Page 25 - ATD12March2016
P. 25
BUSINESS A25
Saturday 12 March 2016
Capital One to let users pay bills via Amazon’s Echo
NEW YORK (AP) — Capital lights, playing music or set- their credit card balance, Then, to set up a session products management at
One has teamed with Am- ting a kitchen timer. The review recent transac- with Capital One, they give McLean, Virginia-based
azon to let owners of Ama- number of so-called “skills” tions, pay their credit card a command such as: “Al- Capital One, said the ser-
zon’s Echo smart speaker Alexa can perform has bill and perform other tasks exa, ask Capital One for my vice is secure.
system pay their bills and been growing since the simply by talking to the de- Quicksilver Card balance” “As a bank we’re very
get other account informa- Echo became widely avail- vice. or “Alexa, ask Capital One attuned to security con-
tion through voice com- able last year and now Users can sign up for the to pay my credit card bill.” cerns,” he said. When a user
mands. numbers more than 100. service via the Amazon Security concerns have of the service asks Alexa
Amazon’s Echo speakers The Capital One service will Echo setup app. There they swirled around Amazon’s to perform a Capitol One
use a voice-command ser- be the first time a credit- can set up a checking ac- Echo since it debuted, task, they will be prompted
vice called Alexa to help card company has been count link if they want to since the $179 device is al- for a four-digit personal key
users perform various tasks, involved, however. Capi- pay their credit card bal- ways “on.” But Ken Dode- that users set up when they
such as turning on smart tal One will let users check ance via the Echo. lin, vice president of digital enable the skill.
Oil price appears to have ‘bottomed out,’ energy agency says
PARIS (AP) — The organiza- Oil pumps work in the desert oil fields of Sakhir, Bahrain. The organization that represents major lows does not mean that
tion that represents major oil-consuming nations said Friday, March 11, 2016 that signs of a market that has “bottomed out” there will be a significant
oil-consuming nations said are emerging. U.S. crude prices jumped to a high for the year. Brent crude, used as a global and sustained rebound in
Friday that signs of a mar- benchmark, hit a high for the year Tuesday and rose 1 percent Friday. the short-term.
ket that has “bottomed There have been sharp de-
out” are emerging. (AP Photo/Hasan Jamali) clines in demand, particu-
U.S. crude prices jumped larly in the United States
to a high for the year. Brent percent of its work force. ergy Agency said Friday. fall by almost 530,000 bar- and China, it said.
crude, used as a global The pain at Anadarko and OPEC production tumbled rels a day this year, accord- China, the world’s second-
benchmark, hit a high for other energy companies by 90,000 barrels a day ing to the IEA. largest oil consumer, is at-
the year Tuesday and rose may finally be translating last month, the IEA said. The Paris organization, tempting to quell anxiety
1 percent Friday. into a reduction of a mas- U.S. production that had however, said that the re- over a slowing economy
Energy companies have sive and global oversupply surged due to new drilling covery in crude prices in re- and labor unrest.
been shutting down rigs of oil, the International En- technology, is expected to cent days from multi-year Earlier this month, it cut its
and laying off thousands growth expectations for
of workers as oil prices the year.
plunged to around $30 per Goldman Sachs said on Fri-
barrel, from well over $100 day that production is un-
per barrel just two years likely to increase in the U.S.
ago. until 2017, and that prices
A broad retreat by the could volatile in the next
energy sector played out few months.
again Friday on both fronts. Analysts with Goldman
The number of oil and nat- said that if U.S. drillers ramp
ural gas rigs active in the up production with any rise
U.S. fell for the 12th con- in oil prices, “we believe
secutive week, according a self-defeating rally in oil
to Baker Hughes on Friday, prices/equities could re-
to 480. That’s the lowest sult.”
level in decades, and per- The report buoyed stocks
haps the fewest since the of energy companies Fri-
earliest days of the oil drill- day, making the sector the
ing industry. second-best performer on
And Texas driller Anadarko the Standard & Poor’s 500
Petroleum Corp. said that it index.
would cut 1,000 workers, 17
Yahoo snubs activist shareholder with 2 new directors
MICHAEL LIEDTKE Value, will nominate an op- Starboard had been seek- er chipmaker Broadcom over Yahoo’s board. If Star-
Associated Press posing slate to run against ing seats on Yahoo’s board Corp., to fill those positions. board Value seized control
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Yahoo’s board of nine di- without a proxy fight, but “It’s like they are giving the of Yahoo’s board, it could
Yahoo has set up a battle rectors in a proxy fight. that seems unlikely to hap- middle finger to Starboard, then fire Mayer, who has
for control of its board by If the confrontation occurs, pen now ” said Eric Jackson, been the company’s CEO
appointing it would escalate the chal- that Yahoo has filled two managing director of Sprin- since July 2012.
two directors likely to further lenges already facing May- vacancies that recently gOwl Asset Management, Mayer wants to pursue a
agitate an activist share- er and the rest of Yahoo’s opened up with the res- another Yahoo sharehold- plan that calls for Yahoo
holder threatening an at- board as they try to reverse ignations of PayPal co- er critical of Mayer’s lead- to lay off 15 percent of its
tempt to oust CEO Marissa a prolonged decline in the founder Max Levchin and ership. Jackson declined to workforce and shed un-
Mayer unless she bows to company’s revenue and discount stock brokerage say how much stock Sprin- profitable
demands to sell the com- figure out a way to avoid pioneer Charles Schwab. gOwl owns. services to reduce expens-
pany’s Internet operations. paying taxes on the gains Yahoo Inc. named former Starboard Value didn’t es and sharpen the com-
The decision announced from a roughly $28 billion Morgan Stanley investment respond to a request for pany’s focus on mobile,
this week increases the stake that it holds in China’s banker, Catherine Fried- comment. The firm has un- digital video and its most
likelihood that the unhap- e-commerce leader, Aliba- man, and Eric Brandt, chief til March 26 to nominate popular specialties, such as
py shareholder, Starboard ba Group. financial officer of comput- its own candidates to take sports and finance.
