Sony to Add Original TV Shows for PlayStation

Sony to Add Original TV Shows for PlayStation
Move Is Part of Effort to Broaden Console’s Appeal Beyond Videogames
AMOL SHARMA
March 19, 2014 7:23 p.m. ET
Sony Corp. 6758.TO +1.50% is venturing into original TV programming for its PlayStation as part of an ambitious effort to make the device a home for TV and not just videogames.
The electronics and entertainment giant plans to offer original series through the gaming console, on top of an online pay-TV service it plans for users of the device.

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FedEx Takes Sloppy E-Tailers to Task

FedEx Takes Sloppy E-Tailers to Task
Snowstorms Hurt Earnings, but E-Commerce Firms Need to Shape Up, CEO Says
LAURA STEVENS and SERENA NG
Updated March 19, 2014 6:46 p.m. ET
Around 2.4% of FedEx’s five million tracked packages in the first two months of the year were disrupted.Getty Images
FedEx Corp. FDX -1.71% Chief Executive Fred Smith took a tough line with e-commerce companies on Wednesday, saying they need to shape up sloppy shipping practices or risk losing customers.

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A month after Fitbit issued a recall of its fitness-tracking bracelet following complaints of blisters and rashes, the startup now faces its first lawsuit

Mar 19, 2014
Fitbit Now Faces a Class-Action Suit in Rash Fallout
KATHERINE ROSMAN
A month after Fitbit issued a recall of its fitness-tracking bracelet following complaints of blisters and rashes, the startup now faces its first lawsuit.
The suit, filed on Monday in the Superior Court of California in the County of San Diego, is seeking class-action status and alleges the company misled consumers in promoting and advertising the Fitbit Force device.

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Airbnb In Advanced Talks to Raise Funding at a $10 Billion Valuation

Airbnb In Advanced Talks to Raise Funding at a $10 Billion Valuation
Private-Equity Firm TPG Likely to Lead Funding Round for the Online Home-Rental Marketplace
EVELYN M. RUSLI and DOUGLAS MACMILLAN
Updated March 20, 2014 9:21 a.m. ET
Airbnb Inc. is in advanced talks to raise funds that would value the online home-rental marketplace at more than $10 billion and place it among the world’s most valuable startups, according to several people familiar with the process.

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Short Sellers’ New Favorite Platform: Twitter; Hedge fund managers are increasingly tweeting their research and their sharp-edged attacks in a medium that was made for stirring up trouble

Short Sellers’ New Favorite Platform: Twitter
Hedge fund managers are increasingly tweeting their research and their sharp-edged attacks betting that a company’s stock will fall instead of rise, in a medium that was made for stirring up trouble.
posted on March 18, 2014 at 11:25am EDT
Mariah SummersBuzzFeed Staff
MuddyWatersResearch@muddywatersreFollow
$NQ – Net revenue comment is BS. Business Tax makes clear that YDT’s gross rev (before paying customers) is far too low.
9:05 AM – 25 Oct 13

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Books are losing the war for our attention. Here’s how they could fight back

Books are losing the war for our attention. Here’s how they could fight back.
By Matt McFarland, Updated: March 19 at 9:13 am
Technology has reshaped everything from how we communicate to how we find a mate or a job. Yet the experience of reading books remains largely untransformed, and the popularity of books has suffered in the face of flashier media formats that are perfected for our busy world.

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China’s “Minsky Moment” Is Here, Morgan Stanley Finds; It is the point at which Ponzi and speculative borrowers are no longer able to roll over their debts or borrow additional capital to make interest payments

China’s “Minsky Moment” Is Here, Morgan Stanley Finds
Tyler Durden on 03/19/2014 12:06 -0400
From Morgan Stanley’s Cyril Moulle-Berteaux and Sergei Parmenov, who pick up where our simple chart showing China’s “debt nightmare” left off.
We have described in detail over the past two years how we believe China’s twin excesses (excessive investment funded by excessive debt) will inevitably unwind, causing a substantial slowdown in China’s economy, significantly below market expectations. In recent weeks, a trip to the region and further research into China’s shadow banking system have convinced us that China is approaching its “Minsky Moment,” (Display 1) which increases the chances of a disorderly unwind of China’s excesses. The efficiency with which credit generates economic activity is already deteriorating, as more investments are made in non-productive projects and more debt is being used to repay old debts.

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Vuclip’s Nickhil Jakatdar: Bringing ‘Must-have’ Mobile Video to Emerging Markets

Vuclip’s Nickhil Jakatdar: Bringing ‘Must-have’ Mobile Video to Emerging Markets
Mar 13, 2014
Nickhil Jakatdar is a U.S.-based serial entrepreneur. With his most recent venture, Vuclip, which streams video on mobile phones, Jakatdar is focusing on emerging markets like India where he sees huge potential. What makes Vuclip stand apart from similar services is technology that optimizes video in real time, Jakatdar says.

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Chasing quality over clicks: An optimistic look at the future of journalism

Chasing quality over clicks: An optimistic look at the future of journalism
BY DAVID HOLMES
ON MARCH 19, 2014
In a revealing post called “Confessions of an ex-tech journalist,” Bekah Grant, who used to write forVentureBeat, airs a number of grievances about being a tech journalist: In short, she wrote up to five stories a day, often with no time to research or call sources, all while being constantly hounded by PR pitches.

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In a few years’ time, every smartphone and laptop computer in the world will have eye-tracking technology if an innovative Swedish firm has its way

Tobii Leads With Eye-Tracking
By Vanesha Manuturi on 06:59 pm Mar 19, 2014
Stockholm. In a few years’ time, every smartphone and laptop computer in the world will have eye-tracking technology if an innovative Swedish firm has its way.

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Here’s an amazing app for learning music

Here’s an amazing app for learning music
By Alexis C. Madrigal, The Atlantic 3 hours ago
All musical notation is a kind of compression, which is to say a compromise between ease of transmission and depth of reception.
The notes on a score tell you a lot about a song, but not everything. The same goes for guitar tabs, which tell you where to put your fingers, not what the notes are.

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Online fashion retailer Asos suffers growing pains as costs rise

March 18, 2014 6:58 pm
Asos suffers growing pains as costs rise
By Duncan Robinson
On Thursday night, Asos chief executive Nick Robertson stood in front of the retail world’s glitterati and accepted a gong for retail leader of the year at a black-tie do in a swanky hotel on Park Lane.

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Google Unveils Software for Smartwatches-to-Be

MARCH 18, 2014, 12:30 PM 17 Comments
Google Unveils Software for Smartwatches-to-Be
By BRIAN X. CHEN
The interface of Android Wear, a version of Google’s mobile operating system for wearable devices, was designed to be “glanceable,” said Alex Faaborg, an Android designer, in a video promoting the software system.
Google is taking its fight with Apple to the wristwatch.

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Can Sonos Become Google for the Music You Love?

Can Sonos Become Google for the Music You Love?
First look at the wireless home audio system’s new universal music search
GEOFFREY A. FOWLER
Updated March 18, 2014 5:35 p.m. ET
Personal Tech Columnist Geoffrey Fowler got a first look at the new interface for Sonos, the popular multiroom wireless speaker system. The key feature: Universal search, that lets you find your music across multiple services like Spotify and Pandora.

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America’s Internet Surrender: By unilaterally retreating from online oversight, the White House pleased regimes that want to control the Web

America’s Internet Surrender
By unilaterally retreating from online oversight, the White House pleased regimes that want to control the Web.
L. GORDON CROVITZ
March 18, 2014 6:56 p.m. ET
The Internet is often described as a miracle of self-regulation, which is almost true. The exception is that the United States government has had ultimate control from the beginning. Washington has used this oversight only to ensure that the Internet runs efficiently and openly, without political pressure from any country.

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America’s Internet Surrender: By unilaterally retreating from online oversight, the White House pleased regimes that want to control the Web.

America’s Internet Surrender
By unilaterally retreating from online oversight, the White House pleased regimes that want to control the Web.
L. GORDON CROVITZ
March 18, 2014 6:56 p.m. ET
The Internet is often described as a miracle of self-regulation, which is almost true. The exception is that the United States government has had ultimate control from the beginning. Washington has used this oversight only to ensure that the Internet runs efficiently and openly, without political pressure from any country.

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Microsoft shares flirt with dotcom-boom levels on iPad app report

Microsoft shares flirt with dotcom-boom levels on iPad app report
4:41pm EDT
By Soham Chatterjee
(Reuters) – Microsoft Corp’s shares scaled levels last seen in the dotcom boom following reports that the company plans to unveil an iPad version of its Office software suite, potentially generating billions of dollars in revenue.

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Google takes consumers’ wrists to next frontier with Android watch

Google takes consumers’ wrists to next frontier with Android watch
7:54pm EDT
By Alexei Oreskovic
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Voice-controlled smartwatches that track heart rates and connect to phones and tablets will debut later this year as Google Inc partners with electronics, technology and fashion companies to take consumers to the next promised frontier in computing.

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Apps aid fashionistas in tracking down desired clothing, shoes

Apps aid fashionistas in tracking down desired clothing, shoes
Mon, Mar 17 2014
By Natasha Baker
TORONTO (Reuters) – Fashionistas envious of clothing, shoes and accessories worn by strangers or seen on websites can turn to new apps for hassle-free shopping to find, and buy or rent, similar items.

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Why Google Doesn’t Have a Research Lab; Google manages to invest in fundamental research without having a traditional lab in which to do it

Why Google Doesn’t Have a Research Lab
Google manages to invest in fundamental research without having a traditional lab in which to do it.

By Tom Simonite on March 18, 2014
Research vice presidents at some computing giants, such as Microsoft and IBM, rule over divisions housed in dedicated facilities carefully insulated from the rat race of the main businesses. In contrast, Google’s research boss, Alfred Spector, has a small core team and no department or building to call his own. He spends most of his time roaming the open plan, novelty strewn offices of Google’s product divisions, where the vast majority of its fundamental research takes place.

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Amazon’s Set Top Box Will Be A Dongle Like Chromecast, Could Feature OnLive-Style Streaming

Amazon’s Set Top Box Will Be A Dongle Like Chromecast, Could Feature OnLive-Style Streaming

Posted 15 hours ago by Darrell Etherington (@drizzled)

Amazon is readying a game console/set top box of its own, and we’ve learned from multiple sources familiar with the device that the Lab126-produced gadget will have a form factor similar to the Chromecast, or in other words it’ll be a stick or dongle as opposed to something like the Apple TV. In addition, one source claims it should have support for streaming full PC game titles, and as such might be able to compete with consoles including the Xbox and PlayStation, instead of just Android-powered living room game devices. Read more of this post