Facebook Launched a new app “Work Chat” aimed Professionals – Montgomery News

Earlier this year, Facebook at Work was announced. For those unfamiliar, Facebook at Work is basically Facebook aimed at professionals. This allows employees at a company to communicate with each other privately, so in a way you could think of it as a private social network just for your company.

Facebook at Work, the version of Facebook designed for chatting with colleagues on a private social network, now has its own chat client as well

Somewhat like Facebook at Work’s version of Messenger, the new “Work Chat” app, as it’s called, allows coworkers to message each other individually, participate in group chats, share photos and videos, make voice calls, and even use stickers.

The application quietly debuted on the Google Play store on Thursday. Facebook tells us the iOS version is in the works, and will arrive soon. However, the company would not provide an exact launch date.

The new chat app arrives just ahead of the planned public debut of a freemium version of the business networking platform, which Facebook said this fall was expected to arrive before year-end. That date may actually be closer to “in the next year,” Facebook says today.

The Facebook at Work program has been in private testing since its unveiling this January, and now has hundreds of companies on board. In fact, Facebook tells us that it has 300 businesses using its platform as of today, ranging from smaller startups to large, established companies like banks, real estate firms, beverage companies, travel companies, and more.

These customers include several big names like Heineken USA, Hootsuite, Linio in Latin America, and, in one of its largest deals, the Royal Bank of Scotland, which plans to have 30,000 workers on Facebook at Work by March 2016, and then its entire workforce of 100,000 by the end of next year.

China’s first high-speed railway project in the United States

A long-discussed high-speed rail project linking Southern California and Las Vegas will be built by a U.S.-China joint venture, Chinese officials said Thursday, though many details about the agreement remained hazy.

Announcement of cooperation on the XpressWest project adjacent to the 15 Freeway comes days ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the United States. Financial terms of the agreement, and the cost of the project, were not immediately clear.

XpressWest, a private venture formerly called DesertXpress, has been under discussion since at least 2007 to form a joint venture with China Railway International USA, which unites the state firms China Railway Group, CRRC, China State Construction Engineering Corporation and China Railway Signal & Communication Corporation.

Chinese officials described the project as a 230-mile train linking Las Vegas and Los Angeles, though XpressWest’s website says the route is planned as 185 miles from Vegas to Victorville, 85 miles northeast of downtown L.A.

XpressWest agreed this month to form a joint venture with China Railway International USA Co. to build and operate the railway, Shu Guozeng, deputy head of the government’s Office of the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs, said at a news conference Thursday, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency. Shu claimed the project could begin construction as early as September 2016.

Representatives of XpressWest did not immediately return requests for comment.

Multiple proposals for a Vegas-to-L.A. train have been discussed over the years, with none coming to fruition because of funding difficulties and other setbacks.

China has built the most extensive high-speed railway network in the world.

It has about 10,000 miles of high-speed rail in operation, and Chinese train makers and railroad builders are eager to expand overseas now that China’s network is somewhat built-out and the country’s domestic economy is slowing.

China Railway International was established this summer by a Chinese consortium led by national railway operator China Railway, the financial publication Caixin reported. Bloomberg News cited a statement from Shu saying the Las Vegas project would “be supported by $100 million in initial capital,” though from which entities was unclear.

“As China’s first high-speed railway project in the United States, the project will be a landmark in overseas investment for the Chinese railway sector and serve as a model of international cooperation,” Yang Zhongmin, chairman of China Railway International, told Xinhua.

According to the XpressWest website, which does not mention any news of a China partnership but does have a version of its website in Chinese, the train is expected to transport passengers between Vegas and Victorville in 80 minutes, with fares set at $89.

Publicity materials state that although the project has adopted an “assemble and manufacture in America” plan, the rolling stock manufacturing base for high-speed trains is “not yet mature.” Therefore, the venture’s backers indicated they intended to partner with some foreign suppliers for the estimated 42 train sets they anticipate needing, with assembly being performed in southern Nevada.

Last October, the Chinese media claimed that the country had become the world leader in developing high-speed rail systems.

The same month, the Russian government signed a memorandum of cooperation on a high-speed railroad with Chinese officials. The purpose of the document is to develop a Moscow-Beijing Eurasian high-speed rail transport corridor.

JMRC eyes Chinese, American firms’ help in Phase-II

Jaipur (JP): The Jaipur Metro Rail Corporation (JMRC) is now looking at Chinese and American companies to construct Metro phase II (Sitapura to Ambabari) under the public private partnership (PPP) model after failing to elicit a positive response from Industrial Enterprise, Singapore.

A senior JMRC official informed, “We are expecting a visit from a Chinese delegation on July 8th and an American delegation on July 20th. The JMRC will give a presentation to these firms and explain every aspect for investing in this project.”

A senior official said that despite offering a lucrative deal to the Singapore agency, JMRC is yet to get any response. “The estimated cost of Metro phase-II is Rs 10,000 crore. It has been proposed that the state government would provide 40% amount (as viability gap fund) to the company. The remaining 60% amount would be borne by the state government and the company.”

Meanwhile, the state government had also expressed its willingness to handover the operation and maintenance of Metro phase-I A and B to the firm after spending Rs 3,149 crore.

A source said, “As per the proposal to Singapore, the state government will bear Rs 7,000 crore, while the company will have to pay Rs 3,000 crore. The company will also get additional benefits as it will be collecting the fare. However, it did not show any interest. “

The JMRC officials said that as there are many similarities between the second phase of Jaipur Metro and Singapore Metro, the PPP would be successful. “The Metro is almost fully underground and in our second phase, we have proposed a 10-km underground track out of the total distance of 24 km. It would be good if some company from Singapore or China takes it up,” the official added.

The JMRC is keen to start the construction of this project soon as the route is viable and it would benefit maximum number of people. Important points of the city like the airport, Secretariat, SMS hospital and government offices will be on this route.