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Julie BortDecember 20, 2016 There's an awful lot of angst in the tech industry about what a Donald Trump administration will do, and if he'll follow through on some of the more divisive promises he made on the campaign trail. On Tuesday, an Oracle employee working on the company's all-important cloud business publicly quit the company via a letter posted to LinkedIn. George Polisner was protesting Oracle CEO Safra Catz's decision to join Trump's transition team. Catz was part of a room full of tech industry leaders that met with the president-elect last week at Trump Tower in New York....

Federal jury finds Google’s use of Java software was “fair use” A federal jury found Google’s use of Oracle Corp.’s Java software in its mobile products didn’t violate copyright law, a verdict cheered by many in Silicon Valley who believe it will protect how they write and use software. Thursday’s decision, which Oracle said it would appeal, marked the latest chapter in a six-year legal battle in which Oracle sought as much as $9 billion from Google for using 11,000 lines of Java software code in its Android software. Oracle sued Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., in 2010 for...

A U.S. Federal Court jury finds Google didn’t need a license from Oracle for Android’s Java code, defeating Oracle's $9 billion claim. Oracle vows to appeal. Link Only Due To Copyright Issues From Bloomberg Article.

Larry Ellison, a college dropout who built Oracle Corp. ORCL +1.00% into one of America's largest companies, is stepping down as chief executive, in one of the momentous corporate handovers in the history of Silicon Valley. Mr. Ellison, aged 70, has been the only CEO in the history of Oracle, which he founded in 1977 and turned into a dominant seller of database software with a market value of $182 billion. Oracle shares fell 2% in after-hours trading following the CEO news and the company's disappointing quarterly results. Mark Hurd, 57, and Safra Catz, 52, two of Mr. Ellison's deputies,...

A research group funded by tech billionaire Larry Ellison is set to invest £118 million ($169.6 million) in applying AI to vaccine research with the UK's Oxford University. Oxford Vaccine Group is leading the project to study the human immune system's response to serious bacterial infections and antibiotic resistance, targeting diseases including Streptococcus pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, and E. coli. Led by Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, who ran the trials for COVID-19 vaccines, the project plans to employ so-called human challenge models – which expose human volunteers to bacteria under controlled conditions – then apply modern immunology and AI tools to...

NEW YORK (AP) — Skydance and Paramount officially closed their $8 billion merger on Thursday — kicking off the reign of a new entertainment giant after a contentious, over year-long endeavor to get the transaction over the finish line. The new company — which will trade under the “PSKY” ticker on Wall Street — brings Paramount’s legacy Hollywood footprint, major TV networks like CBS and MTV, streaming services and more under the roof of a new power player: billionaire Skydance founder David Ellison. “Today marks an exciting and pivotal moment as we prepare to bring Paramount’s legacy as a Hollywood...

Stephen Colbert declared to Donald Trump that “the gloves are off” in his first broadcast since his Late Show was cancelled amid a political firestorm, as his fellow hosts lined up to defend him with Jon Stewart scathingly denouncing Paramount for trying to “censor and control” its hosts. Colbert, the top-rated late-night talk show host in the US, said last week on his CBS show Late Night – which he took over from David Letterman in 2015 – that Paramount’s decision to pay a $16m settlement to Trump over another flagship CBS show, 60 Minutes, amounted to a “big fat...

Protesters gathered in New York City to hold a “We’re With Colbert” rally on Sunday in support of the recently canned ” The Late Show” host. The rally was held outside of the CBS Broadcast Center on Manhattan‘s West Side, according to the New York Post. The outlet noted that only around 20 people showed up to the event, with most attendees — including the New York Police Department (NYPD) officers assigned to keep the peace — leaving shortly after it began. “Our country is not perfect, never has been,” the event organizer told the outlet. The event organizer went...

This week has demonstrated that the tech “broligarch” who’s most influenced President Donald Trump’s second administration isn’t Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, or Marc Andreessen—it’s Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, the 80-year-old software tycoon who recently became the second-richest man in the world. Just look at everything that’s gone his way. On Thursday evening, the Federal Communications Commission finally voted to approve Paramount’s $8.4 billion merger with fellow entertainment firm Skydance Media. The controversial, long-awaited deal only came about thanks to Paramount’s appeals to this administration: settling a baseless lawsuit that Trump brought against 60 Minutes for “deceptively” editing its Kamala Harris...

Last week, 60 Minutes’ executive producer Bill Owens resigned in protest — but Owens and the rest of the news program have never taken responsibility for their own corruption.Last week, Bill Owens, the executive producer of CBS’ flagship news program 60 Minutes, resigned, “citing encroachments on his journalistic independence,” per The New York Times. In the first show since the news of Owens’ resignation broke, 60 Minutes ended the program with a glowing, if dubious, tribute to Owens that has since gone viral online. The program took the unusual step of alleging unethical behavior by CBS’ corporate parent Paramount for...

CNN's Jake Tapper launched a scathing attack on CBS owner Shari Redstone for 'bending the knee' to Donald Trump on Tuesday, following the resignation of longtime 60 Minutes producer Bill Owens. Owens, 58, had been the executive producer of the CBS news magazine since 2019, but told staff in a memo on Tuesday that he has come to realize he is no longer able 'to make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience' amid the president's $20 billion lawsuit against the network, the New York Times reports. Trump has claimed the network deceptively...

This video contains excerpts of Sam Altman's 9/15/16 interview with Elon Musk. They were the original Co-Chairs of OpenAI. Here, they openly promote the connection of AI and transhumanism (the merging of the human brain/mind with technology, as is being developed by Musk's Neuralink company). Elon Musk himself said that there's a "ten to twenty percent chance AI goes BAD." We are gambling with the future of every man, woman, and child on earth. At the very least, we should ensure that those who are involved in the Stargate Project are ethical and sensible human beings. There is a serious...

Larry Ellison says AI will enable a vast surveillance system that can monitor citizens.Ellison, the billionaire cofounder of Oracle, shared his thoughts on AI during a recent meeting.Oracle, a software company, is aggressively pursuing AI projects.Walking down a suburban neighborhood street already feels like a Ring doorbell panopticon.But this is only the start of our surveillance dystopia, according to Larry Ellison, the billionaire cofounder of Oracle. He said AI will usher in a new era of surveillance that he gleefully said will ensure "citizens will be on their best behavior."Ellison made the comments as he spoke to investors earlier this...

Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire founder of Meta, has recently made waves with his latest acquisition—a $300 million superyacht named Launchpad. Zuckerberg’s luxurious vessel, which is longer than a football field, has drawn criticism based on his climate activism. The Hindustan Times reports that with an estimated net worth of $180 billion, Mark Zuckerberg has joined the ranks of tech billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, and Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page in buying a luxurious superyacht. The 118-meter vessel, designed by Swedish-based Espen Øin International, boasts a sleek, multilayered exterior with a robust steel hull and an aluminum...

Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison is set to donate tens of millions of dollars to back Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) for president in 2024, according to reports. Ellison has been planning to support Scott’s presidential bid since he donated $30 million to the pro-Scott super PAC, Opportunity Matters Fund, CNBC reported. After months of speculation, Scott officially kicked off his presidential campaign on Monday in North Charleston, South Carolina. Scott gave a shoutout to “one of his mentors,” Ellison, who sat in a VIP section at the rally. “One of my mentors, Larry Ellison, is with us today, and I am...

interviews with nearly two dozen GOP donors, strategists and voters suggest the desire for a backup option has intensified amid questions about how the Florida governor would fare [cut] With an eye on DeSantis’s vulnerabilities, many donors have kept the door open to other potential White House contenders. One lesson that sticks with many benefactors who helped Jeb Bush raise more than $100 million by July of 2015 only to see the former Florida governor falter is that Trump’s ability to torpedo his rivals — as he is now trying to do with DeSantis — necessitates a backup plan. “My...

Gary Webb, reporter who exposed CIA, dies THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Gary Webb, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who wrote a controversial series of stories linking the CIA to crack cocaine trafficking in Los Angeles, has died at age 49. Webb was found Friday morning at his home in Sacramento County, dead of an apparent suicide. Moving-company workers called authorities after discovering a note posted on his front door that read, "Please do not enter. Call 911 and ask for an ambulance." Webb died of a gunshot wound to the head, according to the Sacramento County coroner's office....

Oracle and Walmart’s plan to buy TikTok’s U.S. operations has been pushed back indefinitely, as President Joe Biden reviews former president Donald Trump’s efforts to address potential security risks from Chinese tech companies, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Oracle’s stock was slightly positive in premarket trading Wednesday and Walmart’s was slightly negative. Trump pushed TikTok to find an American buyer by threatening to ban the popular video app due to concerns that its Chinese parent company ByteDance could hand over U.S. users’ data to the Chinese government. TikTok has denied that this...

Billionaire Bill Gates is warning that America is heading for “civil war” and fears that “political polarization” could “bring it all to an end.” Gates made the prediction during a recent keynote conversation at this year’s Forbes 400 Summit on Philanthropy. The Microsoft co-founder revealed that he plans to end Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 25 years. “The goal for the foundation is to run for another 25 years,” Gates said in the keynote conversation with Forbes’ Chief Content Officer Randall Lane. He revealed that he plans to spend billions of dollars over the next few years on...