Rolls-Royce Revives Age of Sail to Beat Fuel-Cost Surge

Rolls-Royce Revives Age of Sail to Beat Fuel-Cost Surge: Freight

Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc (RR/), best known for powering planes from Concorde to the Airbus superjumbo, is working on a modern-day clipper ship as it bets on emissions curbs to jack up bunker-fuel costs and herald a new age of sail.

Cargo vessels are set for a design change embracing sleeker hulls and hybrid propulsion systems, according to London-based Rolls, which is helping to develop a ship featuring a 180-foot sail augmented by bio-methane engines and carrying 4,500 tons. Read more of this post

Can 3D printing change face of Singapore’s public housing?

Can 3D printing change face of Singapore’s public housing?

As with the term “robot”, which was coined by Czech writer Karel Capek long before its first technical implementation, 3D printing entered our collective imagery by the backdoor of fiction. In the late 1960s, cult television series Star Trek presented us with two chimerical devices: The transporter and the replicator, both of which involved dematerialising matter and reconstituting it in another form elsewhere.

4 HOURS 47 MIN AGO

As with the term “robot”, which was coined by Czech writer Karel Capek long before its first technical implementation, 3D printing entered our collective imagery by the backdoor of fiction. In the late 1960s, cult television series Star Trek presented us with two chimerical devices: The transporter and the replicator, both of which involved dematerialising matter and reconstituting it in another form elsewhere. Read more of this post

Weibo to introduce e-commerce platform

Weibo to introduce e-commerce platform

Staff Reporter

2013-07-10

After the launch of an online shopping service in cooperation with Alibaba’s Taobao — one of China’s leading e-commerce websites — Sina Weibo, the country’s most popular microblogging service, has enabled online shoppers to check the status of their parcels, representing another major step towards its commercialization, reports the Beijing-based China Entrepreneur magazine. Online shoppers can now use Weibo to check the payment and shipment status for orders placed within a three month period. They can also use dedicated mobile phones in partnership with Weibo to check and receive information on orders, thereby closely monitoring the latest handling status of their items, the report said. Read more of this post

The send-a-box boom: A slew of young startups have embraced a subscription model wherein customers receive a box of items at their doorstep — but can the model have lasting success?

The send-a-box boom

July 9, 2013: 3:26 PM ET

A slew of young startups have embraced a subscription model wherein customers receive a box of items at their doorstep — but can the model have lasting success?

By Andres Vaamonde, reporter

FORTUNE — Maybe the best things do come in small packages. In an age when consumers can get nearly everything they want online, a number of small new companies are gaining traction not by sending consumers precisely what they’ve ordered, but by surprising them with curated boxes. Birchbox, Merchbox, NatureBox, and BarkBox all make use of the marvel of surprise. Even without “box” in the name, Quarterly.co and, to an extent, Dollar Shave Club, do the same. One part of the process is similar to how the big mainstream e-tailers function: People can place orders and see precisely what they’ll get and when. But in contrast to an Amazon (AMZN) or eBay (EBAY), with these companies — call them “send-a-box” services — signing up is, in most cases, the full extent of the customer’s participation in selecting products. Then they receive a package in the mail every month or few months (varying by company) filled with anything from little-known vinyl records (Merchbox) to makeup samples (Birchbox) to dog treats and toys (BarkBox). Read more of this post

Britain battles to build tech giant as home-grown talent goes West

Britain battles to build tech giant as home-grown talent goes West

7:08am EDT

By Paul Sandle, Dasha Afanasieva and Tommy Wilkes

LONDON (Reuters) – East London’s technology hub is established well beyond start-up status: Thousands of new web firms now work in the offices around Old Street and on any given day the area’s coffee shops buzz with young hopefuls meeting advisers and investors.

Britain’s government has christened the area “Tech City” and makes no secret of its hope that the entrepreneurial ventures being dreamed up there can spearhead an economic boost to lift the country out of a long recession. Read more of this post

Since the first quarter of 2005, Microsoft’s online division has lost $10.9 billion.

Steve Ballmer’s Huge Reorg Of Microsoft Could Bury One Of The Company’s Biggest Embarrassments

JAY YAROW JUL. 9, 2013, 11:12 AM 15,119 14

Microsoft may be about to bury one of its biggest quarterly embarrassments.  Kara Swisher at All Things D reports CEO Steve Ballmer is going to announce a big reorganization of the company this Thursday. As part of the reorg, Microsoft’s earnings reports could be totally different. Swisher says Ballmer is considering mashing up the reporting of the company’s divisions. This would allow Microsoft to hide the atrocious performance of its Online Services Division, which is made up of Bing, MSN, and other pieces. Every quarter Microsoft reports earnings, we run a chart showing the giant losses from OSD. Last quarter, for instance, Microsoft’s online division had an operating income loss of $262 million. And that’s a big improvement!  Since the first quarter of 2005, Microsoft’s online division has lost $10.9 billion.  Read more of this post

Chinese Outsourcing Firms Bid Farewell to America after steep declines in growth and accounting scandals

Chinese Outsourcing Firms Bid Farewell to America – Economic Observer Online

By Shen Jianyuan (沈建缘)
Issue 626, July 1, 2013
On June 6, 2013 services firm iSoftStone (软通动力) announced it was delisting, the company is the last of the nine Chinese service outsourcing enterprises that listed in the U.S. over recent years to withdraw from the stock market. Prior to iSoftStone, Pactera Technology International Ltd. (文思海辉), the largest of China’s service outsourcing companies, was taken private through a management buyout, with acquisition of the remaining stock by private equity firm Blackstone Group in May 2013. Beijing-based Pactera, formed last year through a merger of HiSoft Technology International Ltd (海辉软件国际和) and VanceInfo Technologies Inc (文思信息技术公司), specialises in offering technology outsourcing and consulting services to blue-chip companies around the world. Read more of this post

It will take more than tech to solve traffic problems in Asian cities

It will take more than tech to solve traffic problems in Asian cities

J. Angelo Racoma 5, Jul 2013Featured 

Tripid co-founder Michael Ngo Dee says it will take much more than technology to fix “broken” transportation systems, a big cause of Asia’s traffic woes.

Mass transit in the Philippines is not as efficient as in cities like, say, Singapore, New York or Brazil. Just in Manila, for instance, you would usually need to line up for about an hour or so just to ride the jam-packed MRT during rush hour. Taking the bus or jeepney is just as inefficient, as these public utility vehicles would usually bunch up on select areas in their route while competing for passengers, thereby causing traffic jams. Private motorists are not helping at all — you can still see a lot of big cars with only one passenger plying the streets, which is such a waste. Read more of this post

Stronger Than Steel: The Amazing Spider Web; Jap startup has produced an artificial spider thread that it claims is equal to steel in tensile strength yet as flexible as rubber

July 8, 2013, 8:08 p.m. ET

Can Spider Web Be Replicated? A Japanese Startup Thinks So.

Recreating the Silk of an Arachnid Could Produce the Most Durable of Fabrics

Spiber says its thread is spun into fabric that equals steel in tensile strength yet is flexible like rubber

Spiber bioengineers bacteria with recombinant DNA to produce spider-thread

MAYUMI NEGISHI

Centuries before Spider-Man, people sought to harvest spider silk, a fiber that is so uniquely powerful it not only catches prey but could serve as a highly durable fabric. Pulling thread from an arachnid, however, is painstakingly slow. And putting too many spiders in close proximity makes them territorial and inclined to kill one another. Now, a Japanese startup called Spiber Inc. said it has produced an artificial spider thread that it claims is equal to steel in tensile strength yet as flexible as rubber. The company hopes to spin enough of the thread for mass production within two years, potentially opening the door to creating lighter but stronger auto parts, surgical materials and bulletproof vests. “Spider thread is amazing material—it’s so light, yet so strong and flexible. It can absorb so much energy,” said Spiber President Kazuhide Sekiyama, who came up with the idea to replicate spider thread in college during an all-night drinking session talking about “bug technology.” Read more of this post

Is this Aussie app the next iTunes sensation? Simone Eyles and Mariusz Stankiewicz are this week celebrating the 150,000th coffee sold through their mobile coffee ordering app 365cups

Is this Aussie app the next iTunes sensation?

July 5, 2013

Claire Dunn

Order a coffee from your phone and it’s ready by the time you get to the cafe. Genius.

365cups is revolutionising the takeaway coffee market.

Self-made “app-reneurs” from the bush Simone Eyles and Mariusz Stankiewicz are this week celebrating the 150,000th coffee sold through their mobile coffee ordering app 365cups. The idea, born over a cup of coffee between the former flatmates in their home town of Wagga Wagga, and launched in January 2011, is now generating more than $1.3 million in revenue for their cafe clients, with more than 1000 orders a day across Australia and New Zealand and rising. By downloading the free app for iPhone or Android smartphones, customers can place an order with their favourite (or nearest) cafe linked to the system, nominate a collection time, pay either on arrival or through credit topped up on the app, and have their order ready to go when they arrive. A monthly subscription fee paid by cafes entitles them to a virtual store where they can upload their menu, and receive customers orders via iPad or a custom-made printer. A recent initiative means cafes can directly email their app customers with loyalty programs and menu specials. Read more of this post

Lam Eyes Next $1B Opportunity; The man who helped establish the plasma etcher in the 1980s hopes to ride e-beam to the rescue of a chip-making process running out of gas

Lam Eyes Next $1B Opportunity

Rick Merritt
7/8/2013 12:30 PM EDT

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — At 70, David K. Lam is as excited as ever about the future of the semiconductor industry and what he says is his billion-dollar opportunity to nudge it forward for the second time. Thirty years ago, Lam helped establish the plasma etcher that became a workhorse tool for cutting fine lines in chips. By fielding a reliable, automated version of the tool, the company that bore his name became the first founded by an Asian American to go public on NASDAQ. Today he has a new venture he thinks could give the industry a lift at a time when it’s getting hard to keep making chips faster, smaller, and cheaper. This time Lam is taking what many have seen as a rival technology — direct electron-beam lithography — and bringing it into the conventional process flow. “In the old days most new semiconductor technologies were disruptive now they have to be complementary — you have to find ways to use what you have,” said Lam. Read more of this post

Brocade chair Dave House tells how he got IBM to sign up for the Intel Inside program and management lessons he adapted from Andy Grove

Tearing Up a $125M Check to Big Blue

Rick Merritt
7/8/2013 12:20 PM EDT

House shows a plaque commemorating the Intel Inside program.

SARATOGA, Calif. – Dave House still recalls the day he wrote IBM executives a $125 million check then tore it up in front of their eyes. It was perhaps one of the boldest moves in his 13 years as a top executive at Intel, a company known for its boldness. In this second part of an interview at his home in the hills above Silicon Valley, House recounts his role in the “Intel Inside” campaign that put the x86 giant at odds with its OEM customers. Now the chairman of Brocade Communications, House also shares management lessons learned working under Intel’s Andy Grove. Dennis Carter developed the idea of branding Intel chips direct to consumers. House recalled the day Carter showed him an ad from Japan using an early version of the logo. “I said, ‘that’s Jap-lish,'” House said. “I pulled out stationary that said ‘Intel, the computer inside,’ I wrote ‘Intel Inside’ and put a circle around it and said that’s better,” he said. Read more of this post

A Different Deal Mania Grips TV; As companies like Tribune and Gannett buy up local television stations, the goal is not transformation, but leverage, using size to cut better deals with distributors and suppliers

July 7, 2013

A Different Deal Mania Grips TV

By DAVID CARR

Suddenly, being big is a big deal. Again. And we’re not just talking about the resurgence in the sales of pickup trucks. After years of small-bore shifting and tweaking by media companies in an effort to stay in front of consumers, big deals are back on the table. Using relatively cheap capital, companies in dire need of diversification away from wounded businesses like print are going shopping. Last Monday, the Tribune Company, fresh out of bankruptcy, spent $2.7 billion to buy 19 stations from Local TV Holdings. Several weeks earlier, the Gannett Company made its own bet on going bigger, buying the Belo Corporation, with its 20 television stations, for $1.5 billion. “It’s time to gobble or get gobbled,” a media analyst told The New York Times last Monday. Read more of this post

Mobile gaming taking China by storm

Mobile gaming taking China by storm

Staff Reporter

2013-07-08

Backed by huge numbers of mobile phone subscribers, the gaming industry in China has been growing by leaps and bounds to develop into a major industry. According to figures released on July 3 by Tencent, China’s largest internet company by value, the number of registered game software developers in the country topped 80,000 as of April, with the number of registered game applications exceeding 40,000. The number of games racking up over 100,000 yuan (US$16,300) in monthly revenue also jumped by 65% year-on-year. While a game created by Tencent called Plants vs Zombies, launched in May last year, accumulated over 80 million yuan (US$13 million) in revenue as of June this year. Read more of this post

How Netflix Is Shaking Up Hollywood; Streaming Site Becomes Aggressive Programming Buyer; Serialized Dramas Benefit

July 7, 2013, 8:47 p.m. ET

How Netflix Is Shaking Up Hollywood; Streaming Site Becomes Aggressive Programming Buyer; Serialized Dramas Benefit

AMOL SHARMA

When AMC Networks AMCX +1.27% canceled its TV crime drama “The Killing” last year after two seasons, the show’s creators made a push to get it back on the air, believing they could correct the missteps that had caused an ardent fan base to lose interest. They got some help from an unlikely source: Netflix Inc. NFLX +1.90% The show’s producer, Fox Television Studios, signed a deal with the streaming-video service that made a third season financially viable. The revenue from Netflix allowed the studio to charge AMC a lower license fee. In return, Netflix got exclusive streaming rights in the U.S. and Canada beginning three months after the season finale—shorter than the typical delay of as much as a year. It also got the rights to premiere the show in several foreign markets where its previous seasons had been a big hit for the company. Read more of this post

Modesty is a source of pride at Arm, the UK’s largest tech company by market cap, whose microprocessor designs are used in nearly all smartphones. Simon Segars joined Arm in 1991 when it was based in a Cambridgeshire barn

July 7, 2013 2:28 pm

Simon Segars, Arm Holdings chief

By Henry Mance

Whatever attracted Simon Segars to his new job, it can’t have been his windowless office. Even his prize decoration – a map of the Arm7 processor that he helped design, complete with “72,000 beautiful transistors” – lies unframed on a chair. “The least glamorous company in the FTSE,” he jokes. Modesty is a source of pride at Arm, the UK’s largest technology company by market capitalisation, whose microprocessor designs are used in nearly all smartphones. “It’s inbuilt in the culture. We’re not glitzy and flashy, and we’re not about to shout about our success from the rooftops,” says Mr Segars, who took over as chief executive of the Cambridge-based group last week. That ethos is one sign of continuity with his predecessor Warren East, whose belongings are still in boxes in the next-door office. Read more of this post

The CEO of IMAX on How It Became a Hollywood Powerhouse

The CEO of IMAX on How It Became a Hollywood Powerhouse

by Richard Gelfond

The Idea: The company experimented with business models to grow from its modest roots in nature documentaries into a major player in multiplexes around the world.

When I came to IMAX, in 1994, I had been an entrepreneur, a lawyer, and an investment banker. I didn’t know much about the movie business, but I recognized that the moviegoing experience IMAX offered had great potential if we could find the right way to grow.

A partner and I had acquired the company through a leveraged buyout, and we took it public a few months later. On paper the transaction was a success, and the company’s market cap grew rapidly. But at the time, most IMAX movies were nature documentaries shown in the theaters of science museums, and figuring out how to move into mainstream markets proved much more difficult than we’d expected. That was due in part to the technology constraints of the predigital era; it took years to find ways to make it easy and cost-effective to show IMAX movies in a large number of multiplexes. We also faced cultural challenges. The Hollywood movie industry is an interconnected system of studios, directors, and theaters that has evolved over 100 years, and it has a traditional way of doing things. As newcomers we spent years trying and failing to persuade the industry to adapt to our model. Even after we began adapting our strategy to fit the Hollywood way of doing business, it took a while to find a model that benefited us and our partners. Read more of this post

Israel’s Mobileye, whose collision-avoidance technology has been adopted in BMWs, says investors value it at $1.5 billion

Mobileye says investors value it at $1.5 billion

7:23pm EDT

(Reuters) – Mobileye N.V., whose collision-avoidance technology has been adopted in cars made by the likes of BMW AG (BMWG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and General Motors Co (GM.N: Quote, Profile,Research, Stock Buzz), said on Sunday it had raised money from five investors that valued its equity at $1.5 billion, highlighting the market potential for driver-assistance systems. Founded in 1999 by an Israeli businessman and a professor of computer science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mobileye sold its 1 millionth driver assistance system last year. It has said it expects to sell 2 million more in 2013. Read more of this post

As Software Takes Over, Network Gear Could Be in Jeopardy; Software-defined networking threatens hardware makers, including Cisco Systems, F5 Networks

SATURDAY, JULY 6, 2013

As Software Takes Over, Network Gear Could Be in Jeopardy

By TIERNAN RAY | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

Software-defined networking threatens hardware makers, including Cisco Systems, F5 Networks, and Juniper Networks. VMware could be a winner. How Cisco is striking back.

ago, I asked a venture capitalist in computer networking if dedicated network gear would ever be replaced by software running on a standard computer. My hypothesis was that as general-purpose computers became more powerful, they could absorb functions that previously required specialized computer hardware, the way many functions can be performed on PCs today that once required mainframes. The venture capitalist assured me it would never happen, for a variety of reasons, even if it became technologically possible. Read more of this post

How Google Flu Trends Is Getting to the Bottom of Messy Data

How Google Flu Trends Is Getting to the Bottom of Messy Data

by Nicholas Diakopoulos  |  11:00 AM July 5, 2013

Churning through, tabulating, and modeling millions of search queries every day, Google Flu Trendscan measure, a full two weeks before the CDC, the incidence of influenza-like illnesses (ILI) across the U.S. Any official response to a flu pandemic, such as vaccine distribution and timing, could be greatly enhanced with such an early warning. And while not billed as an ersatz measure, Google Flu has had an uncannily high correlation with the CDC’s own slower, yet more assiduously produced estimate of ILIs. Read more of this post

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