Situational awareness: Intel officially named Bob Swan, its CFO and interim CEO, as permanent chief executive.
Hello from D.C., where it's so cold I am using the GIF below to keep warm.
Situational awareness: Intel officially named Bob Swan, its CFO and interim CEO, as permanent chief executive.
Hello from D.C., where it's so cold I am using the GIF below to keep warm.
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
In choosing to make an end-around Apple's rules for its market research app, Facebook was playing with fire.
ICYMI: Facebook took a program designed to let businesses internally test their own app and used it to monitor most, if not everything, a user did on their phone — a degree of surveillance barred in the official App Store.
Why it matters: Apple is a key distributor of Facebook's apps and sole arbiter of what is allowed inside its App Store. If Apple were to ban Facebook's apps, the company wouldn't have an alternative means to get its apps on iOS devices and would have to rely solely on a mobile web browser to reach its users.
The big question: It's unclear just what Facebook was thinking — it won't say whether it thought that it was somehow complying with Apple's rules.
Yes, but: Facebook wasn't alone in flouting Apple's rules, which may prove a boon to the social network as it works through the crisis. It turns out Google was doing almost the same thing.
By the numbers: The number of affected users also differs.
Between the lines: Apple doesn't really know how many others companies may have employed similar techniques.
Meanwhile: Aside from the issue with Apple, Facebook was also taking a risk in collecting so much data, and especially from teens.
The bottom line: The saga of Facebook Research will be be yet another point for those who believe Facebook will gobble up all the data it can unless it is reined in through regulation.
Scandals notwithstanding, Facebook reported a stellar quarter Wednesday, Axios' Sara Fischer reports.
It beat estimates on revenue, earnings and user growth and said it's making far more money per user than analysts expected, much more than it ever has before.
Why it matters: The company is facing unprecedented scrutiny from policymakers, business partners and privacy advocates, but strong growth — particularly overseas — demonstrates that users and advertisers are largely unfazed by the corporate drama.
By the numbers:
The big takeaways on growth:
Read more of Sara's full story.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
The Department of Homeland Security posted a final rule on Wednesday that will favor certain H-1B high-skilled visa applicants with more than a bachelor's degree, Axios' Stef Kight reports.
Why it matters: The new system would make it statistically more likely for someone with a master's degree from an American university to receive an H-1B over those without the higher degree or those with a master's from a foreign university.
The big picture: Other proposals — and more controversial ones — are expected to follow this new rule, including one that would end work permits for the spouses of H-1B visa holders with pending green cards. Another could force employers to pay their H-1B employees more.
Go deeper:
Hulu is rolling out "pause" ads, or ads that appear on your screen when you hit the pause button while watching a show, Sara writes.
Why it matters: It's part of a broader effort by Hulu to make advertising for content less intrusive and more relevant. The majority of Hulu's subscribers pay for the ad-supported tier, for which Hulu just recently lowered the price.
How it works: When a user hits the pause button while watching a show, an ad will show up on the left side of the screen against a gradient shading. The ad has no sound and disappears as soon soon as the user hits play again.
Between the lines: Hulu says Coca-Cola and Charmin have signed on as its beta partners for the launch.
The big picture: The effort comes amid an industry-wide push to be more innovative with advertising. Most networks and TV providers are beginning to use data and tech to target more personalized ads. AT&T is also testing a similar pause ad function.
The bottom line: While TV consumption has changed the way viewers consume content, the reality is that TV advertising hasn't yet caught up with the times.
Facebook wasn't the only big name tech company reporting earnings Wednesday, with Microsoft, Qualcomm, Samsung and PayPal results each offering a different glimpse into the state of the broader tech economy.
The bottom line: The tech industry isn't monolithic. Some companies have reported weakness in their data center businesses, while Microsoft did comparatively well.
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The polar vortex is making people do dumb things — and they don't want their moms to know about them.