#7. Cuba's new constituion

On Sunday, Cubans vote on their first new constitution in more than 40 years, Bloomberg reports. The referendum is seen as a way to ratify Cuba’s gradual post-Cold War opening to outside investors and private enterprise.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel asked the island’s 8 million voters to back the overhaul.


#6. Microsoft’s HoloLens military contract

Over a 100 Microsoft employees have signed a letter sent to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and President Brad Smith criticizing the company’s plans to build HoloLens AR (augmented reality) tech for the military, TechCrunch reports. The development is part of a $480 million military contract that Microsoft won last year.

The employee letter came just a couple of days before Microsoft had planned to introduce a second-generation HoloLens during an event in Barcelona


#5. A fully robot-run farm

If we want to be able to feed the world’s growing population, we’re going to need to double our food production over the next 30 years. Iron Ox, a startup based in California has created the world’s first farm that’s entirely run by robots.

They’re able to do the equivalent of 30 acres of outdoor farming in just a single acre of their robotic farm. Iron Ox aims to sustainably grow crops in urban areas and to make this as cheap as traditional farming.


#4. SocGen’s potential job cut

An article in the Saturday edition of the French newspaper Le Figaro stated that the bank could cut 1500 investment banking jobs as part of a cost-cutting plan, Reuters reports. This would reduce SocGen’s investment banking headcount by 7.5%.

The French bank said earlier this month that it was planning to restructure its investment banking arm since it’s looking for 500 million euros in savings.


#3. Ford’s ‘stay in your lane’ bed

A rather funny prototype creation from Ford. The US carmaker developed a bed that keeps selfish bedmates in ‘their lane’ inspired by the lane-keeping technology that Ford uses, Yahoo Finance reports. Pressure sensors determine when a person has moved from their side of the bed and the conveyor belt mattress then gently pushes them back to where they should be.   


#2. Target launches lingerie

US retailer Target is launching a lingerie brand and all new bras will cost less than $22, the Wall Street Journal reports. As such, the company is yet another giant challenging market leader Victoria’s Secret. While the latter has been struggling with its image lately, a new wave of competitors aims to be appealing to physically and racially diverse women.


#1. Google fails to disclose microphone

Google announced this week that it had made an error, failing to disclose that its Nest device has a built-in microphone, Reuters reports. Understandably, the news caused a lot of concern among consumers about their privacy; many of them fear that the microphone - which they didn’t know was in the device - has been recording things all along.

The incident adds to concerns consumers already have about big companies such as Facebook and Google and the data they collect on their users.


 

There you have it, the eighth week of 2019 all captured in Tweets. As always, we’ll continue to track Twitter and bring you the top financial micro-messages from the web. See you back here next Friday.


Source: www.scoopnest.com.