Netflix holds winning hand as web pioneers try to transform television; The firm that began as a DVD rental service is now producing dramas, and is poised to exploit the online media revolution

Netflix holds winning hand as web pioneers try to transform television

The firm that began as a DVD rental service is now producing dramas, and is poised to exploit the online media revolution

Dominic Rushe in New York

The Observer, Sunday 16 February 2014

Netflix is in with a chance of breaking the internet this weekend. The hugely popular movie streaming company released the second season of the award-winning drama House of Cards on Friday, just as winter storms turned large swaths of America into a nation of stay-at-homes – a combination bound to test the US’s creaky broadband infrastructure to its limits. Read more of this post

Intel’s Sharp-Eyed Social Scientist; Genevieve Bell, an anthropologist at Intel who leads a globe-trotting team, is trying to learn what consumers want most in their future electronics

Intel’s Sharp-Eyed Social Scientist

By NATASHA SINGERFEB. 15, 2014

Genevieve Bell, as a cultural anthropologist at Intel Labs, runs a team of about 100 researchers. The team studies how consumers interact with electronics and develops new technology experiences for them.  Behind the gray, noise-absorbing cubicle walls at the Intel Corporation in Hillsboro, Ore., researchers who forecast the future of computing can sense her arrival. Read more of this post

Comcast vs. the Cord Cutters

Comcast vs. the Cord Cutters

By FARHAD MANJOOFEB. 15, 2014

The typical American household pays about $90 a month for cable television service, according to the NPD Group, the market research firm. But according to the research firm of You and Pretty Much Everyone You Know, when you click on your TV and browse the guide, what you often find hardly seems worth $90 a month. Read more of this post

It Takes Teams to Solve the Data Scientist Shortage

February 14, 2014, 3:27 PM ET

It Takes Teams to Solve the Data Scientist Shortage

By Jeanne G. Harris, Nathan Shetterley, Allan E. Alter and Krista Schnell

If you are looking for data scientists to take your company to Big Data nirvana, we have news for you. Unless you run a hotshot Silicon Valley company, chances are enough of them aren’t going to walk through your door. There’s a more realistic approach for the rest: divide up the job and conquer. Read more of this post

Lexmark CFO: Reinventing a Company

February 14, 2014, 12:14 AM ET

Lexmark CFO: Reinventing a Company

The invention of the iPhone and iPad meant the decline, and eventual sale, of the consumer inkjet printing business for Lexmark International Inc. Over the past three years, Chief Financial Officer John Gamble has played a key role in reinventing the Lexington, Ky.-based company through strategic acquisitions and divestitures.  He spoke with CFO Journal Editor Noelle Knox about Lexmark’s transition into a solution, services and software company. Read more of this post

Some Unease in Tech Circles About Comcast Deal

Feb 13, 2014

Some Unease in Tech Circles About Comcast Deal

SHIRA OVIDE

Most big Silicon Valley companiesremained mum after the Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal was announced, despite the fact that many of them rely oncable companies and others to deliver broadband service to homes. But some venture capitalists and other high-tech executives weighed in. Read more of this post

Uber Car-Hailing App Expands in China’s Congested Market

Uber Car-Hailing App Expands in China’s Congested Market

San Francisco Company Takes on Alibaba, Tencent

COLUM MURPHY in Shanghai and PAUL MOZUR in Beijing

Updated Feb. 13, 2014 11:34 a.m. ET

Uber, the car-hailing app that is growing fast in New York and London, outlined ambitions to serve China’s legions of potential passengers. Read more of this post

Comcast Eyes Netflix Territory; Cable Provider Seeks Rights to ‘Despicable Me 2,’ to Show Free to Subscribers

Comcast Eyes Netflix Territory

Cable Provider Seeks Rights to ‘Despicable Me 2,’ to Show Free to Subscribers

BEN FRITZ

Updated Feb. 12, 2014 6:26 p.m. ET

Comcast Corp. CMCSA +0.44% is looking to edge in on Netflix Inc. NFLX -1.17% ‘s territory—with the help of its own movie studio.

The cable giant is in talks to acquire the pay-television rights to “Despicable Me 2,” a film produced by Comcast’s Universal Pictures, in a deal that appears to mark the first entrance of a cable provider into that business. Read more of this post

How big data lets us see a little further into the unknown; Small changes can lead to bigger changes in outcomes. And then there is the human factor

February 11, 2014 6:36 pm

How big data lets us see a little further into the unknown

By John Kay

Small changes can lead to bigger changes in outcomes. And then there is the human factor

It is Monday, and it is raining again in thesouth of France. But it was sunny yesterday. And it was also dry last Wednesday, although it then rained almost continuously from Thursday through to Saturday. Read more of this post

Sqrl, an information-gathering and communication tool created by accountants, announced that its platform is now open to users, and that it has raised $550,000 in seed money

Accountants Launch Sqrl, Raise Seed Money

CINCINNATI (FEBRUARY 10, 2014)

BY DANIEL HOOD

Sqrl, an information-gathering and communication tool created by accountants, announced that its platform is now open to users, and that it has raised $550,000 in seed money. Read more of this post

Smart Home Hubs: A Brain for Your House; Three home controllers allow users to program different devices via phone

Smart Home Hubs: A Brain for Your House

Three home controllers allow users to program different devices via phone

GEOFFREY A. FOWLER

Updated Feb. 11, 2014 8:57 p.m. ET

Dear house: When I wake up, please turn on the lights, crank up the heat, play some tunes and brew my coffee.

Who hasn’t dreamt of a house that can take orders? Austin Powers’s bed rotates and plays bossa nova at his command. Wallace and Gromit, the animated Englishman and his dog, live in a house that can wake you, drop you into pants and spread jam on your toast—though it never quite works as designed. Read more of this post

As high-speed stock traders push to trade ever faster, their newest move involves harnessing a technology that U.S. military jets use to communicate as they soar across the sky: lasers.

High-Speed Stock Traders Turn to Laser Beams

Anova to Use Laser Devices for Fast Communication of Market Data

SCOTT PATTERSON

Feb. 11, 2014 11:00 p.m. ET

As high-speed stock traders push to trade ever faster, their newest move involves harnessing a technology that U.S. military jets use to communicate as they soar across the sky: lasers. Read more of this post

Google’s Roadmap to World Domination

Google’s Roadmap to World Domination

“We want to paint the world, about one pixel to one inch.”–Luc Vincent, head of imagery for Google Maps

Welcome to the future:
Where your house keys will tell you they’re still on your desk at work
Your tools will remind you you loaned them to a friend
Your car will drive itself to retrieve both
(Google Promises a Self-Driving Car in 4 years)[1]
(Tesla in three)[1]

Location awareness will be built into everything
And maps will be the operating system (of everything)

Currently: 20% of all Google searches are ‘where’ queries.
Giving Google 70% of the ‘where’ query market
Location based services keep smartphones running.

Components of Google Maps(1)
(3)Trekker stitches together a digital world

15 virtual shutters snap every two seconds
Photos are melded into one 360 degree image
Tagged with Latitude and Longitude
—– 3 eight hour days with trekker down the Colorado river
Potentially yielded as many pictures as 20,000 yearly tourists visiting for 50 years.

Cameras like trecker are attached to Google’s self driving cars
25 of which have logged 600,000 miles in California.
Streetview has images in 1/4 of the world’s countries.

But it’s not an easy job, reconciling so many data sources:
Google has 2000 ground-truthers “driving” through cyberspace every day[1]:
Reconciling map data and street view data.

Google Map Maker allows users to submit changes, honing the map even more.

The acquisition of Waze presents Google with real time map updating technology.

Timeline of Google Maps(1)(2)(3)

2001– Larry Page taking pictures of San Francisco with a video camera mounted to the side of his car.
October 2004– Google acquires Where 2 Technologies, a company working on an early downloadable version similar to Google Maps.[4]
October 2004– Google acquires Keyhole, a geospatial data visualization company working on an early version of Google Earth.[3]
2004– Luc Vincent’s personal project (20% of Google employee time to devote to your own project) is Street View.
2005– Amazon’s search technology subsidiary A9.com unveils Block View, essentially Yellow Pages with storefront photos. Discontinued after 20 months.
2006–Microsoft’s Streetside debuts with photo rendering of two cities.
2007–Google’s Street View arrives in 5 cities.
2008– Google’s Oyster, or geographic database is greatly expanded with Geological srvey data, buying of data sources, and satilite imagery.
2009– Google Moon launched to commemorate 36th annivursary of moon landing.[5]
2011– Google Map Maker allows users to change maps, instead of waiting on GIS company data.
June 2012–Apple announces their own map service for iOS6.[2]
December 2012–Google announces a Google Maps app for iOS, immediately becomes most popular app in app store.[2]
May 2013–Google recognizes Palestine as a country, instead of redirecting to Palistinian Territories.[7]
2013– Google buys Waze, the social traffic app for close to $1 billion.
2013– Google releases Tactile in preview mode, the future of Google Maps with 3d rendering of whether and buildings.
January 2014–Google uploads 370,000 miles of Street View imagery, largest update ever.[6]

Google Maps API: the backbone of an industry(2)

Companies Built on Google Maps API
-AirBnB
-RedFin
-Uber
-RelayRides
-TaskRabbit
-Lyft
-NeighborGoods
And thousands of others.

In early 2012 Google started charging for companies using:
25,000 map related requests a day
For 90 consecutive days

99% API using sites unaffected
3,500 large business deeply affected:

Big Business Left:
Foursquare, on 6% of smartphones worldwide
Wikipedia
And Apple…

A rival was born
OpenStreetMaps: open source
Backed by:
Microsoft[2]
Hundreds of Thousands of individuals
Used by:
Craigslist, Geocaching, Mapquest, JMP Statistical Software, Apple

Overnight, 20% of the smartphone market, the iOS users left.
But were reclaimed several months later with an iOS Google Maps App.

Today: Open vs. Google
OpenStreetMaps is used by thousands of firms, including Apple and Foursquare.
(Started by mapping nerds several years ago, and enhanced by donations of satellite imagery from Apple.)

“Open” normally wins
Open Hardware > IBM Monopoly
Open Software > Microsoft Monopoly
???Open Data > Google Monopoly???

But doesn’t Google normally win, too?

Here’s why Alibaba is paying more than $1 billion for a mapping company

Here’s why Alibaba is paying more than $1 billion for a mapping company

By Lily Kuo @lilkuo February 11, 2014

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba made a bid on Feb. 10 for the 72% stake it doesn’t already own in AutoNavi, which operates China’s most popular mapping service. The all-cash deal values AutoNavi at $1.6 billion, up from the $1 billion valuation at which Alibaba acquired its initial stake in the firm last May. Read more of this post

By September coding will be mandatory in British schools. What the hell, America?

By September coding will be mandatory in British schools. What the hell, America?

BY CARMEL DEAMICIS 
ON FEBRUARY 10, 2014

The British Government just put America to shame by mandating a programming curriculum in all primary and secondary schools. The UK Department of Education has been fiddling with the idea for awhile, since deciding to scrap its traditional ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) curriculum almost two years ago. Read more of this post

DocuSign may soon be the latest entrant to the billion-dollar startup club

Feb 13, 2014

DocuSign Shoots for Valuation Above $1 Billion

By Evelyn M. Rusli and Douglas MacMillan

DocuSign may soon be the latest entrant to the billion-dollar startup club.

The electronic signature software company is in the process of raising about $100 million, in a deal that could value the company as high as $1.5 billion, according to three people familiar with the matter. Morgan Stanley is helping DocuSign with the fund-raising, two of these people said.

A DocuSign spokesperson declined to comment. Morgan Stanley also declined to comment. Read more of this post

Tech groups wrestle with hardware offload; Ending up as a second-rate Apple is not an attractive proposition

February 13, 2014 2:26 pm

Tech groups wrestle with hardware offload

By Richard Waters

Ending up as a second-rate Apple is not an attractive proposition

Suddenly, jettisoning hardware is all the rage.

From IBM shedding part of its server business to Google abandoning smartphones andSony backing out of PCs and hiving off its television division, the household names of tech have started a spring clean.

This feeds a popular belief that making stuff is an arduous, low-profit pursuit best left to companies that do not care about their profit margins. There may be a risk in seeding new competitors who will one day claw their way up the tech value chain, but that is the kind of long-term risk that can easily be set aside for the exigencies of the present. Read more of this post

Content strategy is king in social media

Content strategy is king in social media

David Dubois, INSEAD | Business | Sat, February 15 2014, 2:54 PM

Coffee lovers often have a chosen venue because it’s a great place to hang out. But without the rich aromas and great tasting coffee that they serve, would they still go there if there was nothing to drink?
For the most successful companies operating in the realms of social media, they’ve got the fresh content, they’ve brought the crowd and as long as they keep serving up this gourmet content, they’ve got a winning virtual hangout. Read more of this post

The Ernest Hemingway App For Writers Who Can’t Write Good

The Ernest Hemingway App For Writers Who Can’t Write Good

BY CALE GUTHRIE WEISSMAN 
ON FEBRUARY 14, 2014

It’s one thing to write something, another thing to draft something memorable and eloquent. Quite obviously this is what separates the legends from those of us who write endless drivel. But is good writing something that’s programmable? Two brothers seem to think so. Or at least want the world to think they think so. Read more of this post

‘This is your coffee calling – buy me’; British high street prepares for latest iBeacon technology

February 14, 2014 8:02 pm

‘This is your coffee calling – buy me’

By Daniel Thomas in London and Tim Bradshaw in San Francisco

Cakes that send smartphone messages to passing hungry shoppers will soon be on the shelves of coffee shops as the British high street prepares to adopt one of the latest US technologies.

A shopper walking down a supermarket cereal aisle could be pinged with details of a special offer on cornflakes. Someone standing at the counter in a café might be sent a message tempting them to buy a cake. Read more of this post

New organic disposable sensor will let diaper say baby needs changing

New organic disposable sensor will let diaper say baby needs changing

AFP-JIJI

FEB 10, 2014

Time to change: University of Tokyo professor Takao Someya holds a diaper containing the world’s first flexible wireless organic sensor system at his laboratory in Tokyo on Sunday. | AFP-JIJI

Researchers have unveiled a disposable organic sensor that can be embedded in a diaper and wirelessly let a carer know it needs changing. Read more of this post

Alibaba’s Online Land Grab

FEBRUARY 11, 2014, 11:26 AM  Comment

Alibaba’s Online Land Grab

By ROBYN MAK and JOHN FOLEY

Alibaba’s purchase of AutoNavi is a land grab, in two senses.

The Chinese e-commerce group has offered a premium price to buy the 72 percent of AutoNavi, a mapping company listed in the United States, it doesn’t already own, valuing the whole thing at $1.6 billion. There’s a compelling competitive reason for Alibaba to get deeper into online maps, but what’s hard to locate is the financial rationale. Read more of this post

Stripe and Square Face Complexity Abroad; Several challenges await the American payment start-ups Stripe and Square as they pursue international opportunities

FEBRUARY 11, 2014, 9:00 AM

Stripe and Square Face Complexity Abroad

By MARK SCOTT

Jeff Chiu/Associated PressWhile new payment start-ups, including Square, which was co-founded by Jack Dorsey, have found success in America, several new challenges await them outside domestic borders.

LONDON – International users now generate the majority of traffic for the social media giants Facebook and Twitter, and fast-growing tech companies like Airbnb, the online property rental service, have expanded rapidly into non-American markets to ward off local competitors. Read more of this post

The owners of Europe’s largest online retailer Zalando are preparing for an initial public offering after the company reported strong sales growth for 2013.

European Web Giant Zolando Talks to IPO Banks

EYK HENNING

Updated Feb. 14, 2014 7:43 p.m. ET

The owners of Europe’s largest online retailer Zalando are preparing for an initial public offering after the company reported strong sales growth for 2013.

Zalando’s owners, including Swedish investment firm AB Kinnevik, have held talks with investment banks to potentially advise on the transaction, according to two people familiar with the matter. They said Goldman Sachs, GS -0.21% Morgan Stanley MS -0.74% andJ.P. Morgan Chase JPM +0.21% & Co. have good prospects getting a mandate. Read more of this post

In Comcast-Time Warner Cable Deal, How Brian Roberts Bested Mentor John Malone; Proposed Deal Will Set Comcast’s Roberts Up as Clear Industry Leader

In Comcast-Time Warner Cable Deal, How Brian Roberts Bested Mentor John Malone

Proposed Deal Will Set Comcast’s Roberts Up as Clear Industry Leader

SHALINI RAMACHANDRAN, MARTIN PEERS and DANA MATTIOLI

Updated Feb. 13, 2014 9:48 p.m. ET

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, shown, worked the phones from his hotel room at the Sochi Olympics to close the deal for Time Warner Cable. Bloomberg News

Alarm bells went off a week ago at Charter Communications Inc. CHTR +0.34% when emails and phone calls to executives at Comcast Corp. CMCSA +1.39% went unanswered.

Charter had been hot to buy Time Warner Cable Inc. TWC +0.82% Cable legend John Malone, who controls Charter’s largest shareholder, and Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts had talked several times by phone, including around Christmas. Mr. Roberts indicated he was willing to work together on a deal for the struggling company, according to people familiar with the talks. Read more of this post

Berkshire Hathaway Joins Cable Frenzy; Buffett’s Firm Bought Shares in John Malone’s Liberty Global

Berkshire Hathaway Joins Cable Frenzy

Buffett’s Firm Bought Shares in John Malone’s Liberty Global

ANUPREETA DAS and GEOFFREY ROGOW

Updated Feb. 14, 2014 7:03 p.m. ET

Warren Buffett‘s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. BRKB +0.22% joined the investment frenzy around cable companies, disclosing on Friday that it scooped up shares in John Malone‘s international holding company Liberty Global LBTYA -0.61% PLC in the fourth quarter.

Berkshire also said it sold its stakes in Dish Network Corp. DISH -2.43% andGlaxoSmithKline GSK.LN +0.70% PLC in the period ending Dec. 31. Read more of this post