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Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images When Snapchat parent company Snap Inc. goes public next month, its sale will prove a windfall for a handful of executives who helped grow the company from a tiny startup to a $25 billion juggernaut in five years. That includes one unlikely addition: chief strategy officer Imran Khan. Khan, only at Snap for about two years, has been granted $145 million worth of shares, the company said in a filing on February 2. Those shares will likely be worth a lot more at the IPO price.  And  he was paid a $5 million bonus last year. Not bad for a guy who, not long ago, was working for "some bucket research shop." That's how one Wall Streeter described Khan's early career. (He did indeed work at a small company, called Fulcrum Global Partners, until about 2004; it  shut its doors in 2006.) Khan, 39, joined Snap in early 2015, in part to help chart the company's path to an initial public offering, though his official role has been to build up rev

Oh boy. Critics, developers, and customers who oppose Windows 10 and Microsoft’s Universal Windows Platform initiative are likely now gathering their pitchforks and torches, as a recent leak seemingly confirms that Windows 10 Cloud does indeed exist. Even more, the unannounced operating system is  locked to the Windows Store , preventing users from installing traditional (Win32) desktop programs. An early version of Windows 10 Cloud is now available as an ISO file via  Twitter user @adguard . Those wanting to see what the fuss is all about should  not  install this platform on a machine, but create a bootable USB drive or run the ISO file through a virtual machine. The downloadable file resides on a cloud server located in Russia. More:   Epic’s Tim Sweeney isn’t thrilled about the locked nature of Windows 10 Cloud The idea behind Windows 10 Cloud is to provide a lightweight, optimized version of Windows 10 for notebooks to compete directly with Google’s Chrome OS platform installe

Alexander Historical Auctions, located in Maryland, has a unique lot available on its website right now:  Adolf Hitler’s personal bunker phone . The chipped, red, rotary handset was taken right from the German leader’s bunker following the capture of Berlin in 1945 and is expected to fetch as much as $300,000 from a specialist collector. While most people might shy away from items owned by history’s most notorious war criminal, some like an off-beat, creepy vibe with their collectibles. And there’s no denying that this is an important piece of history. The story of how the phone ended up on the auction block is an interesting bit of history in itself, though. Following the Allied occupation of Berlin, Brigadier Sir Ralph Rayner entered the city and was given a tour by the Soviets. Purportedly, they offered him Eva Braun’s phone as a souvenir, but eventually offered him this one instead, when he claimed his favorite color was red. More:   The ‘world’s first sports car’ has just aucti

Amazon .com Inc forecast an unexpected dip in operating profit for the current quarter, sending shares down more than 4 percent due to concerns about the costs of investments including new warehouses and video content. The world's largest online retailer also reported lower-than-expected fourth-quarter revenue and missed Wall Street targets for its closely watched cloud computing unit. The Seattle-based company is spending heavily to take greater control of package delivery and to expand its video service around the world. Key to its plan is to entice sign-ups for Amazon Prime, its $99-per-year shopping club, which has led to users buying more goods, more often. "The story is an investment story," said Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky on a conference call with reporters, noting "stepped-up" spending levels have continued into 2017. GlobalData Retail analyst Anthony Riva warned of profit erosion. "Low cost and fast delivery are a fundamenta

A mobile app helped Chinese authorities recover hundreds of missing children last year, Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday, in a country where child trafficking is rampant. The Ministry of Public Security said 611 missing children were found last year, Xinhua said. The "Tuanyuan", or "reunion" in Chinese, app developed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd was launched in May and has allowed police officers to share information and work together. Users near the location where a child has disappeared receive push notifications, including photos and descriptions. Notifications are sent to users farther and farther from the location of the disappearance if the child is still not found. A new version of the app in November has expanded its reach through cooperation with other popular mobile apps, such as Alibaba's online shopping website Taobao, search engine Baidu, Tencent Holdings Ltd's instant messaging software QQ and mobile ride-sharing platform Didi Chuxi

Facebook Inc cruised past Wall Street's earnings and revenue expectations on Wednesday with strong growth in its mobile ad business, demonstrating that controversy over so-called "fake news" and inaccurate advertising measurements had little impact on its financial performance. With quarterly profit of $3.57 billion, more than double the $1.56 billion it reported a year ago, the company showed no signs of slowdown in growth. The results handily beat analysts' expectations, and shares ticked up about 0.2 percent in after-hours trading. The company had warned in November that ad growth would likely slow "meaningfully" due to limits on ad load - the total number of ads Facebook can show to each user. But there was little sign of that in the fourth quarter as total revenue soared to $8.81 billion from $5.84 billion a year ago. "I think the rate of growth will decline, but it will remain very high," said analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities.