Good morning and Happy Friday everyone!  This morning we will be taking a look at security breaches at Home Depot, Alibaba’s historic IPO, Sony’s new virtual reality product, and what’s behind Microsoft’s massive layoff. 

Virtual Reality 

Sony Corp. has just created a new product that is said to offer a dream-like immersive experience.  Morpheus, the name of the product, is also the god of dreams in ancient mythology.  The goal of Morpheus is to make people feel as if they’re in a totally different setting – listening to a concert, diving in the ocean or feeding dinosaurs in a prehistoric landscape. 

Check out more about Sony's new product #here

Microsoft and Layoffs

Microsoft handed out pink slips to 2,100 employees on Thursday, part of the 18,000 employee layoff it announced in July.  Cuts are happening across the board in “many different teams, functions and countries.”  Microsoft will wrap up the majority of the layoff by December.  Sources day that deep cuts are being made in order to shed Nokia’s feature phone business.  Instead, Nokia is now focused on smartphones and tablets.

Read more about Microsoft's layoffs #here

Alibaba's Record IPO

Alibaba just priced its IPO at $68 per share.  At this price, Alibaba is raising just less than $21.8 billion, making it the largest IPO in the history of the US stock market.  This sets the company value at $167.8 billion. Shares began trading this morning.

Learn more about Alibaba's IPO #here

Security Breach 

Home Depot confirmed Thursday that hackers exposed 56 million credit and debit cards during its months-long security breach.  The company also said it had eliminated the malware behind the attack from its payment systems.  Card readers that encountered the malware, which Home Depot said was a custom strain that its security team had never seen before, were removed from service.  The company is also beefing up its payment data encryption capabilities and other security measures.

Read more about the security breach #here

Enjoy the weekend!