Alibaba Contributed $200 Million For Snapchat Fundraiser

Alibaba is one of the major investors of Snapchat, the photo messaging app, prior to its IPO in the upcoming times.

Alibaba Group Holding is one of the biggest businesses in the world that has disrupted the Chinese tech sector. Also, it is constantly tapping the United States market as well; hence, either it is supporting some company, opening an online website of interior designs, or investing in startups or other companies. For that matter, it is known for investing in a photo-messaging app, Snapchat, which is popular for showing people’s images for a certain amount of seconds, recently raised $650 million. A major chunk of investment comes from Alibaba.

Snapchat is a Los Angeles (LA) based startup that has scheduled its initial public offering (IPO) in the coming times. The company has managed to raise a staggering amount of $538 million from a funding round already, as stated by Security and Exchange Commission filing. The company is engaged in raising a huge amount for its upcoming Initial Public Offering (IPO) for a few months now. According to Financial Times, it is said that Alibaba Group invested $200 million, which increased the market value of the photo-messaging app to $15 billion. However, people familiar with the matter said that the final evaluated value might rise.

It is believed that according to the Security and Exchange Commission filing, the name list of other investors, apart from Alibaba, are not disclosed, but the current existing investors that have been a part of the company includes Yahoo, Benchmark, IVP, Coatue Management, and Kleiner Perkins. The substantial fundraising came when the chief executive and co-founder of Snapchat, Evan Spiegel, warned this week that the technology industry could be overvalued. He said, “I think there will be a correction.” He further explained that when the time will be near, he would put in a lot of money to make it happen.

Mr. Evan Spiegel already planned to go public with his company despite of the fact that the business is still not mature enough in the market. This is the time where all tech companies and giants are preferring to remain private for as long as they can, but according to the co-founder of Snapchat, IPO is really important for any company. Furthermore, he explained that the plan is to remain independent rather than acquired or purchased by any other big company, such as Facebook, who recently planned to buy out the photo-messaging app.

Prior to its IPO in the coming times, Snapchat has hired Imran Khan as the chief strategy officer, who also helped and led Alibaba to a record IPO last year.

WakeMed Key Community Care Teams Up With UnitedHealthcare To Improve Patient Care Across The Triangle

UnitedHealth also extends behavioral health services to storm victims.

Wakemed Key Community Care (WKCC), a division of WakeMed Health & Hospitals, along with WakeMed Physician Practices and Key Physicians, have join hands with UnitedHealthcare (NYSE:UNH) to improve care coordination while enhancing  health services for residents of the Triangle area in North Carolina, for those who are enrolled in the UnitedHealthcare’s employer sponsored health plans. These enrollments will be eligible to be provided with healthcare from a WKCC primary physician.

The new accountable care relationship service is expected to take effect in the next few days, i.e. June 1^st 2015.Through this partnership, it will help to integrate valuable health care resources to better support the residents across the Triangle area. WKCC has been part of the Medicare Shared Savings Program, which was launched earlier this year. The program provides access of health services to approximately 400 patients.

The benefits that patients will receive range from routine check up to disease management or to an unexpected trip to the emergency department from accident victims. This program will also help to expand on the range of opportunities for care providers, including proactive services, i.e. providing patients with preventive methods of health care, such as the use of immunizations, tools, and materials to inform patients on methods to manage their health, and most importantly to help patients to be treated at the optimum place and time.

According to John Rubino, M.D., WKCC chairman, the WakeMed Key Community Care’s new dimension of its working relationship with United Healthcare will help to bring about a shift in health care system of North Carolina in which rewards are directed to those who maintain and provide quality and value, despite of the number of procedures that have been performed.

United Healthcare has committed to take the relationship much deeper and more collaborative with physicians and patients in not only in North Carolina, but also the whole of the US, since it also conducts around 520 more accountable care programs in other states and districts too.

In a separate news, UnitedHealth Group subsidiary has offered to provide free emotional and counseling support for the victims of the recent storms that had covered Texas and Oklahoma. United Healthcare’s partners with behavioral health company, Optum is also opening up emotional support line to provide ‘help services’ for those who are having difficulty in coping with the aftermath of the recent storms.

United Healthcare stock price ended the day at $119.45, a gain of more than 1%.

Samsung Foldable Smartphone Expected To Debut This Year

Samsung ambitious plans to work on a foldable smartphone, which might hit the market by the end of this year.

Samsung Group is not holding back! The company, once again, has become the largest smartphone vendor in the world. The South Korean smartphone maker took over Apple, who was the uncrowned king of the industry.

Samsung miserably failed during and after the launch of its Samsung Galaxy S5 model last year. This resulted in Apple and other companies overtaking the market share of Samsung. However, the company made a good comeback with Samsung Galaxy S6 and Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge model. It further plans to launch an Iron Man limited edition for its Edge version.

The latest Samsung update stated that the company is all set to work on a foldable dual screen smartphone. Samsung vendor has already gained immense traction with its flagship devices. Now, the company’s new project, which is a different and new device, is code named as ‘Valley’. According to the details that have been disclosed so far suggests that the Project Valley is in the infancy stages of development but the company’s plans are quite ambitious.

However, it is still not confirmed whether it is a prototype on which the company wishes to continue development till the final good product or terminate it at any time. It is believed that Samsung foldable phone with two display screens is expected to launch by the end of this year.

Many rumors have now gathered pace as Samsung has unveiled few prototypes regarding this smartphone. Moreover, it has also emerged in videos as well as dummies so far.

Market sources stated, “The device which Samsung is eyeing to launch is expected to support multiple gestures for switching between its two screens, and the fact that it is codenamed Project V/Valley suggest it could be a foldable device (the letter V is similar in shape to what a valley would look like, and it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to think the phone could feature two sides that fold together).”

Samsung was interested in working on a foldable device, but there were speculations before this year that it would release them by 2016. If the rumors about the company releasing these devices this year are true, then it will have to be very hard on work to be able to complete it.

As it has now reclaimed its number one position in the industry, the corporate giant wants to maintain the same momentum and sustain its market status over a long term.

Samsung Revealed its New Plans for Battery and Camera Sensors in its future devices

Samsung via a public presentation disclosed that its targeting for slimmer batteries and camera sensors.

Samsung Group in a public presentation disclosed its future product plans, which involves slimming down mobile batteries and making it more long lasting than ever. The Korean mobile manufacturer will also be working on camera sensors in order to make it slim.

Samsung Group has mentioned that its present batteries have 700 Wh/l (Watt hour per liter) of density, and the company is planning to change them into 750 Wh/l by the end of the year 2016. The company also plans to enhance that density to almost 780 Wh/l. The Korean company schemes to include these new batteries in all its upcoming products, mostly in its smartphone flagships. However, one major concern for the company will also be its smart watches flagship, as the wearable gadget is gaining more and more admiration internationally.

The South Korean company also declared that it will be emphasizing on camera sensors, slimming down the size of pixel from 1.12 microns to nearly 1, which means the upcoming cameras of the company will be congealed to 5 mm from previous 6.5 mm especially on 16 mega pixels camera. Reducing the pixels of camera sensor does specify that the images quality will be impacted. In order to solve the problem, Samsung Galaxy also announced that it is actively working on modifying the camera sensors to Red, White Blue (RWB), which is going to brighten up the quality of the images once again.

Samsung Elect’s latest battery plans will also reprieve those who are tangled regarding company’s decision to carry on with non-removable batteries or not. Their addition in the new flagship of S6 Edger and S6 smartphones shows that the company was all done making the eminent removable batteries, about which its smartphones were famous for. The company also declared that it will also be focusing on how to make its “fast charging” feature better than before, as the firm targets to provide their users almost 80% charge in approximately half an hour.

Samsung group has disclosed that it be working on these items explicitly, and optimistically the company will finish these tasks in the given time, or may be before that. The company has proved its worth and potential already, but till them customers will have to wait for more official announcements by the company.

In separate news, Samsung has also filed a patent related to a hybrid device, which will combine the smartphone and phablets technology with laptop, and will also include 2 operating systems inside same device.  

Amazon Drone Delivery Service Will Deliver Your Package Anywhere

Amazon new patent application will deliver products to customer at their instant location.

Amazon, Inc. is currently the reigning monarch of American online shopping. The company is the e-commerce giant in the domestic and international markets. It has expanded its global footprints to many countries, hence does great business as an online retailer now. Apart from this, the company has also bolstered its cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services, which is a massive $5 billion business now. Recently, the company has been pushing in for internet of things (IoT) and connectivity within devices.
Amazon recently started Drone Delivery services in order to speed up the delivery process of product orders to customers. The company started with a 1-hour program and a 2-hour program for this purpose. When it comes to delivering the product, the online retailer is trying everything to either speed up the delivery process to reduce the waiting time for customers or make the process convenient for them. Therefore, ‘AMZN' announced to deliver product directly to your ‘trunk' a couple of weeks ago. It has full rights from FAA to make it operational.
It is known that the ecommerce giant seeks to make the delivery process convenient through innovative and unconventional methods. The trunk delivery system was planned, however only in Germany for the time being, so that customers can receive their packages even if they are not at home. Now, the organization is planning a system to deliver packages wherever customers are present.
Reports suggest that the company is planning to ‘create a fleet' on drones that will be delivering products not only to customers' homes and workplaces but wherever they happen to be standing at that very instance. According to CNN, the company will name this service as "Bring It To Me". This delivery option will become a trademark Amazon patent application that will deliver products to you with a single click.
The ecommerce giant explains how this patent application works by stating an example where a user placed an order that is expected to be delivered to him within the next 30 minutes. The order is placed at his home but the next moment he plans to go to his friend's place. The company says, "As the ordered item is retrieved from inventory, the current location of the user's mobile device may be determined and the delivery location correspondingly updated. As such, the ordered item will be delivered to the user while the user is at their friend's house, or any other location."
The online business has it all planned to make user experience better and provide customers with the best possible option to receive their packages.

Pfizer And GlaxoSmithKline Merger On The Cards

Pfizer and Glaxo merger is said to be the most prominent in the healthcare sector.

Undoubtedly, Pfizer Inc. is the one of the most prominent names out of many pharmaceutical companies in the health care industry. The company’s main objective is to work for a healthier, disease free, and a safe world. It operates its business by producing and selling drugs all across the globe and it has many successful medicines on its portfolio as well.

In previous times, the company tried a lot to acquire AstraZeneca, but failed. However, it managed to sustain and strengthen itself in the market. The latest news suggests that the merger between Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline is on the cards now.

Rumors started to gather pace regarding Pfizer’s interest to take over its UK-based rival GlaxoSmithKline. This has to be very big news in the health care sector and hence Deutsche Bank’s analyst, Gregg Gilbert, has further ignited fire in these rumors.

Mr. Gilbert has placed a dollar value on this merger deal on Wednesday, which resulted in spreading fire to these speculations. He wrote a note to investors, which was titled ‘Introducing PfizerKline’ and explained that the GlaxoSmithKline buyout or merger would result as ‘materially accretive’ for Pfizer in the coming times. This buyout will further allow the health care giant to ‘unlock access to its balance sheet and improve its tax situation.’

‘Introducing PfizerKline’ stated, “We believe that the company has a sense of urgency to create value by leveraging the power of its balance sheet to do needle-moving deals. Since media reports in the past have pointed to the potential for a Pfizer/GSK combination, we are revisiting that theme.”

Gregg Gilbert further mentioned that this merger would be beneficial for both companies. According to him, the buyout will save the costs of around $3.7 billion or 10% of operating expenses as well. So far, the spokespersons from both parties have declined to comment on the speculations that would result in a massive merger.

The CEO of the company, Ian Read, showed his desire in January of being open for various strategic acquisitions in the future. He stated, “Pfizer is biased toward deals with the potential for creating value in the near term.”

However, many analysts feel that this merger deal might be too hard to chew as well. The company’s failed attempts to acquire AstraZeneca were because of the sheer size. However, GlaxoSmithKline is a much bigger company than AstraZeneca, which has a total workforce of 115,000 throughout the world.

Burger King Introduces Chicken Fries in Canada

Owner of Tim Horton closes shop as it gears up for expansion south of the border.

Burger King Inc. (NYSE:BKW) has announced the launch of its chicken fries across restaurants in Canada, where the company has set up its new headquarters, thanks to its merger with Ontario-based Canadian coffee maker, Tim Hortons.

This comes after a successful prelaunch in the US market and being supported by a national campaign, which shows a budding affair between the Miami, Florida-based burger chain’s iconic chicken fries and other sumptuous chicken items. The campaign has been launched on Twitter and Facebook for the last couple of weeks.

Chicken Fries are made up of a white chicken meat, which is coated with light crispy bread seasoning with healthy recipes of spices and herbs. They are then packed and shaped like ordinary French Fries, and are complimented with one of Burger King’s delicious dipping sauce. The Chicken Fires are available for only a limited period in selective Burger King Restaurants in Canada, at a price of $3.49.

In addition, the fast food chain is also set to roll out its most sought after BBQ collection, also for a limited period across Canada, and will feature the return of summer time favorite of BBQ Bacon WHOPPER® and will introduce the new BBQ Bacon TENDERCRISP® Chicken Sandwich.

Meanwhile, Tim Hortons, which is owned by the Burger King, has closed its US head office in Columbus, Ohio, as the company starts to gear up to push its chain store operations down south of the border. No details were provided about the job cuts, except that they may be shifted to its headquarters in Canada, though it did not rule out the possibility of fielding an extensive operations team to give support to US expansion.

Spokesperson, Patrick McGrade,said that the decision to close down the head office is to that growth in the US market is driven from the newly built Tim Hortons Global Restaurant Support Centre based in Oakville, Ontario, to avoid duplication and overlapping in the company’s operations and to improve coordination.

3G Capital, which assisted the process of merger between Burger King and Tim Hortons, has helped the two companies adjust to the working in two different environments in the US and Canadian markets, by helping to streamline operation by cutting around 5% of jobs from both companies and also the decision to close down and shift the office to the new headquarters in Canada.

Burger King’s stock price ended the day at $41.47, a gargantuan boost of more than 17% from the previous day.