Facebook’s Plan to Invade Your Office Is Growing

Facebook wants to be one of the only, if not the only, website you ever need to visit — even when you’re at work.

“Facebook at Work,” the Menlo Park, Calif.’s workplace communications platform, is being piloted at 450 companies as of March 2, the company says. That’s up 50% from six months ago. Previously, around 300 companies had been participating in the trial program.

Facebook at Work is a version of the world’s biggest social media network where users interact only with their coworkers. It’s meant to help employees connect and collaborate.

Profiles on Facebook at Work are separate from users’ personal pages. But the two platforms offer many of the same characteristics, like the News Feed. Features that get added to Facebook’s primary offering typically make their way to Facebook at Work as well.

“Basically every Facebook engineer is contributing to Facebook at Work somehow,” says Julien Codorniou, director of Facebook at Work.

Facebook at Work is still in its early stages. But the company’s ambitions go beyond making just another office communication tool. The firm is aiming to turn Facebook at Work into a platform through which employees can access and collaborate over other popular workplace tools, like Microsoft Office and Salesforce.

“That’s currently an ambition,” says Codorniou. “We’re not there yet, but we’re building it.”

One potential upshot of platforms like Facebook at Work: Fewer emails. As workplace chat platforms make real-time communication more efficient, our inboxes could get quieter.

“We’ve seen that when we deploy Facebook at Work, in large companies or small companies, people just send less email, especially internally,” says Codorniou. “Every email you send to more than two people internally can be replaced by something on Facebook at Work.”

Facebook at Work faces several challenges, not the least of which are workers’ and IT departments’ reluctance to learn or install new software. The $620 millionenterprise software market a crowded space, including industry stalwarts like Microsoft as well as young upstarts like Slack. (The latter of which recently announced new features that could make workers still more reluctant to give it up.)

But Codorniou isn’t worried about enterprise-focused rivals. He argues that Facebook’s familiarity — over one billion people worldwide use the platform daily — will give it an edge. “Most of the companies who are deploying, one of the many reasons they are launching Facebook at Work is because they want to give their employees the same tools they have when they’re not at work,” he says.

Gbenga Sesan: Connecting a Million

As a school student Gbenga Sesan was denied access to the computer room at his Nigerian school and told he was not clever enough to operate one.

When I think of my Nigeria, I think of potential and of real-life action. When I think of potential, I think of what could be, but is not. When I think of real-life action, I think of young people who literally take their future into their own hands and build something that they can be proud of and others can also be proud of. Gbenga Sesan, ITC expert

Years later, Gbenga is an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) expert, who has won international awards and is running a successful consultancy business.

"I'm the kind of guy you don't tell not to do something, I will do it. If you tell me it's impossible, I'll take it as a challenge...

I think the first thing that hit me was: 'Do I want to raise a child in Nigeria?' There were things that I didn't have access to myself because I was raised here, but I think it makes me double my effort because I want to raise my child in a country that works," he says.

The social entrepreneur is spreading his good fortune by teaching ICT and life skills to young adults in Nigeria's poorest neighbourhoods.

Gbenga was appointed Nigeria's first IT Youth Ambassador in 2001.

With up to 56 percent of youth in Nigeria being unemployed, he is determined to "training young people, connecting them with opportunities, through technologies." 

Driverless Racing Car Hits 120mph On Track

und a racetrack at speeds of up to 120mph, this car handles tight turns and twisty chicanes - all without a driver.

The autonomous vehicle has been developed by researchers at Stanford University, and can navigate tracks almost as fast as experienced racing drivers.

Video shows the custom-engineered Audi TTS pulling up to the start line of the Thunderhill Raceway in California, and the driver and passengers stepping out.

The car then takes off on its own using autonomous driving algorithms, with the steering wheel automatically turning and the car speeding up and slowing down appropriately as it navigates around the course.

A driver and passenger step out of the car before the test

The car - called Shelley - took several years to create and knows exactly where it is on the road using a differential GPS system.

This is more accurate than a traditional GPS system, because it corrects for interference in the atmosphere.

As a result it is accurate to within two centimetres.

Gyroscopes provide bearings, while wheel-speed sensors and an accelerometer measure speed and acceleration.

The steering wheel was seen turning automatically

The car typically operates are speeds of between 50 and 70mph, but can reach up to 120mph.

The team is using the racing car's development to research ways to make everyday autonomous cars safer.

Lead researcher Chris Gerdes said: "A race car driver can use all of a car’s functionality to drive fast. We want to access that same functionality to make driving safer."

Last year, the self-driving car was pitted against David Vodden, an amateur touring class champion - and was faster by 0.4 of a second.

Bristol firm plans to give women time off for periods

A company is planning to introduce a "period policy" to allow female staff to work flexibly around their menstrual cycles.

Co-Exist in Bristol says women will be allowed to take time off during their period and make up the time later.

Director Bex Baxter told the Bristol Postshe had seen women at work "bent over double" in pain but unwilling to go home which was "unfair".

Menstrual leave exists in Japan, parts of China, South Korea and Taiwan.

It is thought the company is one of the first firms to introduce it in the UK. 

'Willy nilly'

Miss Baxter said criticism of menstrual leave came "from a place of fear".

She told the BBC: "Women don't want to feel they are less employable than men if they are taking time off [for periods]." 

Co-Exist employs 24 people, seven of them men. Ms Baxter said the details of the policy had not yet been worked out but would be discussed at a seminar later this month.

She said there would inevitably be a fear of lack of fairness or of women taking time off "willy nilly" but added: "We want to create a policy that trusts people - we don't want to create something that... doesn't recognise the needs of the business."

Work Until Mid-70s Warning Amid Pensions Review

Workers starting out today have been warned they may have to wait until their mid-70s before they can start drawing their state pension.

The state pension age has been undergoing changes since 2010 so that its long-standing level of 60 for women will equalise with men at 65. From 2018 it will rise for both and reach 67 by 2028 under Government plans.

But there are warnings this could further rise as a consequence of a Government review, which will consider changes in life expectancy and wider changes in society and aim to ensure that the state pension "remains sustainable for generations to come".

Former CBI director general John Cridland will lead the review.

It comes as a number of expert reports separately raise the prospect of people having to "work until they drop" because they are not putting enough money aside for themselves.

Pensions minister Baroness Altmann said: "As our society changes, it is only right that we continue to review state pension ages and take into account the relevant factors to make sure that the state pension is sustainable and affordable for future generations."

Financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown said further changes were likely to mean it goes up faster than currently planned.

Tom McPhail, head of retirement policy at the firm, said: "Those joining the workforce today are likely to find themselves waiting until their mid-70s to get a payout from the state system."

The 2014 Pensions Act requires the state pension age to be reviewed during each Parliament. This will be the first such review to take place.

It will not cover the existing timetable for changes up to April 2028. Mr Cridland will report in time to allow the Government to consider the recommendations by May 2017.

Meanwhile, research from Royal London found that people making minimum workplace pension contributions from the age of 22 would need to work until 77 to be able to enjoy the sort of "gold standard" pensions enjoyed by many of their parents' generation.

This varies across the country due to different wage levels so that it would be as high as 81 in Westminster.

Former pensions minister Steve Webb, director of policy at Royal London, said: "It is great news that millions more workers are now being enrolled into workplace pensions, but the amounts going in are simply not enough to give people the kind of retirement they would want for themselves."

Another report, the Labour-commissioned Independent Review of Retirement Income, warns that people need to be saving 15% of their salary now to build up a reasonable pension pot - compared to 8% in the past.

Poorest Face Five Years Of No Income Growth

Two years of progress in lifting people above the poverty line is to be followed by five years of zero income growth for the poorest households, a report has warned.

The study, for the respected economic think-tank, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), said that while record employment had boosted earnings across the board, the Government's benefit and tax credit reforms would hold back future gains until 2021 - with child poverty and inequality growing.

The report estimated a real recovery in living standards had taken place since 2014 with 400,000 children, 300,000 working-age adults without children and 200,000 pensioners being lifted above the absolute poverty line.

It charted a boost to consumer spending power from low inflation and said that inequality - the gulf between the lowest and highest earners - had remained roughly unchanged over the period in percentage terms.

But the report warned the poorest would suffer most over the next five years, if Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts and Government spending plans were unchanged, with the proportion of children in absolute poverty rising by three percentage points.

Crucially for the Chancellor, the IFS added that while the National Living Wage - due to take effect next month - would significantly increase the incomes of some low earners, its impact on official measures of poverty would be limited.

It had previously warned that the Government's tax credit and benefit cuts would leave 2.6 million families £1,600 a year worse off.

Then, earlier this month, the organisation said George Osborne was under pressureto find further spending cuts or raise taxes in his latest Budget in two weeks' time.

Labour seized on the latest findings.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said: "This report should shame the Chancellor, as any upsides rely more on the policies of OPEC in setting oil prices than George Osborne in boosting wages.

A Government spokesman pointed to progress on income growth, particularly among young adults but said: "We need to show resolve in delivering reforms to improve our productivity which is the only way to deliver sustained rises in living standards.

"At a time of global economic turbulence and heightened risk this means we must stick to the plan to build our resilience and deliver economic security for working families."

Osama Bin Laden 'left $29m inheritance' for al-Qaeda

US officials believe the hand-written note was a will composed in the late 1990s [Getty Images]

The United States has released what appears to be a hand-written will of the late al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

In it, Bin Laden asked that the majority of his $29m fortune be spent on continuing al-Qaeda's operations.

The letter was part of a cache of 113 documents taken in the 2011 US Special Forces raid that killed Bin Laden in Pakistan.

The documents were translated from Arabic and declassified by US intelligence agencies.

They were part of a second tranche of documents seized in the operation and have been declassified since May 2015. A large number have yet to be released.

One document, a hand-written note that US intelligence officials believe the late al-Qaeda leader composed in the late 1990s, laid out how he wanted to distribute about $29m he had in Sudan.

One percent of the $29mn, Bin Laden wrote, should go to Mahfouz Ould al-Walid, a senior al-Qaeda member who used the nom de guerre Abu Hafs al-Mauritani.

Bin Laden lived in Sudan for five years as an official guest until he was asked to leave in May 1996 by the then-government under pressure from the United States.

Another one percent of the sum should be given to a second associate, Abu Ibrahim al-Iraqi Sa'ad, an engineer, for helping set up Bin Laden's first company in Sudan, Wadi al-Aqiq Co, the document said.

Bin Laden urged his close relatives to use the rest of the funds to support al-Qaeda's activities.

"I hope for my brothers, sisters and maternal aunts to obey my will and to spend all the money that I have left in Sudan on jihad, for the sake of Allah," he wrote.

He set down specific amounts in Saudi riyals and gold that should be apportioned between his mother, a son, a daughter, an uncle, and his uncle's children and maternal aunts.

In a letter dated August 15, 2008, and addressed "To my Precious Father," Bin Laden asks that his wife and children be taken care of in the event he died first.

It was unclear to whom Bin Laden was writing, as his natural father, Mohammed bin Laden, died in a 1967 airplane crash. US intelligence officials were not immediately available to comment on whether he may have been referring to his step-father, Mohammad al-Attas.

"My precious father: I entrust you well for my wife and children, and that you will always ask about them and follow up on their whereabouts and help them in their marriages and needs," he wrote.

In a final wistful paragraph, he asks for forgiveness "if I have done what you did not like".

Assassination fears

In a letter to his father dated August 8, 2008 Bin Laden wrote he was worried about being assassinated.

"If I am to be killed, pray for me a lot and give continuous charities in my name, as I will be in great need for support to reach the permanent home," Bin Laden wrote.