Kindle Vending Machine Shows How Amazon Could Take Over the World

Kindle Vending Machine Shows How Amazon Could Take Over the World

BY MARCUS WOHLSEN

01.10.14

Instead of running a big booth on the show floor or unloading a bombastic keynote speech, Amazon made its presence known at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas with decidedly more subtlety. It wedged a vending machine in between a Wells Fargo ATM and a scuffed-up door at the Las Vegas airport. Read more of this post

Nest Co-founder Matt Rogers: My Friends Told Me I Was Crazy To Leave Apple To Start Nest; Here’s The ‘Twice-A-Day’ Reason Google Paid $3.2 Billion For Nest; Tony Fadell Q&A: Why I sold Nest to Google; Why Google, not Apple, bought Tony Fadell’s Nest Labs

Nest Co-founder Matt Rogers: My Friends Told Me I Was Crazy To Leave Apple To Start Nest

JULIE BORT

JAN. 13, 2014, 6:28 PM 5,635 10

Matt Rogers just became a very wealthy man with the news that Google bought his company, Nest Labs, for $3.2 billion. Rogers is the co-founder of Nest along with Tony Fadell. Fadell is known for being the guy who designed the iPod. Rogers was also working on the iPod before founding Nest. He designed the software that ran it. Rogers was also one of the first engineers on the original iPhone, and worked on the first iPad, too. Read more of this post

New online map directory makes getting around in Yangon simpler; Developed at a cost of just S$700, Yangon Explorer helps you find the best businesses at the click of a button in Myanmar’s largest city

New online map directory makes getting around in Yangon simpler

By Terence Ng

Developed at a cost of just S$700, Yangon Explorer helps you find the best businesses at the click of a button in Myanmar’s largest city

In many Asian countries, online map- and location-based directories have increasingly eclipsed print counterparts like the Yellow Pages. Services like Google Maps, together with country-specific portals like Streetdirectory in Singapore, have been providing users with up-to-date information about which businesses exist and how to get to them. Read more of this post

Smartphone payments app gets banks’ backing

January 15, 2014 12:01 am

Smartphone payments app gets banks’ backing

By Sally Davies

A smartphone app allowing shoppers to pay for purchases direct from a linked account will be made available to 18m UK bank customers this year – in the latest sign that the banks are gearing up for rapid adoption of mobile payment systems. Read more of this post

Taxi drivers turn violent against Uber in Paris

Taxi drivers turn violent against Uber in Paris

January 13, 2014 7:15 pmby Tim Bradshaw

The taxi industry’s war on app-enabled chauffeur services such as Uber has broken out into physical combat on the streets of Paris. During a strike by French cab driverswho are protesting against the rise of what are locally called “voitures de tourisme avec chauffeurs”, several drivers and limos who crossed the picket line were attacked, with windows smashed and tires slashed. Read more of this post

The CEO of Ciena on Surviving an Industry Collapse

The CEO of Ciena on Surviving an Industry Collapse

by Dan McGinn  |   8:00 AM January 15, 2014

The dot-com bust not only hurt Internet start ups—it pummeled telecom companies, many of which went bankrupt or were forced into mergers. Ciena CEO Gary Smith, the company’s CEO since 2001, describes how his company survived, regrouped, and resumed its growth.

How was Ciena doing when you became its CEO?

SMITH: I’d joined in 1997, around the time it went public, and became CEO in 2001. The company was doing very well. I remember driving to work one day, listening to NPR. They were talking about technology stocks, and they singled out Ciena. They pointed out that we were a very young company, but our market value was $45 billion—more than the entire U.S. automobile industry. I remember listening to that and thinking: “We’re a great company with a great future, but this doesn’t make any sense.” Read more of this post

Weather Channel’s Highly Successful Mobile App Is Destroying Its Highly Successful Cable Channel

Weather Channel’s Highly Successful Mobile App Is Destroying Its Highly Successful Cable Channel

JIM EDWARDS

JAN. 14, 2014, 9:32 AM 379

The Weather Channel is in a contract dispute with DirecTV that underlines just how vulnerable some cable TV channels are to mobile apps that provide similar need-to-know content. Read more of this post

What Secrets Your Phone Is Sharing About You

What Secrets Your Phone Is Sharing About You

Businesses Use Sensors to Track Customers, Build Shopper Profiles

ELIZABETH DWOSKIN

Jan. 13, 2014 8:47 p.m. ET

Fan Zhang, the owner of Happy Child, a trendy Asian restaurant in downtown Toronto, knows that 170 of his customers went clubbing in November. He knows that 250 went to the gym that month, and that 216 came in from Yorkville, an upscale neighborhood. Read more of this post

Why Does New York Hate the Sharing Economy?

Why Does New York Hate the Sharing Economy?

Ask a bunch of New Yorkers where they spend their money: apartments, cars, vacation lodgings, maybe designer handbags. In the new American “sharing economy,” these can all be enjoyed at a fraction of their normal cost. Just not if you’re a New Yorker. Read more of this post

Zapping through the mobile payments maze

January 15, 2014 12:01 am

Zapping through the mobile payments maze

By Sally Davies

Mobile payments is a hot topic in technology circles – but there are as many definitions of what the term means as there are companies vying for the dollars of finger-swiping, screen-staring shoppers. Read more of this post

In just 9 days, WeChat brings in over 100,000 taxi rides for Chinese passengers looking for a lift

In just 9 days, WeChat brings in over 100,000 taxi rides for Chinese passengers looking for a lift

January 13, 2014

by Josh Horwitz

It’s been about a week and a half since WeChat, the messaging app that’s dominating smartphones in China, added taxi booking and payments to its range of services. The maker of WeChat, Chinese web giant Tencent, added support for the Didi Dache service after investing nearly $100 million into it. Today the fine folks at 36kr say that the total number of completed transactions – meaning taxis hailed and paid for inside of WeChat – have surpassed 100,000. Read more of this post

Tencent, Alibaba Have their Eyes on Mobile Payment Prize

01.10.2014 17:51

Tencent, Alibaba Have their Eyes on Mobile Payment Prize

The two internet giants are using their apps to get into people’s wallets, and that’s just the begging of their plans to revolutionize the way we pay

By staff reporter Zhu Yishi

(Hangzhou) – It can be tricky to get a taxi at the Hangzhou airport. But recently Beijinger Zhang Rui, who was on business trip to the bustling eastern city, walked out of the airport, past a long line of people and hopped right in a cab. Read more of this post

The Man Behind Alibaba’s Eventual I.P.O.

JANUARY 13, 2014, 9:28 PM

The Man Behind Alibaba’s Eventual I.P.O.

By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN

JPMorgan Chase has called. So has Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Joe Tsai’s phone is ringing off the hook these days, and you would be forgiven if you have never heard of him. Read more of this post

Indian kids e-store FirstCry gets $15 million in fresh funding

Indian kids e-store FirstCry gets $15 million in fresh funding

January 14, 2014

by Steven Millward

Indian e-shoppers spent $16 billion in 2013, and that number’s set to rise in 2014. There are certainly plenty of e-commerce options out there. For baby and child-related products, there’s FirstCry, which was founded in 2010. Read more of this post

Valued at about $50 million, Japanese startup Coiney aims for IPO

Valued at about $50 million, Japanese startup Coiney aims for IPO

January 14, 2014

by Willis Wee

When CEO and founder of Coiney Naoko Samata first joined Paypal Japan in 2009, she didn’t imagine that she would one day become an entrepreneur. Three years down the road, Samata felt the need to do something cool and challenging in her life. And Coiney, a startup that produces a credit card payment device, fits Samata’s bill. Pairing Coiney with a smartphone, merchants can now start collecting credit card payments from customers. Fast forward to today, Coiney has so far raised a total of $14 million and is competing with other established services like Square and Rakuten Smartpay in Japan. Read more of this post

Amazon eyes Korea’s online market

2014-01-14 16:34

Amazon eyes Korea’s online market

By Choi Kyong-ae

Amazon.com is expected to increase efforts to enter the Korean market, according to industry sources, Tuesday. Amazon’s recent recruitment of Doug Yeum, the former chief of Google Korea, is fueling speculations that the world’s largest online retail company is moving to take advantage of a growing demand in Korea’s online shopping market.   Read more of this post

The Lerer Family Launches The Dodo, Which Is Arguably The Smartest Idea For A Media Company In The World

The Lerer Family Launches The Dodo, Which Is Arguably The Smartest Idea For A Media Company In The World

ALYSON SHONTELL

JAN. 13, 2014, 6:14 PM 4,103 1

“Cute animals deserve respect.” BuzzFeed co-founder Jonah Peretti told that to the audience at technology conference South by Southwest last year. And he should know. Read more of this post

Acer to Focus on Computer Hardware for Turnaround, New CEO Says

Acer to Focus on Computer Hardware for Turnaround, New CEO Says

Acer Inc. (2353), the Taiwanese personal computer maker that is set to post a third-straight annual loss, plans to build on its hardware background to turn the company around, Chief Executive Officer Jason Chen said. Read more of this post

Viacom to Launch Customized Kids’ TV Channel; My Nickelodeon Junior to Combine Elements of Streaming Services Pandora and Netflix

Viacom to Launch Customized Kids’ TV Channel

My Nickelodeon Junior to Combine Elements of Streaming Services Pandora and Netflix

AMOL SHARMA

Jan. 14, 2014 7:41 p.m. ET

Viacom Inc. VIAB +0.25% plans to launch a children’s TV channel in the U.S. that can be programmed according to parents’ tastes and provide access to hundreds of old episodes of shows like “Dora the Explorer,” in a novel TV-delivery approach that combines elements of streaming services Pandora and Netflix Inc. NFLX +0.34% Read more of this post

Xiaomi, which is planning to expand abroad, paid Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak to appear in front of reporters at its headquarters in Beijing

Jan 12, 2014

Startup Hopes to Capture Apple’s Magic

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak at a Xiaomi event in Beijing on Sunday.

Xiaomi Inc., the startup that has rattled China’s smartphone market with its fast-selling handsets, is hoping to capture some of the magic that made Apple Inc.AAPL -0.67% a global success story. The Chinese company, which is planning to expand abroad, paid Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak to appear on Sunday in front of reporters at its headquarters in Beijing. Mr. Wozniak showed up at the event–labeled as the “Lei Jun & Woz Tech Talk”–with Xiaomi’s founder and chairman, Lei Jun, and told reporters that Xiaomi’s products were “excellent” and “good enough to crack the American market.” Read more of this post

How rural China is innovating with e-commerce

How rural China is innovating with e-commerce

Published 07 January 2014 08:25, Updated 08 January 2014 10:55

Barney Tan

Every year, for the foreseeable future, another 30 million Chinese will go online to shop, according to a new Boston Consulting Group report. Pushed by a government-subsidised roll-out of internet – and poor bricks-and-mortar retailers – China could become the world’s biggest e-commerce market within four years. Read more of this post

Why Wotif and Webjet are losing out to global competitors in online travel

Why Wotif and Webjet are losing out to global competitors in online travel

Published 13 January 2014 15:01, Updated 13 January 2014 15:50

Jamie Freed and Caitlin Fitzsimmons

It’s every entrepreneur’s nightmare: spend years building up a business, only to have global competitors with deep pockets eat your lunch. It looks as if that could be happening in online travel, with home-grown businesses Webjet and Wotif forced to issue profit warnings and invest heavily in marketing and technology to stay competitive. Read more of this post

A Charmed Life for Disney’s ‘Frozen’; As It Passes ‘Lion King’ in Sales, Surprise Hit Helps Studio Move Out of the Shadow of Sibling Pixar

A Charmed Life for Disney’s ‘Frozen’

As It Passes ‘Lion King’ in Sales, Surprise Hit Helps Studio Move Out of the Shadow of Sibling Pixar

BEN FRITZ

Jan. 12, 2014 8:02 p.m. ET

Animated musical ‘Frozen,’ which hit a domestic total of $317.7 million this weekend, beat a dozen new entrants to become the most successful movie of the holiday season. Walt Disney Pictures/Everett Collection

When Melinda Wedde took her daughter Zoey to see “Frozen” for the second time in January, she faced a challenge: Convincing the four-year-old not to sing every song out loud in the theater. Read more of this post

Papering Walls With Stock Imperiled as Bourses Mull Digital-Only

Papering Walls With Stock Imperiled as Bourses Mull Digital-Only

The paper stock certificate, a relic of the pre-electronic age, may finally be on its way out of the U.S.

IntercontinentalExchange Group Inc., the operator of the New York Stock Exchange, and Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. are considering a ban on newly public U.S. companies issuing paper shares, according to Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., which processes the nation’s securities trades. That would be the strongest step yet toward mandating that equity ownership in the $22 trillion American market be entirely electronic. Read more of this post

How you’ll write emails on the tiny screen of a smartwatch

How you’ll write emails on the tiny screen of a smartwatch

By Christopher Mims @mims

10 hours ago

Imagine trying to compose an email on a keyboard just a tad bigger than a postage stamp. Nuance, whose technology powers speech-recognition systems like Apple’s Siri, thinks it has this problem licked—and it doesn’t involve voice recognition. The key to typing emails on a tiny screen, says Peter Mahoney, chief marketing officer of Nuance, is the Swype keyboard, acquired by Nuance in in 2011 for $100 million. Read more of this post

Do Online Grocers Beat Supermarkets?

Do Online Grocers Beat Supermarkets?

A Six-City Buyer’s Test Involving 14 Basic Items

GEOFFREY A. FOWLER

Jan. 7, 2014 7:23 p.m. ET

The idea of buying groceries online has been around as long as the Internet, but who would ever do it? Limited selection, high cost and inconvenient delivery timing has kept it a niche business in mostly urban areas. Read more of this post

At Wal-Mart, moving the needle on e-commerce

At Wal-Mart, moving the needle on e-commerce

By Jessi Hempel, writer January 7, 2014: 1:57 PM ET

The retailer’s global e-commerce chief, Neil Ashe, sits down with Fortune‘s Adam Lashinsky in Las Vegas to talk struggles and strategy.

FORTUNE — Amazon (AMZN) is the undisputed master of online retail. Wal-Mart (WMT) is a superstore juggernaut. For years, the two companies existed in relative isolation, an either/or proposition for shoppers. Read more of this post

Operators in China set to make losses in iPhone battle

Operators in China set to make losses in iPhone battle

Peng Wei-ling and Staff Reporter

2014-01-11

A battle in the Chinese market over Apple’s iPhone is set to heat up next week when China Mobile begins selling the iPhone 5S and 5C after having missed out during the past five years.

Read more of this post

This Famous Google Exec Quit His Job To Work In China — And He’s Been Totally Blown Away By What He Found

This Famous Google Exec Quit His Job To Work In China — And He’s Been Totally Blown Away By What He Found

NICHOLAS CARLSON

JAN. 11, 2014, 8:58 AM 47,672 46

For years, Hugo Barra was one of the most visible executives at Google. He was a product manager for its Android team. Every year at Google’s biggest conference, Google I/O, Barra would show off Android’s latest new features for the whole world. Then, in August of this year, Barra quit Google to work for a Chinese company. In December, he gave a talk in Paris about how utterly blown away he’s been by that place.

He said the Chinese are incredibly educated with 8 million college grads per year — more than the US.

Read more of this post