Games makers dare to dream of a virtual reality future

Last updated: March 21, 2014 7:58 pm
Games makers dare to dream of a virtual reality future
By Tim Bradshaw in San Francisco
For the past 20 years, virtual reality has been just that: a technological dream that failed to break through into the real world. The previous time an established leader in the video-games industry tried to bring VR to life, Nintendo – riding high on the success of its Game Boy – launched the Virtual Boy in 1995. The clunky red headset was barely on the shelves for a year before the Japanese group abandoned the project, amid complaints of headaches from its monochrome screen. Read more of this post

Tomorrow’s internet, controlled by the powerful; An organisation that is being regulated by everybody might as well be regulated by nobody

March 21, 2014 6:39 pm
Tomorrow’s internet, controlled by the powerful
By Christopher Caldwell
An organisation that is being regulated by everybody might as well be regulated by nobody
The US commerce department announced a week ago that it was ready to relinquish the last part of the internet that the government formally controls: the business of assigning online names and addresses. To those troubled by the extensive National Security Agency programmes Edward Snowden revealed last year, that may sound like good news. Most people would sooner have the world’s internet users regulate the system by consensus than hand over control to the government. Alas, that is not the choice on offer. Read more of this post

The Power of ‘Thick’ Data: Businesses need to know how a product or service fits into the emotional lives of their customers

The Power of ‘Thick’ Data
Businesses need to know how a product or service fits into the emotional lives of their customers
CHRISTIAN MADSBJERG and MIKKEL B. RASMUSSEN
March 21, 2014 7:15 p.m. ET

Lego analyzed data and arrived at a moment of clarity: They needed to “go back to the brick.”
At its core, all business is about making bets on human behavior. Which product is most likely to sell, what employee is most likely to succeed, what price is a customer willing to pay? Companies that excel at making these bets tend to thrive in the marketplace.
So it’s no wonder that the latest fad in the business world is Big Data—massive data sets sifted by powerful analytical tools. Big Data can be an extraordinary tool, helping to gather new information about our behavior and preferences. What it can’t explain is why we do what we do. Read more of this post

Symantec CEO ouster raises questions about turnaround

Symantec CEO ouster raises questions about turnaround
3:22pm EDT
By Abhirup Roy
(Reuters) – Symantec Corp’s shares fell as much as 14 percent on Friday, a day after the security software maker fired its chief executive, raising concerns about its turnaround efforts. Read more of this post

Adobe Super subs; Adobe’s bold embrace of the computing cloud should inspire others

Adobe Super subs; Adobe’s bold embrace of the computing cloud should inspire others
Mar 22nd 2014 | SAN FRANCISCO | From the print edition

ON MARCH 18th Adobe published its latest quarterly results, showing net income of $47m, down by 28% on a year earlier. It was the fifth quarter in a row in which the maker of professional graphics software, such as Photoshop and Illustrator, had reported a sharp drop in year-on-year earnings. At most listed firms that would trigger a stockmarket bloodbath. Yet Adobe’s share price has soared by 63% over the past 12 months (see chart).

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Roll over Beethoven: The times they are a-changin’ for the music business; Record bosses now hope that online streaming could become a big enough business to arrest their industry’s long decline

Roll over Beethoven
Mar 21st 2014, 13:23 by K.N.C., A.E.S., J.M.F. and A.C.M.
The times they are a-changin’ for the music business
THE technologies for reproducing music have continually changed since 1877 when Thomas Edison introduced the phonograph’s engraved wax cylinders. These gave way to superior sounding Gramophone discs made of shellac, and later, vinyl records. (Some 3m are still produced annually for the niche market of DJs and audio nuts.) The analog formats—including cassette tapes and the short-lived 8-track—were superseded by digital formats, like CDs and MP3 files. Once digital, music could be shipped over the net; the product was intangible, distinct from any physical container. This also meant that sales could go from a “stock” to a “flow” and from a good to a service. Unhappily for music execs, the income from online delivery like streaming is a fraction of what is generated from downloads (or LP records of yore). The bigger they come, they harder they fall, one and all. See full article. Read more of this post

Why Apple can’t match Google’s all-seeing new smartwatches

Why Apple can’t match Google’s all-seeing new smartwatches
By Christopher Mims @mims an hour ago
Apple is a fantastic hardware company. And when the rumored iWatch (probably) arrives, it will no doubt be a thing of beauty. But there’s good reason to think that the key to a successful smartwatch won’t be its hardware, but its operating system. Read more of this post

In Just 2 Years, Google And Facebook Have Come To Control 75% Of All Mobile Advertising

http://www.statista.com/chart/2048/mobile-ad-revenue-2014/

In Just 2 Years, Google And Facebook Have Come To Control 75% Of All Mobile Advertising
JIM EDWARDS TECH MAR. 21, 2014, 5:29 AM
In the last two years, Facebook and Google have gone from a position of merely being two big, fast-growing players in mobile advertising to dominating it completely. Combined, they have cornered 75.2% of the entire mobile market in 2013, according to new data by eMarketer. Read more of this post

Why Android Wear Is the Beginning of the Wearable Devices Era

MARCH 21, 2014, 7:00 AM
Why Android Wear Is the Beginning of the Wearable Devices Era
By MOLLY WOOD
Any nascent technology needs a platform in order to be successful. This week, Google gave wearable devices that platform.
With the announcement of Android Wear, Google has officially kicked off the wearables era. The availability of an operating system for wearables will lead to an almost immediate boom in device development. Read more of this post

The failure to share Big Data threatens finance; Early warning system is beyond reach because countries do not trust each other

March 20, 2014 6:34 pm
The failure to share Big Data threatens finance
By Gillian Tett
Early warning system is beyond reach because countries do not trust each other
Once upon a time, the antics of US spies in cyber space was of interest only to other spooks and to internet geeks. No longer.
Last year Edward Snowden stirred political outrage with revelations that the US National Security Agency was spying on American citizens and European officials. Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, has created more furore by accusing the Central Intelligence Agency of snooping on Senate officials. Read more of this post

How Sony Learned That Product Features Don’t Matter; How Empathy and Evolution Worked Side-by-Side

HOW SONY LEARNED THAT PRODUCT FEATURES DON’T MATTER
SONY’S FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF BRAND AND STRATEGY DENISE LEE YOHN WRITES ABOUT HOW EMPATHY AND EVOLUTION WORKED SIDE-BY-SIDE AS THE COMPANY CHANGED WITH THE TIMES–AND WITH CONSUMER’S NEEDS.
BY DENISE LEE YOHN
By putting you in close contact with the private lives of your customers, empathic research helps you see your product through the eyes of someone with values, concerns, and emotional triggers that are different from your own. Read more of this post

Antivirus and security software provider Symantec Corp fired CEO Bennett, the second time it has sacked its top executive in less than two years, as the company struggles to revive growth amid eroding PC sales

Symantec fires CEO Bennett
6:44pm EDT
By Soham Chatterjee
(Reuters) – Antivirus and security software provider Symantec Corp fired Chief Executive Steve Bennett on Thursday, the second time it has sacked its top executive in less than two years, as the company struggles to revive growth amid eroding PC sales.
Shares of the company, known for its Norton antivirus software, fell 10 percent in extended trading. Read more of this post

With cars, drivers, Google revs up home delivery

With cars, drivers, Google revs up home delivery
5:20pm EDT
By Alexei Oreskovic
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – When Google started testing a free same-day shopping delivery service in San Francisco last year, industry observers were surprised by the company’s foray into a notoriously tricky and decidedly low-margin real-world business.
Others raised their eyebrows when orders of one or two items, such as toothpaste or a can of soda, sometimes arrived in a bag big enough to hold a week’s worth of groceries. Read more of this post

Milan taxi drivers march against Silicon Valley ride-app Uber

Milan taxi drivers march against Silicon Valley ride-app Uber
3:52pm EDT
By Naomi O’Leary and Isla Binnie
MILAN (Reuters) – Striking taxi drivers marched through Italy’s second city Milan on Thursday in protest against app-based ride service Uber, a Silicon Valley prodigy that has drawn furious opposition as it seeks to become a global force. Read more of this post

Airbnb doesn’t even own a bed, but its backers think it’s more valuable than Hyatt

Airbnb doesn’t even own a bed, but its backers think it’s more valuable than Hyatt
By John McDuling @jmcduling an hour ago
Airbnb, the website emblematic of the “sharing economy” that matches up travelers online with people looking to rent out rooms or entire homes, is close to securing fresh funding that would value the business at $10 billion, the Wall Street Journal (paywall) reported this morning. Read more of this post

Can the Bloomberg Terminal be “Toppled”?

Can the Bloomberg Terminal be “Toppled”?
MARCH 19, 2014 BY MATT TURCK 42 COMMENTS
In the eye of some entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, the Bloomberg terminal is a bit of an anomaly, perhaps even an anachronism. In the era of free information on the Internet and open source Big Data tools, here’s a business that makes billions every year charging its users to access data that it generally obtains from third parties, as well as the tools to analyze it. You’ll hear the occasional jab at its interface as reminiscent of the 1980s. And at a time of accelerating “unbundling” across many industries, including financial services, the Bloomberg terminal is the ultimate “bundling” play: one product, one price, which means that that the average user uses only a small percentage of the terminal’s 30,000+ functions. Yet, 320,000 people around the world pay about $20,000 a year to use it. Read more of this post

The Internet of Things hit the jackpot in 2013 with $1 billion investment haul

The Internet of Things hit the jackpot in 2013 with $1 billion investment haul
BY JAMES ROBINSON
ON MARCH 18, 2014
Breathless hype, meet $1 billion dollars.
Since Google bought Nest and its toys for $3.2 billion in January, followed by the CEO of Cisco publically declaring it as a $19 trillion industry and this year’s CES in Las Vegas featuring everything from connected toothbrushes to basketballs, the Internet of Things is having an extended and glorious moment in the hype-soaked sunlight. Read more of this post

12 reasons robots could be the next trillion-dollar business opportunity

12 reasons robots could be the next trillion-dollar business opportunity
By Christopher Mims @mims 6 hours ago
Recently I sat down with Dmitry Grishin, the billionaire co-founder of mail.ru and head of the world’s largest venture capital fund devoted solely to robots, Grishin Robotics. As you might expect from someone who has put $25 million into robotics startups, he’s bullish on the potential of robots (as he defines them) to become an area in which fortunes will be made in just the next few years.
Here are Grishin’s arguments for why now is the time for the consumer robot industry to take off (followed by the reasons he might be wrong).

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Why Quora is purposely flouting all the latest Web trends

Why Quora is purposely flouting all the latest Web trends
By Erin Griffith March 20, 2014: 10:35 AM ET
The five-year-old startup is taking the slow, steady approach to growth.
FORTUNE — Thanks to its high-profile founders and eye-popping $71 million in venture backing, Q&A site Quora has been a subject of fascination. After it was launched by early Facebook (FB) employees Charlie Cheever and Adam D’Angelo in 2010, the company’s every move was featured in just about every tech trade publication. That year, Quora was named Best New Startup at the industry Crunchie awards.

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In conversation with Jayshree Ullal, CEO of Arista Networks

An ex-Cisco exec reflects
By Adam Lashinsky, Sr. Editor at Large March 20, 2014: 10:55 AM ET
In conversation with Jayshree Ullal, CEO of Arista Networks.
FORTUNE — Jayshree Ullal made her career at networking leader Cisco Systems, before leaving in 2008 and shortly after that joining a new company started by Andy Bechtolsheim, a founder of Sun, and several others. In a recent interview, she discussed what she learned at Cisco—and how her new company, Arista Networks, competes against it. Below, her words as told toFortune’s Adam Lashinsky.

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Tango Messaging App Dances With Alibaba

MARCH 20, 2014, 12:00 AM Comment
Tango Messaging App Dances With Alibaba
By VINDU GOEL
Tango offers its users the ability to send free text, photo and video messages over their mobile phones.
Tango, a Silicon Valley start-up that makes a popular messaging app by the same name, is going to the senior prom — and its date is one of the hottest tech companies on the planet.

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IBM’s Big Hope for Fraud

MARCH 20, 2014, 12:01 AM 1 Comments
IBM’s Big Hope for Fraud
By QUENTIN HARDY
IBM is changing with the crimes. So are other companies, and their collective efforts could affect more than catching tax cheats.
On Thursday, IBM announced the creation of a fraud and financial crimes prevention business that combines big data analytics, business know-how and data visualization.

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From dumb iron to Big Data: Caterpillar’s dealer sales push

From dumb iron to Big Data: Caterpillar’s dealer sales push
7:12am EDT
By James B. Kelleher
(Reuters) – Caterpillar Inc has a long tradition of proudly – and publicly – proclaiming how much it loves its dealers.
In recent years, the Peoria, Illinois-based company has called the 178 independently owned businesses that distribute its earth-moving products worldwide everything from “a critical competitive differentiator” to “the foundation” of its success.
Now the world’s largest maker of construction and mining equipment is adopting a cooler tone with those dealers, asking them: “What have you done for us lately?”

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Don’t expect Malone the ‘cable cowboy’ to ride into the sunset; History suggests it would be unwise to write off Liberty Media

March 20, 2014 12:16 pm
Don’t expect Malone the ‘cable cowboy’ to ride into the sunset
By Matthew Garrahan
History suggests it would be unwise to write off Liberty Media
When Comcast delivered its surprise bid for Time Warner Cable last month, most observers assumed it would knock the so-called “cable cowboy”, John Malone, off his horse.

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For the Youngest Startups, No Billions; Valuations Soar for a Select Few, While Many Early-Stage Ventures Struggle

For the Youngest Startups, No Billions
Valuations Soar for a Select Few, While Many Early-Stage Ventures Struggle
ANGUS LOTEN, EMILY CHASAN and RUSS GARLAND
March 19, 2014 7:31 p.m. ET
Young companies thinking they might be worth billions may need a reality check.
Despite the hubbub over select startups such as WhatsApp, the mobile-messaging app bought by Facebook Inc. for $19 billion, first-round valuations for U.S. startups fell last year, data show, even as later-round valuations surpassed levels of the dot-com era.
Seed-round funding valuations—set as a business prepares to launch, or soon after—dropped nearly 30% in 2013 to nearly $2 million, from $2.7 million in 2012, and less than half of a $4.8 million high set in 2000, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. Likewise, first-round funding valuations fell 28% to $5 million, from $7 million in 2012, and $12 million in 2000.

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