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Wall Street rises more than one percent as bank, tech stocks jump

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S.

By Tanya Agrawal

(Reuters) – U.S. stocks rose to their highest in the last seven sessions on Tuesday, helped by gains in technology and financial stocks.

The S&P financial sector got a big boost from a rise in banking stocks as investors speculated on the possibility of a June interest rate hike.

Bank of America, JPMorgan, and Citigroup,were all up more than 1.5 percent each.

Minutes of the Federal Reserve’s April meeting suggested a June rate hike had not been ruled out, surprising investors who had thought the Fed would stand pat until the end of the year.

“I think investors are becoming more comfortable with an early rate hike because even if the Fed does raise rates in June, it will remain extremely accommodative,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities in New York.

“I think the Fed wants to recalibrate the market’s expectations regarding a hike.”

Several Fed officials struck hawkish tones in separate speeches on Monday, calling for two-three rate hikes in 2016 if supported by economic data.

Fed Chair Janet Yellen speaks on Friday.

Traders are now pricing in a 39 percent chance of a June hike, up from 4 percent last week, as inflation creeps toward the Fed’s 2 percent target rate and the labor market strengthens.

Data on Tuesday showed new U.S. single-family home sales surged to a more than eight-year high in April and prices hit a record high, offering further evidence of a pick-up in economic growth.

The Philadelphia Housing Index climbed to a one-month high after the data.

At 11:07 a.m. ET (1507 GMT) the Dow Jones industrial average was up 209.97 points, or 1.2 percent, at 17,702.9, was up 26.04 points, or 1.27 percent, at 2,074.08 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 79.28 points, or 1.66 percent, at 4,845.06.

The S&P rose above its 50-day moving average for the first time in four days. The index has not closed above the closely watched metric in almost two weeks.

The gains were broad-based, with all 10 S&P sectors in the black. The technology index’s 1.65 percent rise led the advance.

Oil reversed early losses to turn positive, as investors awaited crude oil inventory data from the United States that was expected to show a shrinking supply overhang. [O/R]

Toll Brothers shares were up 5.4 percent at $28.55 as the company’s quarterly revenue beat expectations.

Twitter fell as much as 4.8 percent to a record low at $13.72 after brokerage MoffetNathanson downgraded the company’s stock to “sell” from “neutral”.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 2,351 to 549. On the Nasdaq, 2,090 issues rose and 515 fell.

The S&P 500 index showed 25 new 52-week highs and one new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 66 new highs and 18 new lows.

(Reporting by Tanya Agrawal; Editing by Anil D’Silva)

China tech workers sleep on the job – with the boss’s blessing

he Wider Image: Working, eating and sleeping at the office

BEIJING (Reuters) – Dai Xiang has slept his way to the top.

The 40-year-old Beijinger got his start as an engineer, pulling 72-hour shifts at a machinery company while catching naps on the floor.

After a switch to the tech industry and around 15 years of catching naps on desks and other flat surfaces, Dai co-founded his own cloud computing firm, BaishanCloud, last year.

One of his first orders of business – installing 12 bunk beds in a secluded corner of the office.

“For technology, it’s more of a brain activity. Workers need time to find inspiration,” Dai said. “Our rest area isn’t just for sleeping at night, the midday is also OK.”

Office workers sleeping on the job has long been a common sight in China, where inefficiency and a surplus of cheap labor can give workers plenty of downtime in many industries.

But China’s technology sector is different. Business is booming faster than many start-up firms can hire new staff, forcing workers to burn the midnight oil to meet deadlines.

“The pace of Chinese internet company growth is extremely fast. I’ve been to the U.S. and the competitive environment there isn’t as intense as in China,” said Cui Meng, general manager and co-founder of start-up data company Goopal.

The company’s programmers, in particular, work overtime every day, he said. To get them through, they are allowed to sleep around lunchtime and after 9 p.m., either facedown at their desk or by commandeering the sofa or a beanbag chair.

LIVING AT THE OFFICE

At its most extreme, some tech company employees even live at the office during the work week.

Liu Zhanyu at DouMiYouPin, a recruitment and human resources platform, bunks down in a converted conference room Monday-to-Friday to avoid the daily commute of more than an hour to his home in Beijing’s far eastern suburbs.

The head of the “large clients” department usually retires to the room shared with one or two others between midnight and 3 a.m.

“We have to get up at 8:30 a.m. because all our co-workers come to work at 9:30 and we wash in the same bathroom everyone uses,” said Liu.

While workers across companies said the potential pay-off of working at a start-up was worth the long hours, they aren’t without a social cost.

“My kid misses me, I get home and he lunges at me like a small wolf,” Liu said, speaking about his three-year-old son who he only sees on weekends. “That makes me feel a bit guilty.”

Programmer Xiang Shiyang, 28, works until 3 or 4 a.m. at least twice a week at Renren Credit Management, which uses big data to help firms manage financial risk, leaving little room to socialize outside of work.

“I don’t have that many opportunities or much time to find a girlfriend,” he said.

The company provides cots for workers like Xiang to sleep on during late nights.

“Actually working overtime is a very casual thing,” he said. “Because I’ve invested the whole of my being into this company.”

(Writing by Jake Spring; Editing by Alex Richardson)

FBI paid more than $1.3 million to break into San Bernardino iPhone

By Julia Edwards

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey said on Thursday the agency paid more to get into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters than he will make in the remaining seven years and four months he has in his job.

According to figures from the FBI and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Comey’s annual salary as of January 2015 was $183,300. Without a raise or bonus, Comey will make $1.34 million over the remainder of his job.

That suggests the FBI paid the largest ever publicized fee for a hacking job, easily surpassing the $1 million paid by U.S. information security company Zerodium to break into phones.

Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in London, Comey was asked by a moderator how much the FBI paid for the software that eventually broke into the iPhone.

“A lot. More than I will make in the remainder of this job, which is seven years and four months for sure,” Comey said. “But it was, in my view, worth it.”

The Justice Department said in March it had unlocked the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone with the help of an unidentified third party and dropped its case against Apple Inc <AAPL.O>, ending a high-stakes legal clash but leaving the broader fight over encryption unresolved.

Comey said the FBI will be able to use software used on the San Bernardino phone on other 5C iPhones running IOS 9 software.

There are about 16 million 5C iPhones in use in the United States, according to estimates from research firm IHS Technology. Eighty-four percent of iOS devices overall are running iOS 9 software, according to Apple.

The FBI gained access to the iPhone used by Rizwan Farook, one of the shooters who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California on Dec. 2.

The case raised the debate over whether technology companies’ encryption technologies protect privacy or endanger the public by blocking law enforcement access to information.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards in Washington; additional reporting by Julia Love in San Francisco; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Apple lawyer, FBI director face off in Congress on iPhone encryption

By Julia Harte and Julia Edwards

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – FBI Director James Comey told a congressional panel on Tuesday that a final court ruling forcing Apple Inc <AAPL.O> to give the FBI data from an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters would be “potentially precedential” in other cases where the agency might request similar cooperation from technology companies.

The remarks were a slight change to Comey’s statement last week that ordering Apple to unlock the phone was “unlikely to be a trailblazer” for setting a precedent for other cases.

Tuesday’s testimony from Comey and remarks before the same U.S. House Judiciary Committee by Apple’s general counsel, Bruce Sewell, brought to Congress a public fight between Apple and the government over the dueling interests of privacy and security that has so far only been heard in the courts.

On Feb. 16, a federal court in California instructed Apple to write special software to unlock the iPhone 5c used by gunman Rizwan Farook, an order the company is contesting.

Sewell and Comey’s remarks also clarified some areas where the two sides fundamentally disagree. Comey said the tool created for Farook’s iPhone would not work on other models. But Sewell said the tool that Apple was being asked to create would work on any iPhone.

“This is not about the San Bernardino case. This is about the safety and security of every iPhone that is in use today,” Sewell said.

Committee members seized on Comey’s statement that the case could set a legal precedent allowing the agency access to any encrypted device.

“Given… that Congress has explicitly denied you that authority so far, can you appreciate our frustration that this case appears to be little more than an end run around this committee?” asked the panel’s ranking minority member, Michigan Representative John Conyers.

Comey responded that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was not asking to expand the government’s surveillance authority, but rather to maintain its ability to obtain electronic information under legal authorities that Congress has already provided.

He also acknowledged that it was a “mistake” for the FBI to have asked San Bernardino County officials to reset the phone’s cloud storage account after it was seized. The decision prevented the device, which was owned by the county, Farook’s employer, from backing up information that the FBI could have read.

Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, shot and killed 14 people and wounded 22 others last Dec. 2 before they were themselves killed in a shootout with police. The government has said the attack was inspired by Islamist militants and the FBI wants to read the phone’s data to investigate any links with militant groups.

Comey told a congressional panel last Thursday that the phone could have “locator services” that would help the agency fill in a gap in its knowledge of the route the couple traveled as they fled.

“We’re missing 19 minutes before they were finally killed by law enforcement,” Comey said. “The answer to that might be on the device.”

A federal judge handed Apple a victory in another phone unlocking case in Brooklyn on Monday, ruling that he did not have the legal authority to order Apple to disable the security of an iPhone that was seized during a drug investigation.

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Tuesday at the RSA Cybersecurity conference in San Francisco that she was “disappointed” by the Brooklyn ruling, and rebuffed Apple’s claim that its Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination was being violated.

The Justice Department is “not alleging that [Apple has] done anything wrong,” Lynch said, but is treating the company as a third party holding data valuable to an ongoing investigation. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance testified in support of the FBI on Tuesday, arguing that default device encryption “severely harms” criminal prosecutions at the state level, including in cases in his district involving at least 175 iPhones.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards and Julia Harte; Editing by Bill Rigby and Grant McCool)

Just how smart can you make your home?

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Carlos Espinosa, a design professional based in Boulder, Colorado, has a completely decked-out “smart” home – light switches he can control from his mobile phone, a security system, moisture detectors that alert him to leaks and integrated stereo speakers.

The most life-changing aspect of this set-up? Espinosa says it is how the porch lights turn on when he rounds the corner to his home late at night, responding to a command from his phone. The front door also unlocks as he approaches.

(An experiment during the last Olympic Games to make the lights flash every time the United States won a gold medal turned out to be annoying.)

His so-called smart technology system took about a year and an estimated few hundred dollars worth of equipment to perfect.

Smart home gizmos are poised to make up a $60 billion segment of the global industry, according to research firm MarketsandMarkets, but consumers only need to spend just a few hundred a pop on upgrades that will make their lives more automated – and may even increase the value of a home.

Espinosa, for example, spent about $300 for ten Philips Hue lightbulbs and the SmartThings hub that integrates with his phone to turn them on and off.

His August Smart Lock – which can be unlocked from afar with the phone – runs about $200 now. Over time, he has built up his Sonos sound system, with speakers controlled by an app, that currently costs $199 for an introductory unit.

Espinosa also pays a monthly fee for his home security system that is bundled through Comcast, his cable television service provider.

That is a far cry from the $5,000 Samsung refrigerator showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show in January that has three cameras inside and can send an alert when you need milk.

Matt McAdoo, a sales consultant for Keller Williams real estate in Buda, Texas, and also an installer, charges $95 an hour to set up home automation systems, with jobs ranging from a day to a week.

McAdoo says many homebuilders are pre-wiring houses for easy installation of home security systems, doorbell webcams and automated light switches.

“It’s not going to make or break the sale of the house, but it’s a plus if it’s already in there,” he says.

He knows this first-hand, as he sold his own souped-up house recently for $285,000, well above identical houses in the development that sell for $265,000.

The house had wireless thermostats, surveillance cameras on every corner of the building, a programmable lock, cable jacks placed high up walls for flat-panel TVs, and even a centralized vacuum system built into the walls – plug in and the dirt goes through the pipes.

Danny Hertzberg, a Miami Beach-based real estate agent with Coldwell Banker, says that for about $2,000 sellers can upgrade their houses with the kind of features that buyers want – which are so far restricted to smart thermostats, lights and security systems.

“Maybe four or five years ago, if you wanted these things, you had to hire a professional company, spending about $30,000 and opening walls. Now everything is so simple and DIY,” Hertzberg says.

About half of the homes Hertzberg sees now have a Nest thermostat, which can be controlled by your phone, or an equivalent. One-third have automated lighting.

The goal of homeowners with all of these smart-home upgrades is convenience.

“What we have learned, for a considered purchase that’s $200, they are looking for a clear value to them,” says Jason Johnson, chief executive of August.

In his own house, Johnson says the peak of convenience is being able to lie in bed and ask his Amazon.com Echo system, which responds to voice commands to control connected devices, to turn off the lights in the living room.

For fun, Johnson likes to voice command the five locks he has in his house through his iPhone: “I say, ‘Siri, lock my doors,’ and all of them go at the same time. It sounds like lockdown at a prison.”

(Editing by Lauren Young and G Crosse)

Edward Snowden Claims Smartphones can Easily be Hacked

Whistleblower Edward Snowden rocked the world when he called out the actions of the NSA, but he now has new revolutionary information: UK spy agency GCHQ has the ability to hack into smartphones with encrypted text messages, and the owner would never know.

In an interview with the BBC’s Panorama program, he stated that the GCHQ “invested heavily” into technology that allows them to hack smartphones belonging to the public. The agency could gain access to the phones to take pictures and listen in to conversations.

“They want to own your phone instead of you,” he explained.

Snowden went on to explain that the GCHQ had a collection of secret intercept capabilities called a “Smurf Suite,” named after the cartoon series. Each “Smurf” controls a different aspect of the phone.

“Dreamy Smurf is the power management tool which means turning your phone on and off with you knowing,” he said.

“Nosey Smurf is the ‘hot mic’ tool. For example if it’s in your pocket, [GCHQ] can turn the microphone on and listen to everything that’s going on around you – even if your phone is switched off because they’ve got the other tools for turning it on.

“Tracker Smurf is a geo-location tool which allows [GCHQ] to follow you with a greater precision than you would get from the typical triangulation of cellphone towers.”

In order to hack the smartphone, the GCHQ sends a simple text message that is hidden from the owner. That text contains an exploit that allows the agency to control the software of the smartphone.

“You paid for [the phone] but whoever controls the software owns the phone,” Snowden added.

UK Testing Roads to Recharge Electric Cars while Driven

The British government is looking to invest millions into a test highway system that would recharge electric cars as they drive.

The roadways, if successful, would allow drivers of electric cars to avoid the current problems of large charging times and inaccessibility of charging stations.

“The government is already committing £500 million ($779 million U.S.) over the next five years to keep Britain at the forefront of this technology, which will help boost jobs and growth in the sector. As this study shows, we continue to explore options on how to improve journeys and make low-emission vehicles accessible to families and businesses.” UK Transport Minister Andrew Jones stated in a press release.

The proposed system would create a series of coils under the roadway that would emit electricity through the air to a receiver coil inside the car. The coil would then charge the batteries inside the car. The system would be located completely under the roadway, so there would be no risk of electrical shock to the general public.

The method is similar to that of wireless charging stations for cell phones.

“Vehicle technologies are advancing at an ever increasing pace and we’re committed to supporting the growth of ultra-low emissions vehicles on England’s motorways and major A roads,” Highways England chief highways engineer, Mike Wilson, said in a press statement. “The off-road trials of wireless power technology will help to create a more sustainable road network for England and open up new opportunities for businesses that transport goods across the country.”

South Korea is already working on a similar system in a part of the town of Gumi. The 7.5 mile road charges specially modified electric buses.

CIA Helped Program Spying On U.S. Cellphones

A new report shows the CIA gave vital help in the Justice Department’s development of technology that would scan and steal data from the cellphones of Americans.

The CIA and the U.S. Marshals Service created a device that attaches to a plane or helicopter and mimics a cellphone tower. This will cause phones within the range of the device to send all its identifying information to the unit.

The program flies planes around the country to cover almost the entire population. The units not only collect data from large numbers of citizens not involved in any kind of illegal activity, it can also interrupt actual cellphone service.

The reason the CIA is working with the Marshals is because the CIA is banned from doing domestic spy work. Even if the CIA provides the equipment, the actual gathering of data is done by a domestic law enforcement organization.

The system works by identifying a target’s cell phone and then having the aircraft circle the area until they pinpoint the target within three yards of his actual position. The technology has been used in the middle east to track terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“There’s a lot of privacy concerns in something this widespread, and those concerns only increase if we have an intelligence agency coordinating with them,” Andrew Crocker of the Electronic Frontier Foundation told the Wall Street Journal. The EFF has filed a lawsuit seeing more information on the program and its funding.

None of the major cell companies would comment to the Journal about the operation or their customer’s information being collected without a warrant.

America Loses First Major Cyberwar?

Critics say that America has lost their first cyberwar after Sony Pictures pulled the movie “The Interview” after repeated cyber attacks by North Korean hackers.

“No one should kid themselves. With the Sony collapse America has lost its first cyberwar. This is a very very dangerous precedent,” former House speaker Newt Gingrich said after Sony’s announcement.

Sony pulled the film…a comedy film about two bumbling reporters that assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il…even though it was due to open in theaters in just over a week.

The hackers had threatened to have “9/11 style attacks” on theaters in the U.S. that showed the movie. The threats caused the five biggest movie chains in the country to say they were not going to show the film because of fears of incidents.

President Obama addressed the matter in a Wednesday interview.

“The cyber attack is very serious. We’re investigating, we’re taking it seriously,” Obama said during the interview. “We’ll be vigilant, if we see something that we think is serious and credible, then we’ll alert the public. But for now, my recommendation would be that people go to the movies.”

The Department of Homeland Security says there is no credible threat against any movie theater in the U.S.

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