China Mobile Probes Loss-Making Exit From Hong Kong TV

China Mobile Probes Loss-Making Exit From Hong Kong TV

China Mobile Communications Corp., the parent of the world’s largest phone company, is probing a decision by its Hong Kong unit to exit the territory’s television market at a loss one year after introducing service. Read more of this post

Narayana Murthy is set to unveil a restructuring at Indian outsourcer Infosys, in the most significant step in his push to turn round the bellwether IT services group’s flagging fortunes

January 6, 2014 11:48 am

Murthy to unveil shake-up at Infosys

By James Crabtree in Mumbai

NR Narayana Murthy is set to unveil a restructuring at Indian outsourcer Infosys, in the most significant step in his push to turn round the bellwether IT services group’s flagging fortunes. Read more of this post

Samsung to Release Bendable TV Set This Year as Sales Stagnate

Samsung to Release Bendable TV Set This Year as Sales Stagnate

Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) will release its first television set with a bendable screen this year as the world’s largest maker seeks to revive stalling global demand. Read more of this post

Samsung Eyes Auto Expansion as High-End Smartphones Slow

Samsung Eyes Auto Expansion as High-End Smartphones Slow

Samsung Electronics Co. (005930), which sells almost one of every three smartphones, wants to parlay that technology into automotive navigation and entertainment systems for an industry that makes more than 80 million vehicles a year. Read more of this post

$1 Billion as Milestone and Omen; Silicon Valley today is a huge, undulating bubble. But which companies are overvalued and which are not is the $1 billion question

JANUARY 5, 2014, 8:53 PM

$1 Billion as Milestone and Omen

By DAVID GELLES and CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

Fab.com, an online retailer selling affordable high design, last year seemed as if it could be the next Amazon. Just a few months later, however, it looked as if it could become the next Pets.com. Read more of this post

“The tablet is a bloody TV”; ‘Smart TVs’ Are Next Bet for Makers as Sales Languish

January 6, 2014

‘Smart TVs’ Are Next Bet for Makers as Sales Languish

By BRIAN X. CHEN and NICK WINGFIELD

SAN FRANCISCO — Big, bright, sharp and sophisticated, television sets have never looked better. But that’s a problem. The TV industry has innovated itself into a corner. Read more of this post

Amazon teams with Samsung, studios on ultra high-definition TV

Amazon teams with Samsung, studios on ultra high-definition TV

6:54pm EST

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc is teaming up with Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and major media corporations including Warner Bros and Lionsgate to popularize “4K” ultra high-definition television. Read more of this post

Apps for mobile viewing challenge cable operators, TV networks

Apps for mobile viewing challenge cable operators, TV networks

1:22am EST

By Liana B. Baker

(Reuters) – U.S. cable and satellite television operators, already locking horns with programmers over subscriber fees, are now squaring off over the mobile apps that viewers are increasingly using to watch TV. Read more of this post

Billionaire Malone Returns to Empire Building Amid Cord Cutting

Billionaire Malone Returns to Empire Building Amid Cord Cutting

John Malone is empire building again. The billionaire made his fortune by assembling the largest cable operator in the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s. Now, companies backed by Malone have announced, or are preparing, more than $80 billion of acquisitions — including an offer by Liberty Media Corp. to fully own satellite radio network Sirius XM Holdings Inc., an expected bid for Time Warner Cable Inc. by Charter Communications Inc. and a likely agreement by Liberty Global Plc to purchase Dutch broadband provider Ziggo NV. Read more of this post

BlackBerry Returns to Keyboard Roots Under New CEO Chen

BlackBerry Returns to Keyboard Roots Under New CEO Chen

BlackBerry Ltd. (BB), which struggled to entice customers with touch-screen models last year, plans to return its focus to keyboard-equipped phones under Chief Executive Officer John Chen. Read more of this post

Consumer Electronics Show: Wearables emerge as top trend; “There is a Cambrian explosion of different approaches. There’s a point at which you can do a little too much. This whole category is not ‘one size fits all’.”

January 6, 2014 12:46 pm

Consumer Electronics Show: Wearables emerge as top trend

By Tim Bradshaw in Las Vegas

The T-shirt that tracks your heartbeat. The bra that tells you if you are eating too much. The badge-sized camera that takes photos from your lapel every few seconds, all day long. The headset that tracks how quickly you blink to see if you’re tired – then tries to wake you up. Read more of this post

Corning Developing Curved Screens to Keep Smartphone Edge: Tech

Corning Developing Curved Screens to Keep Smartphone Edge: Tech

Corning Inc. (GLW), a 163-year-old company that once made cookware and railroad lanterns, has emerged as an improbable star of the $280 billion smartphone industry as it develops curved screens and glass that repels germs. Read more of this post

Disruption Is the New Normal: After Google Maps added navigation, the value of stand-alone GPS makers fell by as much as 85%.

Disruption Is the New Normal

After Google Maps added navigation, the value of stand-alone GPS makers fell by as much as 85%.

L. GORDON CROVITZ

Jan. 5, 2014 6:30 p.m. ET

On a trip over the holidays, my wife rolled her eyes when I realized we’d left the Garmin at home and said we’d have to get a GPS for the rental car. She pointed to the GoogleGOOG +0.76% Maps app on her mobile phone and said: “I bet this works even better.” It did. We benefited from the kind of technological disruption that is great for consumers, but brutal for businesses trying to survive rapid change and perhaps impossible for government regulators trying to keep up. Read more of this post

Foxconn Said to Target Wearables With New Startup Fund

Foxconn Said to Target Wearables With New Startup Fund

Foxconn Technology Group, maker of Apple Inc. iPhones and iPads, is launching an investment fund to finance startups developing new kinds of wearable computers, according to two people familiar with the project. Read more of this post

Global tech market poised to shrink amid lack of new gadgets

January 6, 2014 5:13 am

Global tech market poised to shrink amid lack of new gadgets

By Hannah Kuchler in Las Vegas

The global technology market is forecast to shrink this year, as the sector’s strong growth in developing economies stalls and companies flounder in the search for a new innovation to replace the smartphone. Read more of this post

Intel: Inside, Upon, Within, Around; Intel CEO Seeking to Change ‘Intel Inside’ to Intel Everywhere

JANUARY 6, 2014, 10:00 PM

Intel: Inside, Upon, Within, Around

By QUENTIN HARDY

Intel is trying to make good on its promises, fast. Speaking at the preshow keynote of the International Consumer Electronics Show, Brian Krzanich, Intel’s chief executive, showed devices with Intel semiconductors that included wearable health and biometric devices, a small wireless computer for developers to put inside other devices such as appliances, and a wireless phone charger that looked like a stylish bowl. Read more of this post

‘Internet of Things’ in Reach; Companies Rush Into Devices Like Smart Door Locks, Appliances, but Limitations Exist

‘Internet of Things’ in Reach

Companies Rush Into Devices Like Smart Door Locks, Appliances, but Limitations Exist

DON CLARK

Jan. 5, 2014 8:08 p.m. ET

From meat thermometers monitored with a smartphone to Wi-Fi-equipped dog collars, devices and services in homes and businesses are increasingly being connected to the Internet, a long-awaited trend that is causing a surge of optimism in the tech sector. Read more of this post

LG Announces First TV With Flexible Screen Using OLED Technology

LG Announces First TV With Flexible Screen Using OLED Technology

LG Electronics Inc. (066570) announced the first television with a flexible screen using organic light emitting diode technology, joining Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) in displaying sets that adjust viewing angles. Read more of this post

Nvidia CEO talks up mobile chips with brawny PC graphics

Nvidia CEO talks up mobile chips with brawny PC graphics

12:49am EST

By Noel Randewich

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Chipmaker Nvidia Corp gave new details of an upcoming chip with beefed-up graphics for mobile gadgets and cars as it faces a slowing personal computer industry and harsh competition in smartphones and tablets. Read more of this post

Profitable Learning Curve for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg; In Taking Facebook Public, Reshaping It Around Mobile Phones, Chief Gained Focus on Bottom Line

Profitable Learning Curve for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

In Taking Facebook Public, Reshaping It Around Mobile Phones, Chief Gained Focus on Bottom Line

EVELYN M. RUSLI

Jan. 5, 2014 11:00 p.m. ET

MENLO PARK, Calif.— Mark Zuckerberg needed help. Facebook Inc. FB +0.45% ‘s initial public offering in May 2012 had been a mess. And after turning a website born in his college dorm room into a company valued at $100 billion, the young chief executive was under pressure to prove he could sell lots of ads on smartphones. Read more of this post

Silicon Valley is no longer the only game in town

January 7, 2014 12:03 pm

Silicon Valley is no longer the only game in town

By Niklas Zennström

In the tech hubs war, it is not where you come from that counts, writes Niklas Zennstrom

The technology world loves a good battle, and in recent years there has been plenty of excitement about the war of the technology hubs. Silicon Valley is being challenged by cities from London to Berlin and Beijing – and, as a proud European entrepreneur, there is part of me that is tremendously excited by this. In fact, 10 years ago when we were building Skype from Sweden, one potential investor told me that he would invest on condition I moved to Silicon Valley. I did not move and he did not invest. Read more of this post

Whitney Tilson Says 3D Printing Stock Is Going To Plunge 90%

Whitney Tilson Says 3D Printing Stock Is Going To Plunge 90%

JULIA LA ROCHE

28 MINUTES AGO 819 2

Hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson, who is short 3D Systems Corp, thinks the rise in the 3D printer’s stock “will end very badly.” The 3D printer’s stock currently trades above $92 per share.   Read more of this post

Will 2014 be the Year in Which We Let Technology Control Us?

Will 2014 be the Year in Which We Let Technology Control Us?

by JP Rangaswami | Jan 7, 2014

Will the science fiction scenario of a world controlled by machines become reality in the near future? Everything’s getting connected around us. Computers. Smart mobile computing devices. Embedded systems. Documents. People. Creatures. Pets. Even ideas. Everything now has the possibility of being a node on the network, able to publish and to subscribe. Everything. Read more of this post

Will Digital Networks Ruin Us?

January 6, 2014

Will Digital Networks Ruin Us?

By JOE NOCERA

The most important book I read in 2013 was Jaron Lanier’s “Who Owns the Future?” Though it was published in May, I came to it late in the year. But this turned out to be fortuitous timing. With unemployment seemingly stalled out at around 7 percent in the aftermath of the Great Recession, with the leak of thousands of National Security Agency documents making news almost daily, with the continuing stories about the erosion of privacy in the digital economy, “Who Owns the Future?” puts forth a kind of universal theory that ties all these things together. It also puts forth some provocative, unconventional ideas for ensuring that the inevitable dominance of software in every corner of society will be healthy instead of harmful. Read more of this post

Xbox One sales top 3 million after launching in Nov, no new Sony data

Xbox One sales top 3 million, no new Sony data

1:30pm EST

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp said on Monday that sales of its new Xbox One game console topped three million at the end of last year after launching in November. Read more of this post

Xero and the precious petals of New Zealand funds management

Xero and the precious petals of New Zealand funds management

Posted: 06 Jan 2014 03:54 PM PST

I first heard of Xero from a friend, an executive management team member of a US tech giant. [Think a direct report of the CEO of Google, Microsort, Intel or Apple or similar.] He had invested about a fifth of his (not inconsiderable) personal wealth in an obscure software company in of all places New Zealand.
Needless to say I purchased some (albeit way too little) and then investigated. Read more of this post

China’s hi-tech emperors; From a global online ‘anything store’ to high-end smartphones challenging Apple, a generation of billionaire entrepreneurs is rising in the East

China’s hi-tech emperors

From a global online ‘anything store’ to high-end smartphones challenging Apple, a generation of billionaire entrepreneurs is rising in the East

Global e-commerce is booming and Shanghai and other huge Chinese cities are alight with new ideas as the country shifts gear from assembly line to powerhouse of the technology industry. Photo: Alamy

By Christopher Williams

5:55PM GMT 04 Jan 2014

A new generation is taking power in China. Not the grey graduates of Communist Party committees. But aggressive, entrepreneurial and often colourful internet billionaires. As well as influencing domestic politics, several plan to break out on to the world stage in 2014. Read more of this post

Taiwan e-commerce firms seek Fujian fortunes

E-commerce firms seek Fujian fortunes
Sunday, January 5, 2014
CNA

TAIPEI–Taiwan’s e-commerce firms now enjoy greater business opportunities in mainland China after the two sides across the Taiwan Strait signed an agreement on trade in services in June 2013, which has prompted a business delegation to visit the mainland, a trade official said recently. Read more of this post

The long strife to reach Silicon Valley

January 3, 2014 6:10 pm

The long strife to reach Silicon Valley

Other tech hubs will struggle to copy California’s success

Silicon Valley is as much a state of mind as a place – a near-mythical economy that the rest of the world (and other cities in the US) would love to emulate. The strip of land from San Francisco to San Jose is a symbol for an alliance of risk-taking entrepreneurs and venture capitalists where inventions from the silicon chip to internet social media have been developed. Read more of this post

TabTale Cranks Up Its Game-Making Machine: The Israeli company isn’t worried about sophisticated games. It’s making games kids want to play and lots of them

JANUARY 4, 2014, 10:00 AM

TabTale Cranks Up Its Game-Making Machine

By VINDU GOEL

You’ve probably never heard of a company called TabTale. But if you’ve ever used an iPad or smartphone to entertain young children (as many parents do), you may very well have downloaded one of its hundreds of animated games or interactive books on topics like virtual cupcake baking and doctors who heal zombies. (I personally wasted an enjoyable hour this week playing Santa Rescue Challenge, one of the company’s recently released holiday titles.) Read more of this post