The rapid growth of Lenovo is posing a direct threat to Korean mobile-device manufacturers, local analysts say – and even to Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest smartphone vendor

Lenovo swells into IT challenge

Chinese firm buys Motorola, leapfrogs over LG Electronics  

BY KIM YOUNG-MIN, KIM JUNG-YOON [kjy@joongang.co.kr]

Feb 04,2014

The rapid growth of Lenovo is posing a direct threat to Korean mobile-device manufacturers, local analysts say – and even to Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest smartphone vendor.
The Chinese company, which gobbled up Motorola on Jan. 29, is openly professing that its goal is to move past Apple and Samsung.
“From now until 2015, Lenovo and Motorola’s smartphone sales goal is 100 million,” said Lenovo Chairman Yang Yuanqing on Feb. 2.
ith the buying of Motorola from Google, Lenovo has leapfrogged LG Electronics and Huawei to become the world’s third-largest smartphone vendor. According to Strategy Analytics, Lenovo and Motorola’s combined market share in the global smartphone market was 6.2 percent as of the end of last year, compared to Huawei’s 4.8 percent and LG Electronics’ 4.7 percent. Read more of this post

Getting Started in ‘Big Data’ Experts Advise Finding Math Whizzes Who Know Your Industry, Limiting Initial Goals

Getting Started in ‘Big Data’

Experts Advise Finding Math Whizzes Who Know Your Industry, Limiting Initial Goals

JAMES WILLHITE

Updated Feb. 3, 2014 11:49 p.m. ET

Wanted: Ph.D.-level statistician with the technical skill to use data-visualization softwareand a deep understanding of the _____ industry. Read more of this post

Apple Quietly Builds New Networks; stitching together a network of Internet infrastructure capable of delivering large amounts of content to customers, giving the company more control over the distribution of its online offerings

Apple Quietly Builds New Networks

Company Boosts Internet Infrastructure, Lays Groundwork for More Traffic Amid Broader Ambitions

DREW FITZGERALD and DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI

Feb. 3, 2014 7:40 p.m. ET

Apple Inc. AAPL +0.19% is stitching together a network of Internet infrastructure capable of delivering large amounts of content to customers, giving the company more control over the distribution of its online offerings while laying the groundwork for more traffic if it decides to move deeper into television. Read more of this post

Attempting to Code the Human Brain; Startups, Tech Giants Expand World of Artificial Intelligence; Software With an ‘Imagination’

Attempting to Code the Human Brain

Startups, Tech Giants Expand World of Artificial Intelligence; Software With an ‘Imagination’

EVELYN M. RUSLI

Updated Feb. 3, 2014 7:59 p.m. ET

Vicarious’s technology created a series of images of cows, using the software’s ‘imagination,’ after being shown one cow. Vicarious

Somewhere, in a glass building several miles outside of San Francisco, a computer is imagining what a cow looks like. Read more of this post

10 years after Facebook launched, social media is only beginning to shake up the world

10 years after Facebook launched, social media is only beginning to shake up the world

By Vivek Wadhwa, Updated: February 3 at 7:59 am

When Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg launched thefacebook.com in Feb. 2004, even he could not imagine the forces it would unleash. His intent was to connect college students. Facebook, which is what this Web site rapidly evolved into, ended up connecting the world. Read more of this post

What We Talk About When We Talk About Economies Of Scale In Tech

What We Talk About When We Talk About Economies Of Scale In Tech

Posted yesterday by Ben Bajarin (@BenBajarin)

Editor’s note: Ben Bajarin is a principal at Creative Strategies where he focuses his analysis and research on the consumer technology industry and consumer technology products. Follow him on Twitter @BenBajarin. Read more of this post

Required Reading: The Economist’s Special Report On Tech Startups

Required Reading: The Economist’s Special Report On Tech Startups

Posted yesterday by Ryan Lawler (@ryanlawler)

It’s not every day we here at TechCrunch just point to someone else’s work and say, “Here, you should go read this.” But today’s an exception, because The Economist has put together a 16-page Special Report on the rise of technology startups around the world. Read more of this post

5 things I learned from The New Yorker’s feature on Netflix; The future of television is more interesting when you peek behind the screen

5 things I learned from The New Yorker’s feature on Netflix

By Adam Lashinsky, Sr. Editor at Large February 3, 2014: 11:35 AM ET

The future of television is more interesting when you peek behind the screen.

FORTUNE — There was nothing particularly new in Ken Auletta’s highly readable article about Netflix (NFLX) in the current issue of The New Yorker. (Here’s a link to a snippet of the article; the rest is for paying subscribers.) The beauty of a Ken Auletta article, though, is that there doesn’t need to be a ton of earth-shatteringly fresh information for it be worth your time to read. Auletta succinctly summarizes complicated topics, like how Netflix got to be what it is, and he name checks all the most important people on a given subject so that by the time he’s done, you’re in the know, too. Read more of this post

MediaTek Going Wearable, Chinese & Cheap

MediaTek Going Wearable, Chinese & Cheap

Junko Yoshida

1/31/2014 01:40 PM EST
MADISON, Wis. — MediaTek is quietly going after the emerging market of under-$50 wearable devices.

The company’s new “all-in-one” SoC, called Aster, is sampling now only to a select group of customers. The chip is not officially announced yet, with no datasheets or block diagrams publicly available. Read more of this post

Why the only thing better than big data is bigger data

Why the only thing better than big data is bigger data

By Christopher Mims @mims an hour ago

For many businesses, big data is superfluous. Except, a recently-published paper on the mathematics of big data reveals, when it isn’t. It turns out there is a kind of data that, like black holes or evil wizards of Middle Earth, only becomes more powerful the larger it grows. What’s more, suggest researchers Enric Junqué de Fortuny, David Martens and Foster Provost, even if you’re not gathering this kind of data at present, the new results suggest you may lose out to a competitor who is. Read more of this post

WeChat banking emerges in China

WeChat banking emerges in China

Staff Reporter

2014-02-02

Several Chinese banks have launched banking services via popular mobile phone app WeChat, as they try to tap into the rapidly changing online business world, the Securities Daily reported. Read more of this post

In the mobile Internet Age, ads watch you

In the mobile Internet Age, ads watch you

Technology evolving toward suggestions based on preferences

BY GLENN CHAPMAN

AFP-JIJI

FEB 3, 2014

WASHINGTON – Ads are evolving from blaring TV spots to nudges from smartphones that know where we are, what we like and what we might be in the mood for. Read more of this post

‘Darth Vader’ of cable TV finds media empires strike back

‘Darth Vader’ of cable TV finds media empires strike back

John Malone and Vodafone are clashing again – is a merger the way forward?

By James Titcomb

10:19PM GMT 02 Feb 2014

For a man once described as “Darth Vader”, John Malone was remarkably gracious last summer when admitting to the first major setback in his battle for control of European telecoms. Read more of this post

AO.com aims to hang rivals out to dry

February 2, 2014 5:47 pm

AO.com aims to hang rivals out to dry

By Kate Burgess

White goods merchant raises price of shares ahead of debut

It is like the January sales, but in reverse. At this time of year, most retailers cut prices 50 per cent and gum “sale” stickers across their shop windows in a desperate effort to clear out their stockrooms.  Read more of this post

Google DeepMind Deal Hastens Computers That Think Like People

January 31, 2014, 10:00 AM ET

Google DeepMind Deal Hastens Computers That Think Like People

By Steve Rosenbush

Deputy Editor

Google Inc.’s latest acquisition—an artificial intelligence company called DeepMind—points toward a not-so-distant future when computers learn and reason the way people do. Of course, this is an evolutionary process, and there’s no neat definition of how human minds work, either. But the direction is clear–computers are increasingly able to learn from experience, to figure context into their decision making, and more. Read more of this post

Samsung Challenge to Apple and Google Stumbles; Telecoms Balk at Korean Firm’s New Tizen Mobile OS

Samsung Challenge to Apple and Google Stumbles

Telecoms Balk at Korean Firm’s New Tizen Mobile OS

JONATHAN CHENG

Updated Feb. 2, 2014 6:02 p.m. ET

SEOUL—An ambitious effort by Samsung Electronics Co. 005930.SE -0.08% to roll out smartphones powered by a new operating system is on shaky ground.

The world’s largest smartphone maker is investing a large amount of resources on an operating system called Tizen to challenge the mobile software duopoly of Apple Inc.AAPL +0.16% and Google Inc. GOOG +4.01%

But some of the world’s major wireless carriers are beginning to pull their support of phones slated to run the platform. Read more of this post

Alibaba, Tencent spending big on taxi apps despite lack of profit model

Alibaba, Tencent spending big on taxi apps despite lack of profit model

Staff Reporter

2014-01-30

Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings, China’s internet giants, are in a neck-and-neck fight in the taxi app market. On Jan. 20, Tencent’s Didi, its taxi hailing service, announced a plan to invest a further 200 million yuan (US$33 million) to benefit passengers. The very next day, Alibaba’s Kuaide swiftly announced it was investing 500 million yuan (US$82.5 million) for the good of passengers, Shanghai’s China Business News reports. Read more of this post

Why France is so afraid of Netflix

Why France is so afraid of Netflix

By Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry January 31, 2014

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry is an entrepreneur, writer and analyst based in Paris.

Oh, France. You hate new things. You hate foreign things, particularly American things (or so you like to say). You hate business. Of course you’re going to hate Netflix.

Netflix is currently expanding around the world, and it wants to set up shop in France. The company has said it has aggressive expansion plans in Europe, and the French press has reported that executives from the company have met with President Hollande’s staff twice. To Reed Hastings I say: good luck, you’re going to need it. Read more of this post

Nintendo desperate for a power-up Analysts and gamers worry company won’t recover mojo

Nintendo desperate for a power-up

Analysts and gamers worry company won’t recover mojo

BY KYOKO HASEGAWA

AFP-JIJI

JAN 31, 2014

There was a time when wherever Super Mario Brothers went, the gaming world followed, but an industry that has moved on in leaps and bounds since then just shrugged at the latest reset by Nintendo this week. Read more of this post

All Quiet on the Amazon Front: Amazon is one of the most highly valued, most innovative and just plain most interesting companies in the country. It is also one that places a premium on saying nothing

JANUARY 31, 2014, 7:15 AM  11 Comments

All Quiet on the Amazon Front

By DAVID STREITFELD

Amazon is one of the most exciting companies in the country, redefining retail, web hosting, publishing and a bunch of other enterprises. When it says it is merely thinking of doing something — as it did Thursday with the first-ever price increase for Amazon Prime shipping service — it makes news. It also makes news when it talks about something that it is planning to do, maybe, a bunch of years from now, in the unlikely event everything works out. Yes, we’re talking drones. Read more of this post

Google: Chromebooks Are Selling Like Crazy But We Don’t Make Money On Them

Google: Chromebooks Are Selling Like Crazy But We Don’t Make Money On Them

JULIE BORT 

JAN. 30, 2014, 10:03 PM 5,420 7

The growing popularity of Google Chromebooks doesn’t directly translate into more revenue for Google.

Google executives reminded Wall Street analysts of that fact on the company’s conference call on Thursday. Read more of this post

RYNO Motorcycles: changing the game one wheel at a time; RYNO Story 2014 Interview with CEO Chris Hoffmann

RYNO Story 2014 Interview with CEO Chris Hoffmann

Chris Hoffmann talks about the history and development of the RYNO. You can pre-order one of the first RYNO’s ever (right now) at www.rynomotors.com.

RYNO Motorcycles: changing the game one wheel at a time

By Jeff PerezJanuary 21, 2014 3:25 PM

Anyone who rides a motorcycle will tell you that there’s nothing like the thrill of riding headlong on the open road with the wind in your face and worries at your back. A motorcycle is truly one of man’s best friends. But what if someone changed the formula — a formula, mind you, that’s been relatively unchanged for a over a hundred years. Read more of this post

How Jeff Bezos Can Take Over The World Without Earning A Profit

How Jeff Bezos Can Take Over The World Without Earning A Profit

MATTHEW YGLESIAS, SLATE
JAN. 31, 2014, 10:04 AM 3,071 8

E-commerce was king this past holiday season, with Christmas surge orders overwhelming UPS’s systems and forcing $100 million in upgrades to prevent future fiascos. So it was no surprise on Jan. 30 when Amazon reported it had become even more enormous than ever before. According to its latest earnings report, the online shopping giant’s net sales increased 20 percent compared with the previous holiday season—a number that would seem staggeringly high if it weren’t so routine for a company that’s been growing rapidly for years. Yet the company’s net income of $274 million for all of last year was tiny relative to its sales of $74.45 billion. Amazon’s profit margin was virtually nonexistent. Read more of this post

Netflix CEO Confesses He Tried To Sell The Company To Blockbuster … But Blockbuster Wasn’t Interested

Netflix CEO Confesses He Tried To Sell The Company To Blockbuster … But Blockbuster Wasn’t Interested

RYAN BUSHEY

JAN. 31, 2014, 5:22 PM 2,028 1

The New Yorker’s Ken Auletta wrote a profile of Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and revealed that the now-shuttered video chain Blockbuster missed out on a great chance to purchase the fledgling company in 2000. Read more of this post

Kicking Bill Gates Off The Board Is The Best Thing Microsoft Can Do

Kicking Bill Gates Off The Board Is The Best Thing Microsoft Can Do

JULIE BORT

JAN. 31, 2014, 6:19 PM 5,862 14

Microsoft is an insanely profitable company standing on the edge of disaster. It desperately needs new thinking.

With word that 22-year Microsoft veteran Satya Nadella is likely the new CEO, attention turns to the leadership of the company’s board of directors. It will have two former CEOs, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. Read more of this post

Expedia Books a Painful Trip Down Google’s Search Results

Expedia Books a Painful Trip Down Google’s Search Results

By Justin Bachman January 23, 2014

Google (GOOG) frowns on websites trying to game its search results—and Expedia (EXPE) appears to have gotten that memo a bit late.

The online travel agency has seen its page rankings drop 25 percent for travel-related searches on Google in recent days, according to Searchmetrics, a search-engine research firm. Losing that much visibility in search rankings almost guarantees a drop in traffic of at least 20 percent to Expedia, says Marcus Tober, Searchmetrics’s founder and president. Such a rapid, sharp drop suggests that Google is penalizing the company for so-called “unnatural links” to Expedia.com that are posted on many travel blogs and other websites. Read more of this post

Shazam: the app that calls the tune

January 31, 2014 11:10 am

Shazam: the app that calls the tune

By Emma Jacobs

How did a quirk music identification app, invented in Silicon Valley and nurtured in the UK, become a global business?

At the end of last year, Banks, a young musician from suburban Los Angeles who sings floaty, R&B-infused melodies, was selected as one of 2014’s acts to watch by the BBC. The broadcaster’s longlist, compiled by music media insiders, has a good track record: in recent years it has helped boost acts such as Adele and Jesse J. Read more of this post