely on collecting and analyzing users' personal information. Yildirim said that, unlike Facebook, Twitter has not been good at targeting advertising to what users want to see. Musk’s message suggests he wants to fix that, she said. Insider Intelligence principal analyst Jasmine Enberg said Musk has good reason to avoid a massive shakeup of Twitter’s ad business because Twitter's revenues have taken a beating from the weakening economy, months of uncertainty surrounding Musk's proposed takeover, changing consumer behaviors and the fact that "there's no other revenue source waiting in the wings." “Even slightly loosening content moderation on the platform is sure to spook advertisers, many of whom already find Twitter’s brand safety tools to be lacking compared with other social platforms,” Enberg said.

Ultra-broadband 5.5G will be a key milestone on the path to an intelligent world, David Wang, Huawei's executive director of the board and chairman of the ICT infrastructure managing board, said Thursday. He was speaking at the two-day Ultra-Broadband Forum 2022 which began in Bangkok today. "As we approach the intelligent world of 2030, home broadband speeds will reach 10 Gbit/s, marking a huge improvement over today's 1 Gbit/s experience," David said. "Now homes have an average of 5 to 20 devices connected to their Wi-Fi networks. However, this is set to change as smart home devices see broad adoption, which will drive this number up to 150 to 200. It will therefore be essential that fibre can reach every room of every home." Read: 5.5G: 'The key to building an intelligent world' By 2030, Wi-Fi networks will also be capable of delivering several 10 Gbit/s experiences for mid- and large-sized campuses and will need to support intelligent operations and management, David said. "Micro and small enterprises will need Wi-Fi networks that can deliver large bandwidth, premium experiences, and one-stop intranet services. Industrial Internet will require a bandwidth higher than 10 Gbit/s and latency lower than one millisecond," he added. "Enterprises will adopt a multi-cloud strategy that requires networks to dynamically adjust routing. Driven by green development and automation, we will see 10-fold increases in network capacity, energy efficiency, and O&M efficiency," David said.

Chinese consumer electronics producer Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp., Ltd, is known as OPPO. Its headquarters are located at Dongguan in Guangdong in China. Oppo produces electronic product categories, including Smartphones. The Oppo F Series lineup focuses on selfie-focused smartphones with MediaTek or Qualcomm processors. These devices bear the slogan "Selfie Expert" on the back. OPPO F21 Pro is the latest addition to OPPO’s popular F21 series. Let’s take a look at the specs, pros, and cons of the OPPO F21 Pro 4G. Why OPPO F21 Pro is a Gift for Shakib Al Hasan’s Fans? Although OPPO F21 Pro was launched in May 2022 with sunset orange and cosmic black colors. The brand is now bringing a new color for OPPO F21 Pro.  OPPO is bringing the world’s best all-rounder, Shakib Al Hasan’s signature S#75 color, to the Oppo F21 Pro device, which is already available for the OPPO F21S phone. S#75 is a color variable with many more color shades (varieties), including pink, green, and gold.  Read realme C30 Review: An entry-level phone with smooth performance These types of colors are an expression of Shakib’s personality, which Shakib has acquired over time through various successes and experiences. However, this is not only Shakib’s color, but it applies to any smartphone user.  Key Features of OPPO F21 Pro 4G Design The F21 Pro looks distinct from the other phones on the market. It has a decisive advantage over other phones. In an array of dazzling rear-paneled systems, the OPPO F21 Pro’s new S#75 color will surely make it look exceptional and polished. It feels good to touch and is easy to care for. A rectangular camera unit situated at the top left part of the back features three lenses and an LED flash. The side frame of the camera module has an LED light around, which OPPO uses as a notification light and also likes to respond to as an Orbit light. The light blinks when you make a call, or the device is connected to charge. Read Infinix Zero Ultra Review: Worth the hype? The upper left corner of the Oppo F21 Pro 4 G’s LCD screen has a punch hole in it for a front-facing camera. There’s almost no bezel around it. As compared to other phones, the F21 Pro has flat edges that make it less ergonomic. Nevertheless, OPPO has done well to ensure that the phone is lightweight, weighing only 175 grams. It is one of the slimmest phones at this time within its price range. Display The Oppo F21 Pro 4G includes a 6.43-inch AMOLED screen. It has a resolution 2400 by 1080 pixels along with 409PPI. While the outstanding colors and blacks of the screen are good, the refresh rate is less than comparable devices. If you compare it to a 120Hz panel, the 90Hz refresh rate panel will feel much better. It’s not overly bright on this screen, and it meets the requirements necessary for bright light.  Read Tecno Pova 4 Pro Review: Budget gaming phone with a massive battery The OPPO phone has a 403 nits typical brightness at normal mode. You will get peak brightness of 600 nits, which is good enough to use the phone under bright sunlight. OPPO has confirmed that the OPPO F21 Pro has the necessary Widevine L1 DRM certification, allowing users to stream the best possible content on their smartphones. Camera The OPPO F21 Pro camera setup contains three sensors at the back and one at the front.  Back Camera The back camera supports a primary 64-megapixel wide-angle camera with an f/1.7 aperture, 79° field-of-view, and 6P lens. Its camera hardware is useful for preserving sharpness well. As with the majority of OPPO devices, colors seem to be good in this device. There’s also a decent dynamic range of the main rear camera, as it can capture various colors with minimal contrast. Read Motorola Moto Edge 30 Ultra Review: Rebranded for New Market The back camera series has a 2-megapixel microscope sensor that offers an f/3.3 aperture, 65° field-of-view, and a 3P lens.  While the 2MP MONO camera sports an f/2.4 aperture, 89° field-of-view, and 3P lens. It can shoot black-and-white photos. Using the rear camera of the OPPO F21 Pro, you can shoot a maximum of 1080P footage at 30 fps and 720P footage at 30 fps. For slow-motion video, it supports 720p videos at 120fps. EIS is available for the rear camera. Read Xiaomi 12T Pro Review: Is the hype real? Front Camera The 32MP front camera features an f/2.4 aperture, 85° field-of-view, and a 5P lens. OPPO F21 Pro's selfie camera is an effective device for taking attractive photos during the day. Though the selfie camera provides good photos in well-lit conditions, it struggles in low light. When light levels are low, the image will appear fuzzy and indistinct. Lack of optical image stabilization (OIS) can make it worse.  The front camera of the OPPO F21 Pro supports 1080P videos at 30 fps and 720P footage at 30 fps.  Software and Performance As far as performance is concerned, any mid-range Android smartphone would carry out just as well as OPPO’s F21 Pro. Apps take some time to load, and the startup time tends to be longer than expected. The phone has Snapdragon™ 680 with 8 cores which speed up to 2.4 GHz. The graphic unit is enriched with Adreno 610 GPU at 1100MHz.  Read Tecno Pova 4 Review: Gaming on a Budget The phone comes with ColorOS 12 skin that runs on the latest Android 12 OS. The Oppo does not offer a clean user interface out of the box but offers a well-thought-out and straightforward set of utilities to customize your experience.  This device has Air gestures, which let you scroll through apps on websites like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram by means of hand motions. But this is merely a gimmick, and you will probably end up touching the display.  But, you will surely like OPPO’s Orbit light customization option, which gives a better experience overall. Read Google Pixel 7 Series Review: What’s New The phone comes with 8GB LPDDR4x RAM and UFS2.2 128GB memory. However, if this memory is not enough, you can insert an external memory card. Battery and Charger The OPPO F21 Pro’s battery pack comes with 4,500mAh, which is not going to top the list, but you will be pleased with its performance. It will last all day while connected to the internet. If you are not playing games on this phone, it will last up to two days. Despite the gaming, the phone will provide you with around five hours of backup, which is a wonderful battery backup from a 4,500mAh gadget. Among its rival phones in this price range, the Oppo F21 Pro only comes with a 33-watt fast charger, which is not quite as good as the 66-watt alternatives offered by the competitors. This adds more time to complete a charge, but the bundled charger delivers a full charge in one hour and twenty-five minutes. Read OnePlus Ace Pro Review: Premium phone with flagship chipset OPPO F21 Pro’s Official Price in Bangladesh The OPPO F21 Pro comes in only one variant, which is 8GB+128GB. The phone is priced at Tk. 29,990, which you can buy online or from stores. However, the price is subject to change. Final Words The Oppo F21 pro is an average Android mid-ranger for most tasks. It performs similarly to a mid-range phone, and the camera is like any other mid-range Android smartphone in the market. Nevertheless, the design of the smartphone and photo-taking abilities with the microscope camera segment is what set it apart from the crowd. You will like the software and the microscopic camera for sure. However, what you may dislike are the OS and its mediocre imaging performance. Read Asus ROG Phone 6D Review: Worth the price tag? On the whole, if you are looking for a standard phone under TK 30000 to do day-to-day tasks and some photography, you can consider Oppo F21 Pro 4G.

Microsoft on Tuesday reported a 14% drop in profit for the July-September quarter compared to the same time last year, reflecting a weak market for personal computers affecting its Windows business. The company reported quarterly net income of $17.6 billion, or $2.35 per share, which still slightly beat Wall Street expectations despite undershooting last year’s results. The Redmond, Washington-based software maker posted revenue of $50.1 billion in the quarter, up 11% from last year, also beating expectations. Analysts expected Microsoft to earn $2.31 per share on revenue of $49.7 billion for the quarter. Microsoft’s personal computing business, centered on its Windows software, was widely expected to take a hit given economic uncertainties such as inflation. In addition, many consumers bought new devices during the pandemic, helping crimp demand. The company gets licensing revenue from PC manufacturers who install its Windows operating system on their products. Revenue from those licenses dropped 15% in the quarter, Microsoft said. Worldwide shipments of personal computers declined almost 20% in the quarter from the same time last year, according to market research firm Gartner, which said it was the steepest decline since it began tracking the PC market in the mid-1990s. A disappointing back-to-school sales season for new computers also contributed to a fourth consecutive quarter of year-over-year decline, Gartner said. Microsoft shares slipped more than 6% in after-hours trading Tuesday. Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said on a conference call with investors that some of the negative factors affecting the last quarter could extend into the near future. Alluding to recent layoffs and the past year of new hires, she said net headcount growth “will be minimal” heading into the current quarter. Microsoft made up for some of the Windows-related losses through the strength of its cloud-computing services supplied to big businesses and other institutions. Revenue from that segment grew 20% from the same time last year to $20.3 billion, making it the largest source of Microsoft’s sales and growth during the period. But growth in the company’s flagship Azure cloud computing platform was lower than what analysts anticipated, in part because of what Hood described as an ongoing spike in the cost of energy needed to run powerful data centers. The second-largest business segment, made up of productivity-related software such as the Office suite of work products, grew 9% to $16.5 billion in revenue.

Summertime revenue growth at Google’s corporate parent slipped to its slowest pace since the pandemic jarred the economy more than two years ago, with advertisers clamping down on spending and bracing for a potential recession. Alphabet Inc., which owns an array of smaller technology companies in addition to Google, on Tuesday posted revenue of $69.1 billion for the July-September quarter, a 6% increase from the same time last year. It marked the first time Alphabet’s year-over-year quarterly revenue has risen by less than 10% since the April-June period of 2020. At that time, the advertisers that generate most of its revenue pulled in their reins because of the economic uncertainty during the pandemic’s early months. Google’s ad sales weakened even more dramatically than Alphabet’s overall revenue. Ad revenue totaled $54.5 billion, up just 2.5% from the same time last year. In another sign of more challenging times, YouTube’s quarterly ad sales decreased 2% from last year, the first time the video site’s revenue has regressed since Google began disclosing its results in 2019. The revenue slowdown also created a drag on Alphabet’s profits. The Mountain View, California, company earned $13.9 billion, $1.06 per share, a 27% drop from the same time last year. Both revenue and earnings per share fell below projections of analysts surveyed by FactSet. Alphabet’s shares declined nearly 7% in extended trading after the numbers came out. The stock price has plummeted by more than 30% this year, erasing about $600 billion in shareholder wealth. “Online ad spending is clearly slowing more than we thought,” said David Heger, an analyst for Edward Jones. “It looks like it is going to be tough sledding for the next few quarters.” Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai described the conditions as “uncertain” and told analysts during a conference call, “it is a moment where you take the time to optimize the company to make sure we are set up for the next decade of growth ahead.” Google’s moneymaking machine, propelled by its dominant search engine, roared back as pandemic restrictions loosened last year and government stimulus juiced the economy, helping power Alphabet to a 41% increase in its revenue last year that lifted its stock price to new peaks. But the economy has been sputtering in recent months as central bankers steadily lift interest rates to combat the highest inflation rates in more than 40 years, a strategy that is threatening to plunge the economy into a recession. As it is, many households have already tightened their budgets and cut back on some discretionary items — a trend that has prompted advertisers to spend less marketing their products and services. “This disappointing quarter for Google signifies hard times ahead,” warned Insider Intelligence analyst Evelyn Mitchell. Alphabet has vowed to scale back its hiring, but didn’t show much restraint during the summer months. After adding 17,500 employees to its payroll during the first half of the year, the company’s workforce increased by another 11,765 people in the past quarter. Alphabet ended September with nearly 187,000 employees. Ruth Porat, Alphabet’s chief financial officer, predicted during the conference call that the company will hire fewer than 6,380 workers during the final three months of this year, a more measured approach that Pichai said would continue into next year. The cautious remarks came after Pichai told Alphabet employees last month to be “a bit more responsible through one of the toughest macroeconomic conditions” of the past decade and urged them not to “equate fun with money.” Although the economy is squeezing its finances, Google is faring far better than other internet companies whose fortunes are tied to digital advertising. Facebook suffered its first year-over-year quarterly decline in revenue earlier this year. Another social networking company, Snap, has been so hard hit that its stock price has plunged by more than 80% so far this year. Facebook, Snap and a variety of other internet services rely on being able to track users’ whereabouts and online activities to target ads. Apple began blocking that tracking on iPhones 18 months ago unless users consented to the surveillance. Google’s search engine is still able to gather personal information prized by advertisers through its search engine, minimizing the impact of Apple’s tougher privacy controls on its revenue. Facebook’s corporate parent, Meta Platforms, is scheduled to report its results for the latest quarter Wednesday afternoon.

Global tech giant Huawei has called upon all industry players to prepare on all fronts so that they can move faster towards the 5.5G era and eventually build a better, intelligent world together. David Wang, Huawei's executive director of the Board and Chairman of ICT Infrastructure Managing Board, said this while delivering a keynote address at the Global Mobile Broadband Forum which began in Bangkok on Tuesday. "With the intelligent world fast approaching, the rapid changes we are set to experience will all be accompanied by increasing requirements for digital infrastructure. The next milestone we must hit on the path to the intelligent world is 5.5G. 5.5G will deliver 10 Gbit/s experiences, support hundreds of billions of connections, and help us achieve native intelligence," he said. Wang emphasized that after two years of concerted efforts across the industry, 5.5G has seen huge progress and three things have become clear. "First, the standardization of 5.5G has been initiated and is on the right track, making it more than just a vision. Second, the industry has made breakthroughs in key technologies for 5.5G, and ultra-large bandwidth and ELAA can now deliver 10 Gbit/s experience. "Third, the industry has a clear vision for the IoT landscape. Three types of 5.5G-enabled IoT technologies supported by 5.5G, namely NB-IoT, RedCap, and passive IoT, are developing rapidly and will support numerous IoT connections," he said. The communications industry, Wang said, is constantly evolving. "5.5G has been kicked into high gear. Looking ahead, our task is to tackle these five new areas – standards, spectrum, products, ecosystems, and applications. Together, let's stride to 5.5G and build a better, intelligent world." The Global Mobile Broadband Forum 2022 is hosted by Huawei, together with its industry partners, GSMA and GTI. This annual forum gathers mobile network carriers, vertical industry leaders, and ecosystem partners from around the world to discuss how to make 5G a commercial success and other hot topics like green development, intelligence, and 5G evolution. It may be mentioned that in December 2021, telecom regulator BTRC launched the initial 5G network in Bangladesh in collaboration with state-owned mobile operator Teletalk. But the initial coverage remains extremely limited, extending only to the Prime Minister's Office, Parliament, Secretariat, Bangabandhu Museum on Dhanmondi 32, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's birth place Tungipara in Gopalganj, and the National Martyrs' Memorial in Savar. The country, however, has big ambitions with 5G and its expanded capabilities in the near future, as coverage expands. Till now, it has partnered with Huawei in bringing 5G to Bangladesh.

The call for submission of research on the fourth industrial revolution – a first of its kind initiative by Awami League's subcommittee on science and technology – drew overwhelming response with papers submitted by globally and nationally acclaimed academics and experts. As many as 578 authors came up with their research papers encompassing different fields revolving 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) in technology – mostly to complement the party’s effort to build on the pledge of “Smart Bangladesh”, the next phase of digital transformation the government seeks to implement to address future challenges. Among them there are researchers from the Silicon Valley, London Imperial College, Australia’s Monash University, McMaster and Calgary universities in Canada, several universities in US, and Kyoto University in Japan, according to a press release. Set to be held next month, the two-day international conference would see participation from the country’s state minister for ICT Junaid Ahmed Palak and Engineer Md Abdus Sabur, AL’s Science and Technology Secretary, among other experts. It will take place at the capital's Engineers' Institution, Bangladesh (IEB). The international conference provides a unique opportunity for professionals, scientists, engineers, educators, researchers and students to share their views and thoughts on both the innovative drives of the government targeting 4IR and exploring emerging technologies that can lead to a “smart Bangladesh” by 2041. The organizers believe the country is progressing rapidly and to address the course of future progress, such initiatives stand as a pointer to the party’s measures for chartering out timely ideas to shape its visions. Courtesy Sajeeb Wazed, the ICT affairs advisor to PM, who has been credited with the country’s real and measurable gains in digital landscape with setting many records from making internet cost effective, taking public services at people’s doorstep, setting up ICT parks, and expansion of mobile financial services over the space of a decade, Bangladesh now boasts a significant earning from overseas through offering different services. Digital Bangladesh is a vision introduced by AL before the 2008 national election, seeking to brining about a revolution in the country’s overall rise in South Asia. In a word, this is one step forward towards works on 4IR and the party believes that this conference will give a chance to make inter and intra relationships and share knowledge among policymakers, scientists and researchers.