US ‘Cable Cowboy’ John Malone begins succession planning

February 19, 2014 3:35 am

US ‘Cable Cowboy’ John Malone begins succession planning

By Matthew Garrahan in Los Angeles

John Malone, the US billionaire dubbed the “Cable Cowboy”, has begun planning his succession at Discovery Communications and Liberty Global by giving their chief executives right of first refusal if he decides to sell his stakes in the media companies. Read more of this post

Apple-Tesla merger rumour excites investors

Apple-Tesla merger rumour excites investors

PUBLISHED: 6 HOURS 37 MINUTES AGO | UPDATE: 0 HOUR 0 MINUTES AGO

Rumours of a possible acquisition by Apple and expectations for a strong fourth quarter drove shares of Tesla Motors to $US203.70 on Tuesday, a 3 per cent gain and a new closing high for the electric car company. Read more of this post

eBay and the declaration of PayPal’s dependence

eBay and the declaration of PayPal’s dependence

BY KEVIN KELLEHER 
ON FEBRUARY 18, 2014

If Carl Icahn has turned the simple tweet into a weapon in proxy fights, his chief adversary at eBay is returning fire with an older, still formidable weapon: the CEO news interview. John Donahoe has been making the rounds at newsrooms arguing against Icahn’s campaign to spin off PayPal. Read more of this post

Many Chinese firms part of wearable technology’s supply chain

Many Chinese firms part of wearable technology’s supply chain

Staff Reporter

2014-02-19

A total of 23 listed companies from China are involved in manufacturing parts of wearable devices and 19 of them or 82.6% belong to the upper and middle stream in the supply chain, in contrast to the leading foreign vendors who concentrate on manufacturing end-products. Read more of this post

What Your iPad Knows About You; Subscription e-reader services Scribd, Oyster and Entitle track your behavior to predict your next book

What Your iPad Knows About You

Subscription e-reader services Scribd, Oyster and Entitle track your behavior to predict your next book

ANGELA CHEN

Feb. 18, 2014 7:24 p.m. ET

You’ve finally finished the book your co-worker recommended, so what to read next?

If it is 5 a.m., chances are that you’re reaching for a romance novel—especially if you’re in Texas or Georgia. By early morning, thrillers might start to look more appealing. And if Philip K. Dick is your favorite author, books about beer are probably more up your alley than anything about wine or liquor. Read more of this post

How Apple is following in GE’s footsteps

How Apple is following in GE’s footsteps

BY DOMINIC BASULTO

February 18 at 7:55 am

In search of growth opportunities beyond just smartphones and tablets, it now appears that Apple is willing to venture far beyond the latest wearable consumer device — such as the iWatch — and experiment with opportunities in everything from medical devices to automobiles. The latest rumor making the rounds is that Apple has considered a hookup with Elon Musk and Tesla, which would give Apple immediate access to the market for electric vehicles and pave the way for renewed growth going forward. Read more of this post

Upsetting the app cart: Asian messaging services challenge mobile order

Upsetting the app cart: Asian messaging services challenge mobile order

4:38pm EST

By Jeremy Wagstaff

(Reuters) – Asian chat services KakaoTalk, LINE and WeChat threaten to overturn the mobile order of things, usurping the role of Google Inc, Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Facebook Inc and telecoms carriers as gatekeeper to the consumer.

Where these internet and telecoms giants once controlled the lucrative choke points of the industry, social messaging services are fast emerging as an alternative distribution channel for adverts, apps, and goods and services. Read more of this post

Apple looking at cars, medical devices for growth: report

Apple looking at cars, medical devices for growth: report

11:29am EST

(Reuters) – Apple Inc is looking at cars and medical devices to diversify its sources of revenue as growth from iPhones and iPads slow, according to a San Francisco Chronicle report. Read more of this post

Samsung Builds Retail Clout in Europe, North America

Samsung Builds Retail Clout in Europe, North America

South Korean Technology Giant Tries to Expand Presence in Two of Its Largest Markets

WILL CONNORS in Toronto and SAM SCHECHNER in Paris

Feb. 18, 2014 12:22 a.m. ET

Samsung Electronics Co. 005930.SE +0.78% became the world’s biggest smartphone maker largely without the help of its own retail stores.

Now, faced with a horde of cheap, new rivals and the prospect of slowing growth, it is trying to increase its clout among consumers by expanding its retail presence in two of its largest markets—Europe and North America. Read more of this post

‘Candy Crush Saga’ Maker Publicly Files its IPO; King Digital, Which Earned $567.6 Million in 2013, Seeks Multibillion-Dollar Valuation

‘Candy Crush Saga’ Maker Publicly Files its IPO

King Digital, Which Earned $567.6 Million in 2013, Seeks Multibillion-Dollar Valuation

SVEN GRUNDBERG, TELIS DEMOS and BEN FOX RUBIN

Updated Feb. 18, 2014 10:41 a.m. ET

King Digital Entertainment PLC, the maker of the popular “Candy Crush Saga” smartphone game, said Tuesday that it filed for an initial public offering of up to $500 million on the New York Stock Exchange. Read more of this post

Competition in China’s smartphone market, already the world’s largest, is getting white hot as sales of advanced phones are forecast to grow more than five times this year

Biggest market ready to explode

Feb 18,2014

Competition in China’s smartphone market, already the world’s largest, is getting white hot as sales of advanced phones are forecast to grow more than five times this year.
According to a report released by the U.S. market research company Strategy Analytics (SA), China’s LTE smartphone market in 2014 will grow 547 percent year-on-year to 135 million units. LTE smartphones will account for 36 percent of China’s total mobile phone market.
In December, LTE phones accounted for only 6 percent of sales.
Next year, sales of LTE smartphones in China will account for half of the market at 231 million units. By the end of 2018, LTE phones are expected to account for 80 percent of the market, with 360 million phones sold.  Read more of this post

Wireless charging is promising and has been promised for several years. But it is a mess of competing standards and technologies. Will this tangle of cords ever get unraveled?

FEBRUARY 17, 2014, 12:35 PM  9 Comments

Wireless Charging: Still Plenty of Kinks in the Cord

By MOLLY WOOD

As personal devices proliferate — smartphones, wearable fitness bands, Kindles, tablets, smart glasses — our charger collections are starting to look like the electrical outlet in the movie “A Christmas Story.”

Wireless charging to the rescue? Not quite. The concept has been caught in a slow-moving standards war. Read more of this post

Television: More power to the cord; Comcast’s bid for Time Warner Cable is raising consumer concerns over broadband pricing

February 17, 2014 6:57 pm

Television: More power to the cord

By Emily Steel

Comcast’s bid for Time Warner Cable is raising consumer concerns over broadband pricing

Marshall Maher is wreaking havoc on the media business. The 38-year-old Manhattan marketing executive is an avid television watcher. He is a fan of theNetflix original political drama House of Cards, keeps up with the HBO series True Detective and calls Sunday Morning, the weekly news programme on broadcaster CBS, “like church for me.” Read more of this post

This Math Formula Shows Why the Comcast-Time Warner Cable Deal Should Be Blocked

2/13/2014 at 10:59 PM

This Math Formula Shows Why the Comcast—Time Warner Cable Deal Should Be Blocked

By Kevin Roose

Late last night, CNBC’s David Faber broke the news that Comcast had made a bid to acquire Time Warner Cable for $159 per share, or about $45 billion. TV watchers everywhere sighed, assuming that combining the biggest and second-biggest cable companies in America to create a single conglomerate would only make their already-bad customer experiences even worse. Read more of this post

Lush versus Amazon: a big foe can unite teams

February 17, 2014 4:13 pm

Lush versus Amazon: a big foe can unite teams

By Andrew Hill

The possibility that a senior Amazon executive may find his name on a range of “non-medicated toilet preparations” has considerably brightened my week. Not that I have anything against Amazon. But Lush, the British handmade cosmetics company, does.

It has just won a London court case against the US-based internet group’s UK and Luxembourg arms for using the word “lush” to direct search engine users to cosmetics on its site, even though Amazon does not sell Lush products in Britain. Read more of this post

Stratechery: Microsoft Vs Microsoft

MICROSOFT V MICROSOFT

Friday, February 14, 2014

Stratechery

In his first column for the New York Times, Farhad Manjoo advocated relying on Apple, Google, and Amazon:

When you decide what to use, you’ve got to play every tech giant against the other, to make every tech decision as if you were a cad — sample every firm’s best features and never overcommit to any one.

I rather agree with and follow Manjoo’s advice, and my reasoning is all about the incentives that arise from Apple, Google, and Amazon’s business models: Read more of this post

Google Thinks It Can Replace Passwords With Inaudible Sounds Only Your Phone Can Hear

Google Thinks It Can Replace Passwords With Inaudible Sounds Only Your Phone Can Hear

JIM EDWARDS TECH  FEB. 17, 2014, 8:24 AM

Google has acquired SlickLogin, an Israeli startup that has developed an ingenious solution to the pain-in-the-butt that is “two-factor authentication” (when you have topunch in your password and a code from a text message

on your phone to access a web site or app).

The company lets your phone “listen” to a web site, and the confirmation of the unique inaudible sound confirms it’s you trying to get access, not a hacker in a remote location. Read more of this post

Will the Internet of Things make us slaves to our lesser natures?

Will the Internet of Things make us slaves to our lesser natures?

BY JAMES ROBINSON 
ON FEBRUARY 17, 2014

As we get further into the “year of the Internet of Things,” breathless announcements of still mostly hypothetical products in development are coming thick and fast.

Today, Philips announced that in Düsseldorf, Germany it is piloting a “connected retail lighting system” in a single physical location. The rub of it is this: the lights in the store have built in beacons, a potential shopper can open up the store’s app and see a map of the store, tracking their location in real time and getting directions toward their planned purchase. Read more of this post

2014 a good year for wearable tech: institute

2014 a good year for wearable tech: institute

By John Liu, The China Post
February 18, 2014, 12:19 am TWN

TAIPEI, Taiwan — As demand for PCs and notebooks dwindles and the growth potential of smartphones and tablets is expected to decline, wearable devices such as smart watches and bracelets are expected to take the market in 2014, a local research institute said yesterday.

The Industrial Economics and Knowledge Research Center (IEK) under the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) held a press conference yesterday to explore critical issues in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry today. Read more of this post

Data pioneers watching us work; Employers are tracking what their staff do in ever greater detail

February 17, 2014 6:18 pm

Data pioneers watching us work

By Hannah Kuchler

In a back street in San Francisco’s start-up dominated SoMa district, a rapidly growing business is busy studying how millions of employees behave each day. Its computers know in real time why a worker was hired, how productive they are and can even follow them as they move to a new job.

Evolv is a leader in the nascent Quantified Workplace movement, where big data analytics companies are springing up to measure how we work. “Every week we figure out more things to track,” says Max Simkoff, Evolv’s co-founder and chief executive, who claims it can help improve productivity by at least 5 per cent in two-thirds of jobs. Read more of this post

MediaTek announces short-form merger with Ralink

MediaTek announces short-form merger with Ralink

By Ted Chen, The China post
February 18, 2014, 12:19 am TWN

TAIPEI, Taiwan — MediaTek (MTK, 聯發科) yesterday announced that its board of directors has approved an initiative to acquire Ralink (雷凌科技) via a short-form merger.

Also referred to as a parent-subsidiary merger, the short-form merger may be utilized by a parent company to acquire its subsidiary. The process does not require approval of the shareholders of the subsidiary. Read more of this post

LED lighting systems that can observe people and gather data are being introduced worldwide, but some experts say there is potential for misuse.

At Newark Airport, the Lights Are On, and They’re Watching You

By DIANE CARDWELLFEB. 17, 2014

Hugh Martin, chief executive of Sensity Systems, says “there is a lot of value, I think, if we do it right, to this information.” This LED-based light fixture can gather and transmit data for automated analysis.

Visitors to Terminal B at Newark Liberty International Airport may notice the bright, clean lighting that now blankets the cavernous interior, courtesy of 171 recently installed LED fixtures. But they probably will not realize that the light fixtures are the backbone of a system that is watching them. Read more of this post

In one of the largest-ever lay-off drive among global technology companies, IBM is said to have started cutting 15,000 jobs globally, with first casualties in India

Big blues at IBM India

Layoffs are likely to spread to all IBM units globally. 2,000 may lose job in India, 15,000 lay-offs worldwide.

Sufia Tippu

2/17/2014 00:00 AM EST

BANGALORE — In one of the largest-ever lay-off drive among global technology companies, IBM is said to have started cutting jobs globally on Wednesday, with first casualties in India.

Wral TechWire, a tech-related website, quoted IBM staffers in Bangalore as saying that “people broke down after seeing the inhuman treatment. Laptops along with the cases were confiscated, so several employees were seen crying and exiting building carrying and balancing their personal belongings with their two hands.” Unofficial estimates put the sacking number at around 1,000 in Bangalore alone.

Poor fourth-quarter results reported last month, marked by a 26 percent slump in hardware revenue, is suspected to be the main cause of layoffs. Worldwide, IBM employs 430,000 people and reports say some 13,000 jobs are likely to be cut as the tech major performs a “global rebalancing” act, termed “resource action” or RA, that could save about $1 billion in costs.

Bloodbath at STG Bangalore
Already, at one centre in Bangalore, IBM has asked about 40 people at its Systems Technology Group (STG) to leave, one person at the company told The Economic Times (ET). STG is often referred to as IBM’s hardware division, according to the company’s website.

According to the report, a person in Bangalore said on condition of anonymity that they were asked to surrender their official laptops and leave. “They were told STG business has been suffering financial woes. Employees across IBM India are extremely disgruntled. Several middle level executives have put in their papers in the last few weeks,” the person added.

“STG Bangalore literally turned into a slaughter house today,” Lee Conrad, national coordinator for Alliance@IBM, a union-backed workers group to The Economic Times in an email. “Several employees were called to a meeting and RA’d… and they were asked to vacate premises immediately. Severance package was on an average three months basic component of salary, which is like six weeks full pay,” Conrad said.

RA refers to ‘resource action’ that IBM’s managers at various units were asked to prepare for, ahead of the job cuts, according to media reports in the US. “People broke down after seeing the inhuman treatment. Laptops along with the cases were confiscated, so several employees were seen crying and exiting building carrying and balancing their personal belongings with their two hands,” according to the email.

According to the union, job cuts in the Systems and Technology Group are happening because of a drop in profits and IBM’s drive for $20 (Rs 1,240) earnings per share. IBM has set itself this earnings target by 2015, but analysts have questioned if this is achievable, especially after the company’s latest results.

Although IBM has not confirmed the layoffs sources confirmed that hundreds of IBM staffers at its Bangalore office were asked to leave suddenly. Some of them, it is said, were given just a couple of hours notice and asked to leave behind their laptops and vacate the premises pronto, said the DNA newspaper.

IBM’s poor results lead to lay-offs 
Last month IBM had agreed to sell its low-end server business for $2.3 billion to Lenovo, which had already bought company’s PC business. At STG, “even people with very high rating were asked to leave. Two weeks ago they were told there would be no salary hikes this year,” the report added.

IBM reported a 5 percent drop in revenue in the December quarter versus the year-earlier period and analysts attribute a slightly higher-than-expected earnings per share for the quarter to measures including share buybacks and not growth in business. “We are hearing up to 15,000 cuts worldwide in the first quarter. We expect job cuts in the US February 26.” Conrad said.

In India,  IBM has a  head count of over 130,000, its largest presence outside the US.

Chief financial officer Martin Schroeter told analysts in a conference call last month after the company reported its fourth quarterly decline in sales that the hardware business, which sells mainframes, servers, storage and related gear, was facing difficulties and would see job cuts.

Currently the talk among recruitment experts is that IBM may be targeting up to 2,000 job cuts in India though nobody is confirming this figure yet.

Cuts take place worldwide
The restructuring process, which would see as many as 15,000 jobs being cut globally, including India, Brazil, and the European region.

“The estimate of jobs cut globally is 15,000,” international coordinator at the Alliance@IBM (official IBM employees union) Lee Conrad told an Indian news agency, PTI.

Similar cuts are happening in Brazil, according to WRAL Techwirewhich reported that  an IBMer reached out directly to  the website after reading reports about layoffs in India.

The same thing is happening in Brazil and the story needs to be told, the worker said.

“So far the numbers are close to 450 this time,” the worker who asked not to be identified said. Major cuts also were made in Brazil last year as part of a work force reduction.

Alliance@IBM, which is seeking to unionize North American workers, said Thursday afternoon that some 1,500 layoffs are expected in Brazil.

Lee Conrad, who heads up Alliance@IBM and is a retired IBM worker, had predicted earlier this week that layoffs would start in Europe as soon as the company, unions and governments were able to strike agreements. Unlike the U.S., he said, many EU countries are very strict when allowing corporate cuts.

On the Alliance@IBM website Thursday, posts noted possible layoffs in the works in Australia and Germany,

The tech website stated that the latest “rebalancing” of Big Blue is heading west, with the first reports of job losses in the U.S. coming from New York. There, a “few”contractors have been “walked out.”

Speculation has been that layoffs in the U.S. would begin either Feb. 19 or Feb. 26.

“Reports from Europe and South America are also coming in. In Europe, due to union contracts, the targeted cuts must be negotiated,” Alliance noted in an update. “Some cuts will be voluntary.”

The layoff count as off Thursday evening as compiled by the Alliancebased on reports from workers and affiliated unions in Europe:

Belgium, 105

Argentina, 600

Brazil, 1500

Netherlands, 240

Norway, 35

France, 480

Italy, 430

Interestingly, the reductions in Italy include 60 workers who sources there say are “being moved out to Lenovo.”

Lenovo is in the process of buying IBM’s x86 server business, which is part of the STG group. About 2,000 IBMers in Research Triangle Park are expected to be transferred to Lenovo, which operates its executive headquarters in Morrisville. The total is around 7,500 worldwide.

If IBM cuts follow a similar plan as implemented in 2013, some 13,000 layoffs across its workforce of more than 434,000 are expected. That 2013 plan led to hundreds of layoffs in North Carolina and about 3,500 across North America, based on documents and sources. IBM still employs about 9,500 people across North Carolina.

Lay-offs could be done sensibly
Globally, other tech firms like Intel and Texas Instruments are reported to be laying off 5,000 and 1, 100 employees respectively.

Even in India, there is speculation that iconic IT firms may well lay off up to 2,500 staff each during the January-March quarter.

“Sacking, though a tough choice should be done when needed but sensibly and not in such a inhuman manner. We know that companies have to do it, across the world and even in the US, there were so many lay-offs during recession.,” says an IBMer on condition of anonymity.

“Hundreds of us have left our cities  and made Bangalore our home because we were employed by IBM here. IBM was such a well-reputed company and we were so proud to work here. There are several premises where IBM operates in and each has become a landmark in the city. Tell  an auto rickshaw driver  that some address is near the IBM building in say, Bannerghata or Hebbal, he takes us unerringly to the correct address. Our parents are also  so shocked at this turn of events” said another young IBMer, who came from Kolkatta.

Real estate business has been booming because of the IT population in Bangalore where many of them have bought apartments on housing loans. “ Banks would immediately sanction loans when we say we work for IBM. Now, the question is how are we going to pay the monthly installments without a job?” laments another IBMer who used to for work with the STG group.

In India, Bangalore is a key centre for IBM with major office blocks in Manyata Embassy Business Park in Hebbal and Embassy Golf Links near Domlur and Bannerghata which are sprawling campuses employing thousands of engineers.

IBM’s response 
When contacted by PTI, an IBM India spokesperson said, “As reported in our recent earnings briefing, IBM continues to rebalance its workforce to meet the changing requirements of its clients and to pioneer new, high value segments of the IT industry.” Read more of this post

Tencent to Buy 20% Stake in China’s Largest Restaurant Review Site Dianping for $20M to cultivate China’s online-to-offline (O2O) market

Tencent to Buy China’s Largest Restaurant Review Site: Reports

02-17 11:25 Caijing

The deal which will reportedly cost $4million signals the Internet giant’s ambition to cultivate China’s online-to-offline (O2O) market.

China’s leading Internet company Tencent Holdings Ltd. is planning to buy a 20-percent stake in Dianping, a Yelp-like Chinese restaurant review site, Chinese media reported.

The deal which will reportedly cost $4million signals the Internet giant’s ambition to cultivate China’s online-to-offline (O2O) market. Read more of this post

Alibaba opens ecommerce door for Chinese villagers

February 16, 2014 1:16 pm

Alibaba opens ecommerce door for Chinese villagers

By Ben Marino in Donggaozhuang

More video

The posters plastered on walls in the isolated village of Donggaozhuang, in China’s northeastern Hebei province, do not extol the usual communist ideals of social harmony or party loyalty.

Instead, they promise to reveal the secret to becoming an ecommerce millionaire and to help the town’s residents “reach your dreams of fortune”. Read more of this post

Disruptions: Using Addictive Games to Build Better Brains

FEBRUARY 16, 2014, 11:00 AM  9 Comments

Disruptions: Using Addictive Games to Build Better Brains

By NICK BILTON

First it was Doodle Jump. Then Dots. And now — will it never end? — Flappy Bird.

So many of the games that we download on our smartphones are a waste of time, but we can’t seem to stop playing them. My current high score on the late, lamented Flappy Bird is three. After weeks of tap-tap-tapping to keep that stupid little bird flying. Three. Read more of this post

With the Time Warner Cable deal, Comcast would not only lock up 30 percent of the cable market, but pricing leverage in all directions – with customers, networks and over-the-web providers like Netflix.

Stealthily, Comcast Fortifies Its Arsenal

FEB. 16, 2014

David Carr

Big media companies are generally warships, bristling with firepower and declaring their might long before they attack. But Comcast, which is headed toward being one of the biggest of them all, is much more like a submarine, silently running beneath the waves and making its presence known only when it is too late for its targets. Read more of this post

Qualcomm executive Peggy Johnson says the company’s strength is pioneering technology but big challenges lie ahead

Chip giant plans what to eat first

Qualcomm executive Peggy Johnson says the company’s strength is pioneering technology but big challenges lie ahead

Qualcomm itself employs only 12,000 in a city of 1.3 million, and the wireless technology cluster that has grown up around it, including Nokia and Samsung offices, about 70,000.

By Christopher Williams, in San Diego

9:43PM GMT 16 Feb 2014

San Diego is a company city, in a very modern sense. The Southern Californian city’s economy is dominated by two very different expressions of American power: the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet and Qualcomm, one of the most important companies in the mobile industry. Read more of this post

Samsung Looks to Software and Services

Samsung Looks to Software and Services

Executive Vice President David Eun discusses working with developers and future innovation in hardware.

JONATHAN CHENG

Updated Feb. 16, 2014 11:41 a.m. ET

Samsung Electronics Co. 005930.SE -0.54% attained its dominance in technology by mastering hardware and creating a full slate of smartphones and televisions that now outsell all global competitors.

But to stay on top and differentiate its products from those of increasingly aggressive Chinese competitors, Samsung will have to rely more on software and services to drive sales and profits. Part of that effort is taking place in Silicon Valley, where Samsung is developing its own software and partnering with third-party developers. Read more of this post