3D printing is just a gimmick not a game changer: Terry Gou, chairman and founder of Hon Hai, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer

3D printing is just a gimmick not a game changer: Terry Gou

Staff Reporter

Terry Gou, chairman and founder of Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry — the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer better known by its trading name Foxconn — said that 3D printing is a gimmick with no commercial value and it is not a game changer, reports our sister paper Want Daily.

Gou said 3D printing does not equate to the third industrial revolution and he would be beyond surprised if 3D technology did lead to a revolution. The tycoon made his dismissive remarks ahead of his firm’s annual general meeting on Wednesday. Read more of this post

Google Inc. is developing a videogame console and wristwatch powered by its Android operating system

Updated June 27, 2013, 6:07 p.m. ET

Google Is Developing Android Game Console

AMIR EFRATI

Google Inc. GOOG +0.39% is developing a videogame console and wristwatch powered by its Android operating system, according to people familiar with the matter, as the Internet company seeks to spread the software beyond smartphones and tablets.

With the game machine and digital watch, Google is hoping to combat similar devices that Apple Inc. AAPL -1.08% may release in the future, according to the people.

Google is also preparing to release a second version of an Android-powered media-streaming device, called Nexus Q, that was unveiled last year but not sold to the public, these people said. Read more of this post

Apps for Kids Are Data Magnets; FTC Rules to Kick In

June 27, 2013, 8:02 p.m. ET

Apps for Kids Are Data Magnets; FTC Rules to Kick In

JEREMY SINGER-VINE and ANTON TROIANOVSKI

While 7-year-old Eros ViDemantay played with a kid’s app on his father’s phone, tracing an elephant, behind the scenes a startup company backed by Google Inc.GOOG +0.39% was collecting information from the device—including its email address and a list of other apps installed on his phone.

“My jaw dropped,” says Lee ViDemantay, Eros’s father and a fifth-grade teacher at the Los Angeles Unified School District. “Why do they need to know all that?” The app, called “How to Draw—Easy Lessons,” also sent two of the phone’s main ID numbers. Read more of this post

Momo: With 40 Million Users, China’s Top Flirting App Adds Stickers, Virtual Currency, and VIPs

Momo: With 40 Million Users, China’s Top Flirting App Adds Stickers, Virtual Currency, and VIPs

June 28, 2013

by Steven Millward

Momo, China’s top flirting and hook-up app, has updated to v4.0 on both iPhone and Android and added a bunch of new features – all of which are aimed at monetization.

Ever since we first looked at Momo in late 2011 the app has been fairly minimal (in a good way), but the new raft of features adds a lot more to the dating app. The biggest departure for the app – which has just surpassed 40 million users – is an optional VIP membership that costs $2 for one month, or a cheaper annual package is $17. As a VIP Momo user, you get useful things like telephone support, the ability to follow more than 100 people, extra avatar options, and lots more. Read more of this post

Artist Growth wants its data-analytics software to become a one-size-fits-all financial tool for the music industry

Artist Growth’s Management Software for the Music Business

By Adam Satariano on June 27, 2013

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-27/artist-growths-management-software-for-the-music-business

From Napster to Spotify and Rdio, there’s been no shortage of innovation in digital music services. Not so when it comes to business-side tasks such as managing ticket sales, touring expenses, or an artist’s array of social media accounts. Financial management software made by companies such as Oracle (ORCL) and Salesforce.com (CRM) hasn’t really clicked with musicians and record label executives because it isn’t tailored to the music industry, says Scott Booker, the manager of psychedelic rock band the Flaming Lips. “People who are creating software don’t typically understand the intricacies of how the music business works,” says Booker, who’s also the chief executive officer of the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma. “We all do things in a haphazard way.” Read more of this post

Innovation: JPEGmini Shrinks Photo Files Without Sacrificing Quality

Innovation: JPEGmini Shrinks Photo Files Without Sacrificing Quality

By Caroline Winter on June 27, 2013

Innovators: Sharon Carmel and Dror Gill
Ages: 42 and 46
Founder/CEO and CTO of Beamr, a Tel Aviv-based media technology company

Form and function
An image compression technology that radically reduces the file size of photographs (and soon videos) without sacrificing quality perceptible to the human eye. “We take an image, make it five times smaller, but always guarantee that the JPEGmini image looks exactly like the original.” —Dror Gill

Your Guide to China’s Fabs, or Chinese Online Design Goods Retailers

Your Guide to China’s Fabs, or Chinese Online Design Goods Retailers

By Tracey Xiang on June 20, 2013

I hate to write about ‘Chinese copies’ or ‘China’s XXX’. But you’d be urged to write about China’s Fabs when Tencent, the Chinese Internet giant, invested in the US company. There are Chinese services, such as Xipin, that did claim they were ‘China’s Fabs’. However we cannot count all the online design goods retailers as Fab copies.

To be fair, unlike services such as group-buying, you don’t have to copy Fab in order to sell designer goods online or pivot now and then. Some of the sites I’d list in this post started with Etsy model and later added flash sales or other services. What I feel sorry to tell you is that their webpages look alike in layout and the only difference I can tell between them is goods they sell. Read more of this post

Marc Andreessen: Beijing Should Be Another Silicon Valley, But….

Marc Andreessen: Beijing Should Be Another Silicon Valley, But….

KIM-MAI CUTLER

posted 3 hours ago

Marc Andreessen, the Netscape co-founder and namesake behind venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, said that he’s skeptical that efforts globally to recreate the Silicon Valley ecosystem will succeed.

Even the most promising city and rival to the U.S.’s Silicon Valley, Beijing, faces lots of potential complications because laws around contracts aren’t as straightforward as they could be, he said. Outside of the U.S., Beijing is one of the cities that is able to consistently produce tech giants like Baidu (although Alibaba’s headquarters are in Hangzhou and Tencent is based in Shenzhen). Read more of this post

Seriously, why is software so hard for non-software companies?

Seriously, why is software so hard for non-software companies?

BY SARAH LACY 
ON JUNE 27, 2013

Becoming a Web business isn’t as easy as it looks. Take the weight loss giant Jenny Craig. I’m on my second day of the program in an effort to lose baby weight. I picked Jenny Craig, because I know people who’ve had success on it, and I love the idea of someone else planning meals for me. Part of the reason I can’t eat more healthy is my busy schedule.

Going into the strip mall weight loss centers was a non-starter — again, given my schedule, the fact that there’s not one near my house, and that it arbitrarily closes early on certain days. Fortunately we live in an era where software is eating the world. Read more of this post

DirecTV, which Buffett’s Berkshire owns 3.8% with investment cost at $45.9 per share, Overstated Its Brazilian Subscribers by 200,000

DirecTV Overstated Its Brazilian Subscribers by 200,000

DirecTV (DTV), the largest U.S. satellite-TV provider, will take a pretax charge of $25 million after an internal investigation found that it had overstated subscriber numbers in Brazil by hundreds of thousands. The shares fell. Beginning in 2012, some Sky Brasil employees improperly credited customer accounts to reduce or eliminate churn, the El Segundo, California-based company said in a filing. The number of Sky Brasil subscribers on December 31 was about 100,000 lower than previously reported to Brazilian regulators and 200,000 lower than cited on March 31, the company said. DirecTV, which had considered buying Vivendi SA’s Brazilian phone and Internet unit before withdrawing from a bidding war in March, reported a record number of Latin American customers in the first quarter. Gross additions in the region jumped 14 percent to 1.2 million in the first quarter, driven by demand in Brazil, Argentina and Colombia. Sky Brasil’s ongoing churn in Brazil will be higher than previously anticipated, the company said today. The $25 million expense covers capitalized installation costs and subscriber related equipment held by the terminated customers, according to the filing. DTV fell 3.6 percent at $58.90 at 9:39 a.m. New York time, for the biggest intraday decline since Feb. 14. Through yesterday, the shares had advanced 22 percent this year, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 12 percent.

To contact the reporter on this story: Niamh Ring in New York at nring@bloomberg.net

Square’s website for small businesses takes on e-commerce giants

Square’s website for small businesses takes on e-commerce giants

2:06pm EDT

By Gerry Shih

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Since 2010, Square Inc’s matchbox-sized card readers have steadily supplanted credit card machines in coffee shops and corner stores across the United States.

Now, the company, one of Silicon Valley’s most highly valued private firms, is diving into a market as expansive the internet itself.

Square launched a shopping website this week called Square Market to serve as an online storefront and payment processor for small businesses, a move that pits the closely held company, valued at $3.25 billion, against popular e-commerce destinations such as eBay Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Etsy. Read more of this post

Microsoft Seeks End to Dinosaur-Era Software Upgrade Cycle

Microsoft Seeks End to Dinosaur-Era Software Upgrade Cycle: Tech

Microsoft Corp (MSFT)., which for decades has refreshed its popular Office corporate software just once about every three years, says it will soon switch to weekly updates.

It’s a radical shift as Microsoft overhauls its Internet-based programs, seeking to stay in sync with the fast-changing technology industry.

For much of Microsoft’s 38-year history, infrequent upgrades made sense for businesses seeking predictable improvements. That’s changed as nimbler entrants such as Dropbox Inc., Box Inc., Jive Software Inc (JIVE) (JIVE). and Google Inc. refine features and deliver automatic updates over the Web. That tinkering has helped lure customers and put pressure on margins at Microsoft’s biggest division, which accounted for $24 billion in sales last year, or a third of the total. Read more of this post

Fad-Loving Japan May Derail a Sony Smartphone

June 26, 2013

Fad-Loving Japan May Derail a Sony Smartphone

By HIROKO TABUCHI

TOKYO — Sony’s Xperia Z smartphone, which went on sale in February, has already sold almost a million units by some estimates. But NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest mobile carrier, will soon stop selling it.

The Xperia Z has not even hit the United States market yet: T-Mobile says the model will make its debut on its network in the coming weeks.

But it is already a has-been in Japan. DoCoMo has turned its attention to a new phone, the Sony Xperia A — a model with fewer features that has not won the stellar praise showered on the Z. Read more of this post

Int’l firms to shake out China’s software market

Int’l firms to shake out China’s software market

Staff Reporter

2013-06-27

Along with major changes happening in the global software market, leading international software firms, such as SAP and Infor, announced plans for more concerted efforts in the Chinese market. Domestic Chinese firms are bracing themselves for the onslaught.

TimMoylan, president of Infor’s Asia Pacific division, said that China, Japan, and Australia/New Zealand have become the three largest sources of the company’s revenue, with China leading the list. To facilitate further inroads into the Chinese market, Infor recently poached Lin Xinhua, former vice president of the Autodesk’s Greater China region, in order to tap his abundant knowledge of the Chinese market. With 26 years of experience in the field and having worked a vice president for Oracle’s Greater China marketing division, Lin is just as qualified as any to approach the ambitious task. Read more of this post

Location-based Social App Momo Starts Monetization with Emoticons and Subscription

Location-based Social App Momo Starts Monetization with Emoticons and Subscription

By Tracey Xiang on June 27, 2013

Location-based social app Momo, launched 4.0 version with an emoticon market and subscription offerings, an obvious move for monetization.

The emoticon part must remind you of LINE, the Japan-based messaging app that made about $17 million from emoticons alone in Q1 2013, and the subscription model is a proven one in China, adopted by almost all kinds of Internet service for monetization, and still believed to be a good business model here.

The subscription package offers twelve privileges; for instance, subscribers can follow more users and have more people in a chatting group. It is sold for 12 yuan (about $1.9) per month or 30 yuan per quarter. It’d be cheaper if you subscribe to it for a year. Read more of this post

Allen Lau wants Wattpad to be to Internet publishing what YouTube is to video; The Wattpad site, which allows contributors to upload and share their writing, now has 15 million unique monthly users, double the number from 2012

How Toronto’s Wattpad is handling the challenges that come with fast growth

Quentin Casey | 13/06/24 10:24 AM ET

Tyler Anderson/National PostWattpad CEO Allen Lau at the company’s offices in Toronto.

Allen Lau doesn’t hide his ambition. He wants Wattpad to be to Internet publishing what YouTube is to video – a global giant with a billion users. The Toronto-based startup, founded in 2006, is backed by several top-tier investors, including New York-based Union Square Ventures, which has invested in Twitter, Foursquare and Tumblr. Last year, Wattpad received $17.3-million from OMERS Ventures, Khosla Ventures and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, bringing its funding haul to $20-million. With 50 employees, the company is growing at an impressive clip. The Wattpad site, which allows contributors to upload and share their writing, now has 15 million unique monthly users, double the number from 2012. Those users spend a total of 3.5 billion minutes on the site each month, up from 1.4 billion a year ago. But heady growth brings challenges, including deciding on when to monetize the site. Mr. Lau, Wattpad’s chief executive, recently discussed the company’s outlook and plans with Quentin Casey. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation. Read more of this post

Digital security giant Symantec is getting rid of 30-40% of its managers — here’s why

Symantec is getting rid of 30-40% of its managers — here’s why

Dan Ovsey | 13/06/26 | Last Updated: 13/06/26 11:10 AM ET
Over the past few months, digital-security giant Symantec has been relieving approximately 30-40% of its management staff of their duties in a restructuring process the software company’s leadership team believes will allow it to realize greater long-term profitability and performance.Brett Shirk, Symatec’s senior vice-president of North America, recently spoke with FP’s Dan Ovsey about the decision to downsize, the process of reorganizing and the impact these decisions will have on staff and clients. Following is an edited transcript of their conversation. Read more of this post

Baidu Cloud Breaks 70 Million Users, Growing at 200k Users a Day

Baidu Cloud Breaks 70 Million Users, Growing at 200k Users a Day

June 27, 2013

by C. Custer

At an open media event yesterday, Chinese search giant Baidu shared some pretty impressive numbers about Baidu Cloud. The cloud platform, which includes everything from word processing to music streaming and photo storage, now has more than 70 million users, and is currently growing at a rate of 200,000 new users per day. No, I didn’t mean month, and yes, that’s crazy. Baidu also said that the service now has an average of 2 million daily active users. Of course, these are self-reported numbers, so the degree to which you trust them depends on how much you trust Baidu. (So, if you’re Zhou Hongyi, you’re probably shaking your head right now). Baidu is currently competing with Qihoo 360 both in the search and security markets, but Qihoo doesn’t currently have a comprehensive cloud offering, so this is one area where Baidu may be able to grow without too much competition — at least for now. But as we wrote earlier this morning, Qihoo is reportedly planning to expand its search options, and it seems like just a matter of time before the battle between the two spreads into the cloud. Of course, there are also a number of other domestic cloud services, but none of them are quite as broad as Baidu’s slate of offerings, so there may not be a true competitor until a big company like Qihoo or Tencent throws its weight behind building a broader, multi-faceted cloud platform.

This Is The Year That China Becomes The World’s Top E-Commerce Market; China’s Luxury E-Commerce Market to Be Worth $27 Billion in 2013

This Is The Year That China Becomes The World’s Top E-Commerce Market (CHARTS)

June 27, 2013

by Steven Millward

With China’s e-commerce market set to be worth nearly $300 billion this year, 2013 will mark the watershed moment when China surpasses the US to become the world’s top e-shopping market. Looking at data from Forrester Research and iResearch for the two nations, Chinese netizens will collectively spend an estimated $296 billion in the whole of 2013, while US e-shoppers will spend $252 billion. Here’s the pattern of growth: The chart is from a new report on luxury e-commerce in China by Washington-based Observer Solutions. Of course, China’s succession is an inevitable progression as China’s realistic, addressable e-commerce market grows to the point of nearly exceeding the entire population of the US. Indeed, the same report states that the penetration of online shopping in China hit 42.9 percent in 2012 so that the country had 242 million e-shoppers last year. America’s whole population is 314 million. Check out the number China will have by 2015:

Read more of this post

In the world of smartphones, a slimy mushroom—often found in miso soups and soba noodles—is an unlikely videogame star in Japan

June 26, 2013, 10:38 p.m. ET

Popularity of Mushroom Videogame Grows Like a Fungus in Japan

An Understudy in the Kitchen, the Nameko Becomes a Star; Lunch Boxes, Music Videos

DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI and MAYUMI NEGISHI

There’s a breakout hit in the Japanese gaming world. The star? A little brown mushroom called a nameko. It’s featured in a trilogy of smartphone games called ’Nameko Saibai kit.’ WSJ’s Daisuke Wakabayashi reports.

TOKYO—In the culinary pecking order for Japanese mushrooms, the nameko, a gelatinous, light-brown, tack-size variety for the ordinary Joe, doesn’t carry the meaty versatility of a shiitake or the high-price allure of the seasonal and fragrant matsutake.

But in the world of smartphones, this slimy mushroom—often found in miso soups and soba noodles—is an unlikely videogame star. The trilogy of games entitled “Nameko Saibai Kit,” or “the kit for cultivating nameko,” is one of the most popular smartphone games since its June 2011 debut with 32 million downloads. That falls well short of Angry Birds levels of more than one billion downloads, but it is about twice the level of its nearest Japanese competitor. Read more of this post

IPads Help Airlines Cast Off Costly Load of Paper; In the Cockpit, Navigation Charts Go Digital; American Sees $1.2 Million in Fuel Savings

June 26, 2013, 7:36 p.m. ET

IPads Help Airlines Cast Off Costly Load of Paper

In the Cockpit, Navigation Charts Go Digital; American Sees $1.2 Million in Fuel Savings

SUSAN CAREY

United Airlines Capt. Jim Barnes, left, and First Officer Greg Battaglia use iPads in the cockpit. United hopes for rules allowing pilots Internet access.

Airline pilots, who fly some of the world’s most technologically advanced machines, have long relied on paper navigation charts and manuals, which clutter the cockpit and have to be lugged around in cases that can weigh as much as a small child.

Now, however, airlines are catching up with the tablet era. Read more of this post

U.S. federal regulators are expected to issue new rules in the next few months that could jump-start the market for cars that communicate with other cars and road infrastructure

June 26, 2013, 5:13 p.m. ET

Driverless Cars Are Likely to Get Boost From DOT Ruling

STEVE ROSENBUSH

Federal regulators are expected to issue new rules in the next few months that could jump-start the market for cars that communicate with other cars and road infrastructure.

The technology—on demonstration this week a U.S. Department of Transportation event in Washington—uses a combination of positioning technology, such as GPS or other kinds of sensors, and high-speed wireless networks. Read more of this post

Mobile life can be short; Messaging apps a threat to Facebook’s mobile revenues

June 26, 2013 8:28 pm

Mobile life can be short

By Richard Waters

Messaging apps a threat to Facebook’s mobile revenues

As the battleground in social media shifts to mobile, is Facebook about to lose out to younger challengers?

That may sound unlikely given the impressive mobile statistics it has notched up, with a fifth of all time spent on smartphones estimated to be on its social network. By the first quarter of this year, Facebook was generating 30 per cent of its advertising revenue from mobile, barely a year after starting to make money there. Read more of this post

Mobile malware explodes, hits corporate networks

Mobile malware explodes, hits corporate networks

June 27, 2013 – 9:28AM

Rob Lever

Smartphone users have seen an explosion of malware in the past year, dominated by schemes targeting Google’s Android operating system, a survey has shown.

The attacks are also starting to hit corporate networks, possibly as part of broader espionage efforts, according to the Juniper Networks Mobile survey.

The report showed a 614 per cent jump in mobile malware in the 12 months to March 2013, with Android attacks accounting for 92 per cent. Read more of this post

How apps are revolutionising music; Music apps are revolutionising the way music is made and challenging the very definition of music itself

How apps are revolutionising music

June 27, 2013

Iain Gillespie

Music apps are revolutionising the way music is made and challenging the very definition of music itself.

“Strange days indeed, most peculiar, mama.” Apply those words to the way millions of people are now creating music, and they are more relevant today than when John Lennon wrote them shortly before he was murdered 33 years ago.

For example, imagine the Beatles’ surprise, as they grappled with antiquated tube mixers and a four-track tape recorder at Abbey Road, if someone had whipped out an iPhone and offered a modern recording studio with 167 tracks and full digital quality. Read more of this post

Teaching business poets and quants to make nice

Teaching business poets and quants to make nice

By Anne Fisher, contributor June 26, 2013: 12:23 PM ET

Has the explosive growth of big data got you struggling to keep up with the math nerds at your company? A new book aims to help.

FORTUNE — Let’s say you’ve got a crucial strategic decision to make, and a team of analysts has painstakingly built a complex mathematical model that’s supposed to show you which way to go. The trouble is, even after the data scientists have laid out the details of their statistical algorithm in what they think are simple terms, it’s Greek to you. Don’t panic. In a new book called Keeping Up with the Quants: Your Guide to Understanding + Using Analytics, Thomas H. Davenport and co-author Jinho Kim set out to advise executives on how to make sensible use of big data, including which questions to ask and how to tell whether the quant jocks really understand the business problem they’re purporting to solve.

Read more of this post

Snapchat’s liquidity trap; Some founder liquidity for startups can be helpful. Too much, however, misaligns interests

Snapchat’s liquidity trap

By Dan Primack June 26, 2013: 11:46 AM ET

Some founder liquidity for startups can be helpful. Too much, however, misaligns interests.

FORTUNE — One of the most notable changes in VC financings over the past five years has been the widespread adoption of founder liquidity.

For the uninitiated, these are deals in which some of the new capital is used to buy shares from company founders, rather than to help grow the company. Oftentimes these transactions make pragmatic sense – particularly for older companies where founders have taken below-market salaries for years and literally are having trouble paying the mortgage. A bit of reward for past hard work/company success, and the idea that a founder can be more focused if not having to fret over personal finances. Read more of this post

How to Compete When IT Is Abundant

How to Compete When IT Is Abundant

by Aaron Levie  |  11:00 AM June 26, 2013

“You only gain an edge over rivals by having or doing something that they can’t have or do,” wrote Nicholas Carr ten years ago in his controversial HBR article, “IT Doesn’t Matter.”
Carr predicted that an organization’s ability to compete through investing in information technology was about to change dramatically. When “the core functions of IT — data storage, data processing, and data transport — have become available and affordable to all,” he wrote, IT would cease to be a source of competitive advantage.
This was not yet reality at the time of Carr’s article. The IT boom of the 1980s and early ’90s had brought information technology to the corporate masses, unleashing the first full-scale technology revolution in the enterprise. To stay competitive, businesses rapidly embraced PCs, and the subsequent transition to the client/server era.
The original IT department was formed to centralize a unique expertise that could purchase, implement, and manage technology in the enterprise. And given the complexities involved in building up competitive IT weaponry, businesses won by out-spending and out-resourcing their opponents. Only the largest of enterprises could afford the best technologies, and even for those with the largest bank accounts, IT strategies were limited to basics like CRM, ERP, or email.
Today, though, Carr’s prediction is coming true. We’re in the early days of yet another seismic shift in IT, this time driven by mobile devices, the cloud, and a demand for technology experiences that match the simplicity of the consumer world. We are moving abruptly from an era of IT scarcity to one of abundance.
This end of IT scarcity begs an interesting and important question. How do companies differentiate in a world where access to technology is no longer a competitive advantage? Read more of this post