Human Behavior Trove Lures Economists to U.S. Tech Titans

Human Behavior Trove Lures Economists to U.S. Tech Titans

Wooing this year’s best graduate students in economics will be familiar faces from Harvard, Princeton and other U.S. universities seeking assistant professors — and EBay Inc. (EBAY)’s not yet 3-year-old economic research team. Read more of this post

IBM’s Sales Slump Turns Stock Into Dow’s Lone Loser of 2013

IBM’s Sales Slump Turns Stock Into Dow’s Lone Loser of 2013

International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), the world’s largest provider of computing services, hasn’t convinced investors that it can pull out of a sales slump, sending the stock to its first annual decline since the financial crisis in 2008. Read more of this post

Move over, Candy Crush. Could QuizUp, a social trivia app, be the next big thing?

DECEMBER 31, 2013, 10:34 AM

QuizUp, a Social Trivia App, Tests Mobile Gamers

By JENNA WORTHAM

Every year, a new game craze captures the attention of mobile phone users around the nation and globe. This season, it seems to be QuizUp, a social trivia game for iOS devices. Read more of this post

Netflix Tests Subscription Fees Based on Number of Users

Netflix Tests Subscription Fees Based on Number of Users

By Andy Fixmer – Dec 31, 2013

Netflix Inc. (NFLX), the largest subscription streaming service, is testing new prices based on the number of people who can use an account, a move that could force customers to pay more for additional family members. Read more of this post

Qualcomm’s China Challenge Greets Incoming CEO Mollenkopf: Tech

Qualcomm’s China Challenge Greets Incoming CEO Mollenkopf: Tech

Qualcomm (QCOM) Inc.’s Steve Mollenkopf helped get the company’s chips into the world’s top-selling phones. His challenge now is making deeper inroads in the world’s biggest market. Read more of this post

Rise of mobile computing fosters new tech hubs

January 2, 2014 12:12 pm

Rise of mobile computing fosters new tech hubs

By Richard Waters in San Francisco and Richard Milne in Oslo

The rise of mobile computing has fostered a fresh round of tech start-ups around the world, turning cities like Stockholm, Tel Aviv and Berlin into magnets for entrepreneurs hoping to cash in on the boom in smartphone and tablet computing. Read more of this post

Stop Pouting About Tech’s Next Big Thing, It’s Here

Stop Pouting About Tech’s Next Big Thing, It’s Here

2013 Was Not a Lost Year. Plus, Three Tech Trends to Watch in 2014.

FARHAD MANJOO

Updated Dec. 31, 2013 8:42 p.m. ET

It’s easy to get jaded when you cover the technology industry. Silicon Valley’s giants are constantly belching wisps of marshmallow-thick hype, and any reporter looking to cover the beat has to be constantly on guard against unproven claims about this or that algorithmically abetted amazing advance. Read more of this post

Tech Renegade: From Print-at-Home Guns to Untraceable Currency

Tech Renegade: From Print-at-Home Guns to Untraceable Currency

DANNY YADRON

Dec. 31, 2013 9:47 p.m. ET

Cody Wilson is working on software that covers the tracks of financial transactions made with bitcoin. Steve Jones for the Wall Street Journal

AUSTIN, Texas— Cody Wilson rattled lawmakers and law-enforcement agencies with a plastic gun created from a 3-D printer, home computer and blueprints he posted online for anyone to download. Read more of this post

The 10 Most Important Charts Of The Year In Mobile, According To Tech And Digital Media Industry Executives

The 10 Most Important Charts Of The Year In Mobile, According To Tech And Digital Media Industry Executives

MARCELO BALLVE

DEC. 31, 2013, 2:35 PM 4,084

At Business Insider Intelligence, we produced over 340 charts and accompanying datasets this year that dug into all sorts of mobile industry topics, including the smartphone and tablet markets, wearables, mobile advertising, mobile commerce, and the world of apps and app stores.  Read more of this post

The uncomfortable truth about Brad Stone’s Amazon book; It’s big, bold and pulls no punches — just like the company and founder it portrays

The uncomfortable truth about Brad Stone’s Amazon book

By Adam Lashinsky, Sr. Editor at Large January 2, 2014: 9:27 AM ET

It’s big, bold and pulls no punches — just like the company and founder it portrays.

FORTUNE — I think I know why MacKenzie Bezos hated Brad Stone’s book about her husband and his company. It’s not because of the “numerous factual inaccuracies” she says are in the book, though she names only one, a mistiming of when Jeff Bezos read a certain influential novel, and shame on Stone for giving her that opening. No — Mrs. Bezos gave a 1-star review to Stone’s outstanding book, “The Everything Store,” because it will make anyone who reads it, regardless of how much they love being an Amazon (AMZN) customer, feel icky about themselves for just how much they enjoy buying things at Amazon. Read more of this post

Thieves In Europe Are Using USB Sticks To Clean Out ATMs

Thieves In Europe Are Using USB Sticks To Clean Out ATMs

MATTHEW SPARKES, THE TELEGRAPH
DEC. 31, 2013, 6:57 AM 11,250 6

A gang of thieves targeted cash machines belonging to an unnamed European bank by uploading malicious software that would spit out banknotes on command

Criminals targeted a string of cash machines by cutting holes in the fascia to reach a USB port and upload malicious code that would spit out banknotes on command. Speakers at the Chaos Computing Congress in Hamburg described the attacks, which affected an unnamed European bank that noticed several cash machines had been entirely emptied without the safe at the rear being damaged. Read more of this post

This Irate Cookbook Author Represents A Swelling Threat To Facebook’s $6 Billion Ad Business

This Irate Cookbook Author Represents A Swelling Threat To Facebook’s $6 Billion Ad Business

NICHOLAS CARLSON

DEC. 30, 2013, 4:02 PM 24,935 15

Stephanie Stiavetti is a freelance food writer. She is the author of a cookbook called “Melt: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese,” published by Little, Brown, and Company. She is at the vanguard of a swelling movement against Facebook. Read more of this post

Valley angst clouds London’s tech future

January 2, 2014 12:10 pm

Valley angst clouds London’s tech future

By Sally Davies

When the founders of Eatro say they eat and breathe their business, they mean it literally. The three young men are stuffing dumplings with prawns, purple carrots and ginger as they describe how they launched their new online marketplace for home-cooked food from a crowded Shoreditch apartment. Read more of this post

You won’t believe what viral content does to news; The fastest-growing forms of online ‘content’ are click-bait headlines and videos

January 1, 2014 5:25 pm

You won’t believe what viral content does to news

By John Gapper

The fastest-growing forms of online ‘content’ are click-bait headlines and videos

“News is what somebody does not want you to print. All the rest is advertising,” runs the journalists’ mantra, variously ascribed to publishers William Randolph Hearst and Lord Northcliffe. If so, news is being deluged. Read more of this post

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi enters Singapore

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi enters Singapore

By Elaine Huang

The move by Xiaomi also means that the new office in the island nation could be the company’s headquarters for Southeast Asia

Much-watched Chinese smartphone manufacturer, Xiaomi, last month, hinted at plans to enter Southeast Asian cosmopolitan hub Singapore. Today, with an announcement from Hugo Barra, Vice President, Xiaomi Global, and a Facebook brand page, the firm has started its campaign to launch products in the city-state. This move into Singapore and Barra’s interest in the Southeast Asian market, as inferred from his statements at a press conference in Taiwan, also means the new office in the island nation could be the firm’s headquarters for Southeast Asia. At time of filing the report, the Facebook page for Xiaomi Singapore had already garnered 910 likes. The general sentiment on the page seems to lean towards ‘better late than never’.While it is exciting that Xiaomi will be launching its phones in Singapore and the rest of the region very soon, will it be able to grab a large chunk of the smartphone market pie? Let’s wait and watch.

What Do The First Chinese Mobile Virtual Network Operators Plan to Offer?

What Do The First Chinese Mobile Virtual Network Operators Plan to Offer?

By Tracey Xiang on December 31, 2013

Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) finally announced the first mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) last week, half a year after licenses were open for application. Of the eleven Chinese private companies that now owns licenses, there are four mobile phone distributors, four Internet infrastructure/solution providers, one carrier billing service, one bus/mobile media (BUSAP), and one online retailer (JD.com). Five of them will work with both China Unicom and China Telecom. Read more of this post

Coming in 2014: Extremely Smart Watches and Wearable TVs

DECEMBER 29, 2013, 11:00 AM

Disruptions: Coming in 2014: Extremely Smart Watches and Wearable TVs

By NICK BILTON

For technological innovation, 2013 was a remarkably boring year. Apple, often the hotbed of “new,” mostly just updated familiar devices in different colors and with crisper screens. Social media companies fought over who had better photo filters. And Silicon Valley start-ups offered more of less, with slight iterations on existing products. Read more of this post

HUDs all the rage in car navigation; Electronics makers are racing to develop next-generation car navigation systems that allow drivers to check traffic and other information without taking their eyes off the road

HUDs all the rage in car navigation

JIJI

DEC 30, 2013

Electronics makers are racing to develop next-generation car navigation systems that allow drivers to check traffic and other information without taking their eyes off the road. Read more of this post

No Wonder Why Microsoft Has Started Trashing Google’s Chromebooks

No Wonder Why Microsoft Has Started Trashing Google’s Chromebooks

STEVE KOVACH

A few weeks ago, Microsoft released a commercial trashing Google’s Chromebook laptops. It’s one of those man-on-the-street schticks where a Microsoft guy goes up to strangers and asks them loaded questions about which device they’d prefer — a Chromebook or Windows 8 laptop. Every use case is skewed to favor the Windows device, of course. (Want to use Office? You can’t do that on a Chromebook!) Read more of this post

Beware the Tech Bubble—But Stay Calm; How to Reap the Best of the Sector While Staving Off Irrational Exuberance

Beware the Tech Bubble—But Stay Calm

How to Reap the Best of the Sector While Staving Off Irrational Exuberance

FARHAD MANJOO

Dec. 29, 2013 4:19 p.m. ET

I spend a lot of time worrying about the next tech bubble. It’s my job to worry, of course, and this year, worrying became a full-time occupation. Ever since Facebook‘s FB -3.35% stock price rebounded this year to the level of its initial public offering, tech startups have seen an incredible run-up in valuations. Boxrecently raised financing that valued the data-storage company for businesses at $2 billion, almost double its value when it raised funds in the summer of last year. The value of Palantir, whose software analyzes data for law-enforcement agencies, shot up to $9 billion from $6 billion in just three months. Even more suspicious are the dollars being thrown at companies that barely make money: Pinterest’s investors value it at nearly $4 billion, for instance, and Facebook was willing to pay around $3 billion for Snapchat. Read more of this post

Cloud competition in China means good news for consumers

Cloud competition in China means good news for consumers

Staff Reporter

2013-12-29

December 2013 will mark an important page in the history of China’s cloud computing industry, first with IBM announcing a partnership with 21Vianet Group to introduce its top cloud computing basic structure into the nation, followed by Amazon introducing its public cloud computing service to the mainland, Sina’s tech.sina.com.cn reports. Read more of this post

Japan mid-tier camera makers face shakeout as smartphones shatter mirrorless hopes

Japan mid-tier camera makers face shakeout as smartphones shatter mirrorless hopes

4:20pm EST

By Sophie Knight and Reiji Murai

TOKYO (Reuters) – Panasonic Corp and Japan’s other mid-tier camera makers have a battle on their hands to win over a smartphone “selfie” generation to mirrorless cameras that held such promise when they were launched around five years ago. Read more of this post

Rise in Twitter’s Stock Reflects Exuberance in Silicon Valley

December 29, 2013

Rise in Twitter’s Stock Reflects Exuberance in Silicon Valley

By VINDU GOEL

SAN FRANCISCO — Max Ganik has no doubts that Twitter’s stock — up 145 percent since it first began trading on Nov. 7 — is firmly in bubble territory. “But that doesn’t mean it’s going to stop going up,” said Mr. Ganik, 16, a junior at a high school in Scarsdale, N.Y., who doubled his money by lunchtime on Thursday trading Twitter stock options, and planned to dive back in on Monday. “Traders are going to drive up the price. The valuation doesn’t actually matter at this point.” Read more of this post

Online showrooms and digital dealerships revolutionise car buying

December 29, 2013 4:04 pm

Online showrooms and digital dealerships revolutionise car buying

By Henry Foy, Motor Industry Correspondent

At first glance, Audi’s flagship car showroom on London’s Piccadilly could do with a few more cars. In the shadow of the Ritz Hotel, and across Green Park from the gates of Buckingham Palace, a single two-seater R8 Spyder sports car, the brand’s most exclusive model, sits alone in the shop’s window. Read more of this post

No response: When will news sites catch up to the rest of the Web?

No response: When will news sites catch up to the rest of the Web?

BY NATHANIEL MOTT 
ON DECEMBER 26, 2013

In 2010, Ethan Marcotte published “Responsive Web Design” on A List Apart, an influential Web-and design-focused blog. The article outlined many of the principles that define the modern Web, which needs to support everything from smartphones and tablets to desktop computers and video game consoles. The hope was that every website would be able to fit every display without error. Read more of this post

Google, Apple Forge Auto Ties; Consumer Electronics Show to Spotlight In-Car Digital Race

Google, Apple Forge Auto Ties

Consumer Electronics Show to Spotlight In-Car Digital Race

NEAL E. BOUDETTE and DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI

Dec. 29, 2013 5:58 p.m. ET

Technology giants Google Inc. GOOG +0.08% and Apple Inc. AAPL -0.68% are about to expand their battle for digital supremacy to a new front: the automobile. Next week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Google and German auto maker Audi AG  plan to announce that they are working together to develop in-car entertainment and information systems that are based on Google’s Android software, people familiar with the matter said. Read more of this post

Beware the Tech Bubble—But Stay Calm; How to Reap the Best of the Sector While Staving Off Irrational Exuberance

Beware the Tech Bubble—But Stay Calm

How to Reap the Best of the Sector While Staving Off Irrational Exuberance

FARHAD MANJOO

Dec. 29, 2013 4:19 p.m. ET

I spend a lot of time worrying about the next tech bubble. It’s my job to worry, of course, and this year, worrying became a full-time occupation. Ever since Facebook‘s FB -3.97% stock price rebounded this year to the level of its initial public offering, tech startups have seen an incredible run-up in valuations. Boxrecently raised financing that valued the data-storage company for businesses at $2 billion, almost double its value when it raised funds in the summer of last year. The value of Palantir, whose software analyzes data for law-enforcement agencies, shot up to $9 billion from $6 billion in just three months. Even more suspicious are the dollars being thrown at companies that barely make money: Pinterest’s investors value it at nearly $4 billion, for instance, and Facebook was willing to pay around $3 billion for Snapchat. Read more of this post

Apple, Google and Facebook are latter-day Scrooges; Why are the most successful companies on the planet acting like misers in a Balzac novel?

December 29, 2013 3:59 pm

Apple, Google and Facebook are latter-day Scrooges

By John Plender

Why are the most successful companies on the planet acting like misers in a Balzac novel? All across the world companies have in recent years been hoarding cash, nowhere more so than in the US. For at least a decade and a half, cash has progressively increased its share of the American corporate balance sheet, to the point where US quoted companies have turned into the Scrooges of the global economy. According to research by Juan Sánchez and Emircan Yurdagul of the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, their cash hoard had reached almost $5tn by the end of 2011. Read more of this post

After Web stocks boom, investors wary but rout unlikely

After Web stocks boom, investors wary but rout unlikely

9:03am EST

By Alexei Oreskovic and Rodrigo Campos

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) – For investors in internet stocks, it was a banner year: shares of many companies doubled as revenue climbed and on forecasts for rip-roaring growth in earnings. But the gains haven’t been anxiety-free, thanks to uncomfortable memories of the 1999 Internet bubble and subsequent bust. Read more of this post