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Story at a Glance: Tech giants with deep ties to the U.S. national security state — Microsoft, Oracle and the MITRE Corporation — have partnered with healthcare companies to create the Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI) to advance the implementation of digital COVID-19 vaccination records. The initiative is essentially built on a common framework of digital vaccination “wallets” called SMART Health Cards that are meant to “work across organizational and jurisdictional boundaries” as part of a new global vaccination-record infrastructure. SMART Health Cards are expected to include a person’s complete name, gender, birth date, mobile phone number and email address in...

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...

A coalition of tech and health organizations including Oracle, Microsoft, and the Mayo Clinic, is reportedly working to develop a digital COVID-19 vaccination passport that would allow businesses, airlines, and governments to check if individuals have received the vaccine. The Hill reports that a coalition of health and technology organizations are working to develop a new digital COVID-19 vaccination passport that could be checked by businesses, airlines, and countries to confirm if an individual has received the vaccine. The coalition includes tech giants such as Microsoft and Oracle, along with the Mayo Clinic. On Thursday, the Vaccination Credential Initiative announced...

Microsoft’s bid to purchase TikTok’s US operations was rejected, the company announced Sunday, with Oracle reportedly winning the bid to help run the popular social media app in the states. The deal between Tiktok’s Beijing-based owner ByteDance and Oracle is not believed to be structured as an outright sale, a source told The Wall Street Journal. Instead, the software giant is set to be the app’s “trusted tech partner,” in the US, the report said.

REDWOOD CITY (CBS SF) – Longtime Bay Area software giant Oracle announced Friday that it has moved its headquarters to Texas, becoming the latest Silicon Valley firm to relocate during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a regulatory filing obtained by Bloomberg, the company based in Redwood City will be headquartered in Austin. In the filing, the software company said the move “means that many of our employees can choose their office location as well as continue to work from home part time or all of the time.” Oracle said it would continue to support other office locations throughout the country,...

The California Exodus continues, as Oracle has become the latest tech company to leave the Golden State for Texas.The company noted the move at the very bottom of their latest 10-Q, the tech company founded 43 years ago in Santa Clara, California announced that they would be "implementing a more flexible employee work location policy and has changed its Corporate Headquarters from Redwood City, California to Austin, Texas," where the company opened a massive 40-acre riverfront campus in 2018 with the capacity for up to 10,000 employees. The company says the move will "best position Oracle for growth and provide...

In what is perhaps the most compelling sign yet that Beijing has put the kibosh on the Oracle-TikTok deal, the Global Times on Tuesday published a scathing editorial attacking President Trump for attempting a "robbery" of TikTok and violate China's "dignity." The paper's editorial writers echoed claims made in an editorial published more than six weeks ago by the People's Daily - that Beijing would never tolerate Trump transferring majority ownership of TikTok to the US. Furthermore, as Kyle Bass explained earlier, anything that would require the company to fork over its content-recommendation algorithm is an instant deal breaker....

TikTok's US footprint is saved in a deal that includes Oracle and Walmart owning 20% of a newly formed TikTok Global and an IPO within 12 months. Oracle said it will be TikTok's cloud provider in a deal that gives it a 12.5% stake in the social media network and a key reference customer. Walmart will own a 7.5% stake and explore the intersection of TikTok and e-commerce. In a statement, Oracle said "the technical decision" by TikTok was based on the Zoom reference account. However, TikTok, owned by ByteDance, was facing a Sunday shutdown order over security concerns by...

Newsdump Update: US Sends More Troops, Armored Vehicles To Syria Following Recent Incident With Russian Military Police Six Bradley fighting vehicles and 100 soldiers sent into northeast Syria...... Fantasy news out there nowadays along with the real news that I like to post here...We led off with the story in Syria where Russian and American soldiers have played cat and mouse games and even "bumper cars".... The Republicans are backed by the energy industry in the US and folks like Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton pushing for sanctions on Russia and even a Democrat mixed in Jean Shaheen. She must...

Oracle Corp said on Monday it would team up with China’s ByteDance to keep TikTok operating in the United States, beating Microsoft Corp in a deal structured as a partnership rather than an outright sale. Getting the transaction across the finish line will rest heavily on Oracle co-founder and Chairman Larry Ellison, one of the few top technology executives to openly support President Donald Trump, who has ordered ByteDance to divest TikTok amid concerns over the safety of the personal data of U.S. consumers. Key moments: December 2016: Oracle Chief Executive Safra Catz joined then president-elect Trump's transition team, and...

TikTok has reached an agreement to partner with software giant Oracle, a landmark deal that could redefine how the U.S. and China square off over the reach of their homegrown technology companies. The deal, which was confirmed Sunday by a source with direct knowledge, comes after the Trump administration pressured TikTok to sell its U.S. business over concerns about the threat to national security. The administration alleged that the company's ties to China through its parent company, ByteDance, meant it would have to hand over data about Americans if asked by China's government. TikTok has denied that it would hand...

President Donald Trump said U.S. enterprise software giant Oracle is “a great company” when asked if if it would be a good buyer for TikTok. His endorsement for Oracle, co-founded by billionaire Larry Ellison, comes after reports that the Californian tech firm is interested in buying TikTok’s North America, Australia and New Zealand businesses from Chinese parent company ByteDance. Speaking at an event in Yuma, Arizona, Trump said: “Well, I think Oracle is a great company, and I think its owner is a tremendous guy. He’s a tremendous person. I think that Oracle would be certainly somebody that could handle...

With the federal deficit quickly approaching $4 trillion, the Trump administration and lawmakers must find ways to get costs under control – and quickly. One of the best tools for accomplishing this end is contracting out services to private providers, who can fulfill essential governmental services at a fraction of ordinary costs. While federal contracting has expanded significantly over the past few decades, flimsy lawsuits promulgated by the Department of Labor (DoL) threaten to unravel these hard-won cost savings. These lawsuits allege discrimination, undoubtably a pressing problem in America today. But the DoL’s actions sabotage the struggle for genuine equality...

Last week Oracle co-founder and Chairman Larry Ellison held a fundraiser for President Trump’s re-election campaign at his Rancho Mirage estate near Palm Springs, Calif. At the time the fundraiser was announced, there was silence from The Resistance, which is unusual given the reality of today’s political environment – public figures who support Trump must be shamed and shunned. It turns out about 300 employees of the American multinational computer technology corporation protested Ellison’s fundraiser but they did so the day after the event which seems like an odd way of going about it. Oracle employs about 136,000 people, so...

Dr. Rick Bright, who led the agency tasked with creating a coronavirus vaccine, is alleging that he was demoted for not bowing to pressure to direct money toward hydroxychloroquine, and has hired Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, who became known for representing Christine Blasey Ford, to make his case. Bright, the now-former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), said in a statement Wednesday that he was also removed as deputy assistant secretary for preparedness and response and instead given a smaller position at the National Institutes of Health. Bright told the New York Times that he...

Situated on mount Parnassus in central Greece lies the city of Delphi. While the city now is mostly ruins, for over a thousand years the ancient world referred to it as the Center of the World. Millions from around the ancient world would flock to the city to inquire of the Oracle. To a select few, the Oracle would sit in the temple of Apollo and give prophecies or answer questions of business, trade, and war. Alexander the Great was said to have visited the Oracle to inquire as to whether he would conquer the world. While modernity can scoff...

We find ourselves at a fascinating—and perhaps terrifying, moment in history in which so much of the past seems irrelevant to answering the questions about our future. How to define misinformation from information. How to allocate accountability for guarding against harmful materials. How to balance individual freedom with responsibility. How to safeguard and promote the creation of original materials in an environment celebrated for disruption and the idea it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. It is no fluke that it is within this broader set of entanglements that the Supreme Court is set to take up arguments in...

The high-profile Supreme Court case between tech giants Oracle and Google has kicked into high gear. Last week the Supreme Court received over 30 filings in support of Oracle, from luminaries in law and technology, prominent former Members of Congress, and even the Trump administration. This is especially noteworthy because the Obama administration also supported Oracle’s position in a previous filing. The case arises from Google’s copying of 11,500 lines of Oracle’s computer code, known as “declaratory code,” to use in the Android platform. Google is using this litigation as an opportunity to argue for narrow intellectual property rights and...

Last week Oracle co-founder and Chairman Larry Ellison held a fundraiser for President Trump’s re-election campaign at his Rancho Mirage estate near Palm Springs, Calif. At the time the fundraiser was announced, there was silence from The Resistance, which is unusual given the reality of today’s political environment – public figures who support Trump must be shamed and shunned. It turns out about 300 employees of the American multinational computer technology corporation protested Ellison’s fundraiser but they did so the day after the event which seems like an odd way of going about it. Oracle employs about 136,000 people,...