How 3D printing could transform Amazon and online shopping

How 3D printing could transform Amazon and online shopping

BY DOMINIC BASULTO

March 13 at 8:29 am

Amazon’s recent decision to create an e-commerce storefront for 3D-printed productscould finally bring 3D printing to the mainstream, but not in the way you might think. Read more of this post

Why venture capitalists are suddenly investing in news; “Suddenly, the market for content just opened up.”

Why venture capitalists are suddenly investing in news

By Adrienne LaFrance March 12, 2014

Something curious is happening in the American news business.

Media organizations are hiring again. Promising young reporters are leaving stalwart publications for new newsrooms. And venture capitalists are pouring millions into nimble publishing startups. It’s a rare moment of optimism for an industry accustomed to doom and gloom. Read more of this post

If WhatsApp Is Worth $19B, Then WeChat’s Worth “At Least $60B” Says CLSA

If WhatsApp Is Worth $19B, Then WeChat’s Worth “At Least $60B” Says CLSA

Posted yesterday by Ingrid Lunden (@ingridlunden)

Heads turned when Facebook forked out $19 billion for messaging service WhatsApp in February, and eyes popped when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it was probably worth even more. Now, analysts over at Crédit Lyonnais Securities Asia have taken up the baton on outsized messaging app valuations: it says that WeChat, a Chinese competitor owned by Tencent, is worth “at least $60 billion,” because of the fact that it has more active revenues streams incorporated into its service than WhatsApp does. Read more of this post

The very unscientific tale of how Amazon first set the price of Prime

The very unscientific tale of how Amazon first set the price of Prime

By Zachary M. Seward @zseward 36 minutes ago

Amazon Prime, the company’s two-day shipping service, has cost $79 a year in the United States since it was first unveiled in 2005. Now that Amazon is hiking the price by $20, it’s worth revisiting how the original fee was chosen. Read more of this post

Beats Hopes to Serve Up Music in a Novel Subscription Way; Is the new music streaming service from Beats Electronics a worthy competitor to Spotify and Pandora?

Beats Hopes to Serve Up Music in a Novel Way

MARCH 12, 2014

Is the new music streaming service from Beats Electronics a worthy competitor to Spotify and Pandora? Molly Wood gives her verdict.

Molly Wood

THERE’S a new subscription music service in town, one that purports to know you and your music tastes better than you know them yourself. One that urges you to forget about what you think you like and surrender to a sea of playlists lovingly created by artists and celebrities far more brilliant and beautiful than you. Read more of this post

Silicon Valley’s Youth Problem; In start-up land, the young barely talk to the old (and vice versa). That makes for a lot of cool apps. But great technology? Not so much

Silicon Valley’s Youth Problem

In start-up land, the young barely talk to the old (and vice versa). That makes for a lot of cool apps. But great technology? Not so much.

By YIREN LUMARCH 12, 2014

The Cisco Meraki office in Mission Bay, San Francisco, is 40 paces from the water, and just as nice as Google’s. On a clear winter day in late December, I sat in one of its conference rooms with a company spokeswoman on my right and Sanjit Biswas on my left, peering out through floor-to-ceiling glass. On the other side: brightly patterned furniture, murals and paneled wood, a well-stocked cafeteria, a deck with spectacular views of the bay. Twelve months earlier, in a deal meant to bring fresh edge to Cisco, the networking behemoth bought Meraki from Biswas and two co-founders for $1.2 billion. Now they were making good on their promise — starting with the décor. Read more of this post

Technology research centres face entrepreneurial scrutiny

March 13, 2014 12:01 am

Technology research centres face entrepreneurial scrutiny

By Tanya Powley, Manufacturing Correspondent

The business secretary has asked a serial entrepreneur to examine government-backed technology centres that were launched in 2011 to solve the difficulty Britain has long had in commercialising scientific breakthroughs. Read more of this post

Candy Crush maker King Digital Entertainment was founded in Sweden but is headquartered in London and about to list in New York, as it tries to make the most of an intricate quilt of patent, tax and regulatory oversight

King’s Realm Spans Across Continents

Candy Crush Maker’s Global Footprint Helps It Navigate Web of Patent, Tax and Regulatory Issues

AMIR MIZROCH

March 12, 2014 1:56 p.m. ET

LONDON—It’s good to be King, but the road to the throne can be complicated.

Game maker King Digital Entertainment PLC is planning to start trading this month on the New York Stock Exchange—valuing itself Wednesday at as much as $7.6 billion after it set a price range for its initial public offering. Read more of this post

Revenue Gets Rich Price Tag in IPOs; Small Firms With Small Sales Seeing Lofty Valuations; Castlight Health Offering to Test Appetites

Revenue Gets Rich Price Tag in IPOs

Small Firms With Small Sales Seeing Lofty Valuations; Castlight Health Offering to Test Appetites

MATT JARZEMSKY And TELIS DEMOS

March 12, 2014 9:13 p.m. ET

The bull market for initial public offerings of small companies with scant sales is about to get a check-up. Read more of this post

Seven Ways to Profit from Big Data as a Business

Seven Ways to Profit from Big Data as a Business

by James Platt, Robert Souza, Enrique Checa, and Ravi Chabaldas

MARCH 05, 2014

Information is multiplying inside businesses at an exponential rate, generated by sensors, social media, transactions, smartphones, and other sources. Companies increasingly want to tap into the potential of these vast, fast-moving, complex streams of data to achieve step-change improvements in performance. But executives would be wise to consider whether the information they collect could do even more than boost performance. In fact, big data can generate billions of dollars in additional revenues that can go toward fueling growth. Read more of this post

Intel, Other Chip Makers Slow Shift to New Technology

Intel, Other Chip Makers Slow Shift to New Technology

DON CLARK

March 12, 2014 7:29 p.m. ET

Computer-chip makers and their suppliers have been laying the groundwork for one of their most sweeping technological advances in years. But some big players have developed jitters about the required investment, and appear to be hitting the brakes. Read more of this post

Candy Crush: The one-hit wonder worth billions?

Candy Crush: The one-hit wonder worth billions?

King makes 180 game titles but only one that really matters. The soon-to-be public company will need its big hit to avoid the rise-and-fall fate of social games.

by Jennifer Van Grove

March 12, 2014 5:12 PM PDT

If you’re one of the 97 million people who play Candy Crush Saga every day, consider yourself a sweet treat for King, the company behind the game, which finds itself ready to net around $326 million from the sale of shares in a public offering later this month. Read more of this post

Candy Crush Saga developer to make history when it floats on stock market; Games studio King Digital will be Britain’s most valuable publicly listed internet company after pricing New York IPO at $7.6bn

Candy Crush Saga developer to make history when it floats on stock market

Games studio King Digital will be Britain’s most valuable publicly listed internet company after pricing New York IPO at $7.6bn

Juliette Garside

theguardian.com, Wednesday 12 March 2014 15.28 GMT

An average of 144 million people were daily players of Candy Crush Saga and other King Digital games in February 2014.  Read more of this post

Manchester is nurturing tech entrepreneurs with big ambitions

Manchester is nurturing tech entrepreneurs with big ambitions

With numerous tech events taking place and plenty of entrepreneurial spirit, the city has many advantages for startups

Jon Card

Guardian Professional, Wednesday 12 March 2014 10.55 GMT

Mancunians are well known for singing their city’s praises. They will often tell you they love Manchester and can effortlessly provide you with a list of reasons why you should too. In recent years, a steady line of successful pop acts and triumphant football matches have done the city’s story no harm either. Manchester’s inherent chutzpah helped the city to combat its post-industrial malaise and brought major events, such as the 2002 Commonwealth Games to the city, gaining it a significant legacy infrastructure. A more recent campaign coup was to bring the BBC and the resulting Media City into nearby Salford. Read more of this post

Alibaba and the 40 cannibals; In the US, it took about five years for 10% of total customer funds (deposits plus MMFs) to be disintermediated by MMFs

Alibaba and the 40 cannibals

David Keohane | Mar 12 10:26 | Comment | Share

So. Alibaba’s Yu’e Bao and its internet Money Market Fund ilk are good, particularly if you are in favour of deposit liberalisation in China, say, in 1-2 years. As Lex said, Yu’e Bao is sneaking market-priced bank capital into a closed system. Read more of this post

Criticism of the Time Warner-Comcast merger seems weirdly oblivious to the revolution happening in the video marketplace

Now on Cable: That ’90s Show

Criticism of the Time Warner-Comcast merger seems weirdly oblivious to the revolution happening in the video marketplace.

HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.

March 11, 2014 6:56 p.m. ET

The medal for obtuseness goes to the outpouring of commentary since the Time Warner-Comcast merger. Every big deal gets its share, but good grief. Read more of this post

Who Needs to Know How to Code: As the ability to build websites and apps becomes more in demand, coding classes are filling up with kids, executives and job seekers

Who Needs to Know How to Code

To Build Websites and Apps, People Flock to Coding Classes

ANGELA CHEN

Updated March 12, 2014 12:52 a.m. ET

Learning to code is gaining popularity, from 10-year-olds taking private lessons to immersion coding “bootcamps” for adults trying to make a career change. Angela Chen takes a look at why coding is going mainstream. Photo: Brian Harkin for The Wall Street Journal. Read more of this post

The Malaysia Airlines Disappearance Shows Technology’s Limits; Radar, Satellites Are Powerful Tools but Still Have Limited Reach

The Malaysia Airlines Disappearance Shows Technology’s Limits

Radar, Satellites Are Powerful Tools but Still Have Limited Reach

DANIEL MICHAELS and JON OSTROWER

March 11, 2014 7:59 p.m. ET

In the past 65 years, 80 planes have taken off and vanished, according to the Aviation Safety Network. Harro Ranter, the organization’s president, names some of the most dangerous places to fly. Read more of this post

The next step for the Internet of Things: Less screen, more living

The next step for the Internet of Things: Less screen, more living

By Erin Griffith March 10, 2014: 10:03 AM ET

The Aether Cone is smarter than your average smart device.

FORTUNE — Duncan Lamb has a mission. He wants to put a dent in our smartphone addictions and allow us, the screen-obsessed people of the web, to look up from those devices a little more. As a former creative director of Nokia, that’s a slightly confusing mission. Read more of this post

Why Apple Should Fear Samsung’s New ‘Tizen’ Strategy; Samsung’s decision to use Tizen, a non-Android operating system, on its Gear line of smart watches has mostly been seen as a blow to Google

Why Apple Should Fear Samsung’s New ‘Tizen’ Strategy

JIM EDWARDS TECH  MAR. 11, 2014, 8:29 AM

Samsung’s decision to use Tizen, a non-Android operating system, on its Gear line of smart watches has mostly been seen as a blow to Google, Android’s developer. Read more of this post

App Tells You How You Feel: Beyond Verbal, other developers are using voice analysis to assess people’s emotions, enabling app users to have fun and companies to keep tabs on employees, screen job applicants

App Tells You How You Feel

Technology Lets Users Have Fun, Firms Keep Tabs on Employees, Applicants

AMIR MIZROCH

March 10, 2014 7:17 p.m. ET

TEL AVIV—Beyond Verbal Communications Ltd., a voice-recognition software developer here, is rolling out an app promising something Siri can’t yet deliver: a readout on how you’re feeling. Read more of this post

One-Hit Wonders: The creators of the mobile game Candy Crush Saga believe they have cracked the code of hooking consumers. But that’s unlikely

ONE-HIT WONDERS

BY JAMES SUROWIECKIMARCH 17, 2014

For more than a year now, tens of millions of Americans have found time each day to devote themselves to an essential task: swiping at their phones and tablets to arrange colorful candy icons in rows. They are playing Candy Crush Saga, a wildly addictive mobile game that has been downloaded more than half a billion times. You can play the game for free, but enough people have been willing to pay for extra lives and various performance-boosting tools to make it staggeringly profitable. Last year, Candy Crush’s maker, an Irish company called King Digital Entertainment, had almost two billion dollars in sales, five hundred and sixty-seven million dollars of which was pure profit. Last month, King filed for an initial public offering, which is expected to value the company at five billion dollars. Read more of this post

Google Has Destroyed Microsoft’s Business Model

Google Has Destroyed Microsoft’s Business Model

By Sam Mattera | More Articles
March 6, 2014 | Comments (22)

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT  ) has long been dependent on selling software — its business centered around charging licensing fees for the Windows operating system and the Office software suite. But thanks to Google (NASDAQ: GOOG  ) , those days are coming to an end. Read more of this post

How Secret May Uncover A New Secret To Mobile Growth

How Secret May Uncover A New Secret To Mobile Growth

Posted 22 hours ago by Semil Shah (@semil), Columnist

Editor’s Note: Semil Shah works on product for Swell, is a TechCrunch columnist, and an investor. He blogs at Haywire, and you can follow him on Twitter at @semil

Greetings from a rainy (but always fun) Austin, TX. As is the case leading up to every SXSW, many wonder what will be the breakout app. As someone who works in, invests in, and writes about mobile, the app that’s come up the most in conversation, offline and online, is no “secret.” It’s not too surprising given Secret launched publicly at the right time (a little over a month ago), received both critical acclaim for its design and ability to motivate people to create original content (it’s a very clever app) as well as criticism for the potential negativity and bullying which could take root inside the app (which are very valid concerns), and has updates key features at the right time — most recently adding location (nearby secrets) and the ability to share secrets to the web and, thereby, spread information to an even wider audience. Most recently, it’s been reported that Secret closed a larger round of funding. Read more of this post