Twitter to be available on mobile phones without Internet

Twitter to be available on mobile phones without Internet

3:12pm EST

By Sruthi Ramakrishnan

(Reuters) – Twitter Inc is tying up with a Singapore-based startup to make its 140-character messaging service available to users in emerging markets who have entry-level mobile phones which cannot access the Internet. U2opia Mobile, which has a similar tie-up with Facebook Inc, will launch its Twitter service in the first quarter of next year, Chief Executive and Co-founder Sumesh Menon told Reuters. Read more of this post

Twitter’s CEO: “Failing to make bold choices. That’s how you fail. You start to only focus on incrementalism instead of making bold choices.”

How Twitter’s CEO closes deals

BY CARMEL DEAMICIS 
ON DECEMBER 5, 2013

Dick Costolo launched his first companies in Chicago, where just like every new founder he had to do the long hard slog of raising money. Almost two decades later came the roadshow to take Twitter public. Speaking at tonight’s PandoMonthly in San Francisco, Costolo told Sarah Lacy there’s not much of a difference between the two. Selling is selling, whether you’re trying to get twenty bucks out of some guy’s pocket or billions from mutual fund investors. Read more of this post

Why Amazon’s Going Up in the Air

Why Amazon’s Going Up in the Air

By Brad Stone December 05, 2013

During the late 1990s, when capital flowed freely to Internet startups and investors were pushing Amazon.com’s (AMZN) stock price into the stratosphere, Jeff Bezos was full of outlandish ideas for his company’s future. Colleagues called these reveries “fever dreams.” Read more of this post

To Expand Reach, Retailers Take Aim at Hispanic Shoppers

December 5, 2013

To Expand Reach, Retailers Take Aim at Hispanic Shoppers

By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS

A few words used repeatedly start to sound like a chorus when Macy’s talks about unveiling its new line of clothing and accessories with Thalía Sodi, a Mexican pop star: Curves. Prints. Color. And the one perhaps used most, which signals this venture’s true value, is “Latina.” “This is an amazing opportunity to deliver to the Latin consumer,” Ms. Sodi said, who described the brand as “specifically focused” on Hispanics. “The dresses will be stylish and sexy, but not too simple. Colorful prints, nice contouring to flatter the body.” Read more of this post

20 Years Of Tech Innovation In A Single Picture

20 Years Of Tech Innovation In A Single Picture

HENRY BLODGET 

DEC. 3, 2013, 9:00 AM 15,936 9

The picture below was recently tweeted by @FascinatingPics. It shows some of the 1993 technology that is now packed into 2013 technology. Anytime you think the pace of innovation in the world is slowing down, just have another glance at this.

Mobile Payments Gain Traction Among India’s Poor

December 4, 2013

Mobile Payments Gain Traction Among India’s Poor

By RICHARD SHAFFER

Shashank Joshi, founder of MoneyOnMobile.

MUMBAI, India — In a narrow room filled with acrid fumes in one of the world’s largest slums, Chinak Ramtheol earns about $4 a day tending machines that melt and slice plastic trash into pellets for recycling. He manages to save enough that he regularly can send a few hundred rupees to his family in rural Siddharthnagar, a thousand miles across India near Nepal. Read more of this post

Sony Scores Early Points in New Console Wars

Sony Scores Early Points in New Console Wars

AARON BACK

Dec. 4, 2013 11:30 p.m. ET

The console wars are back, and Sony 6758.TO -1.14% has a new battle plan. Initial reports indicate Sony’s PlayStation 4 has an early edge over Microsoft‘sMSFT +1.64%  XBox One. Both sold more than 1 million units on their first day, but Sony managed this in far fewer markets. Sony said Tuesday it had already sold 2.1 million units, while Microsoft hasn’t given an updated figure. Sony’s sticker price, which is $100 cheaper, seems to have given it the lead at this stage.

Read more of this post

Thailand Resilience Eroding as Protests Sap Confidence: Economy

Thailand Resilience Eroding as Protests Sap Confidence: Economy

Thailand’s economy has withstood coups and regime-changing protests for decades, luring manufacturers including Toyota Motor Corp. even when turmoil dented stocks and the baht. This time may be tougher. Demonstrators in Bangkok seeking to oust Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra sparked the most violent anti-government clashes in more than three years, raising the risk of the third removal of an elected leader since August 2006. Foreign investors sold a net $1.5 billion of Thai shares last month, the most among 10 Asian markets tracked by Bloomberg. Read more of this post

U.S. says online ads should be clearly marked, undeceptive

U.S. says online ads should be clearly marked, undeceptive

2:08pm EST

By Diane Bartz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The growing online usage of ads designed to blend in with the rest of a website’s content, a practice known as “native advertising,” may be illegal in some instances, the Federal Trade Commission warned on Wednesday. The FTC said that a survey of online publishers found that 73 percent allowed native advertising, the digital descendent of the newspaper “advertorial” and television’s infomercials. Read more of this post

Startups Aim to Demystify Computing

Startups Aim to Demystify Computing

BEN ROONEY

Dec. 4, 2013 3:40 p.m. ET

Science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke wrote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” That’s certainly how most people see the workings of their electronic devices. An iPad is more powerful than a 1990s supercomputer, yet that power remains mainly hidden behind the magician’s curtain of the touch screen, accessible only through applications and programs written by others. Read more of this post

Google Investing in Robotics Effort Led by Former Android Chief

Google Investing in Robotics Effort Led by Former Android Chief

Google Inc. has acquired seven companies for a robotics project led by Andy Rubin, former head of the Android software unit, as the world’s largest online search provider pushes beyond its roots. The effort, which includes purchases of companies in Japan and the U.S., comes after Rubin stepped down in March from Android, which he built into a leading mobile smartphone operating system. Under Rubin, Android surged ahead of Apple Inc.’s iOS software for mobile devices to command 70 percent of the operating systems on smartphones. Read more of this post

Fingerprint sees touch ID going mainstream for smartphones

Fingerprint sees touch ID going mainstream for smartphones

1:49pm EST

By Mia Shanley and Olof Swahnberg

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Fingerprint Cards is aiming to sell its identity technology to most of the world’s biggest smartphone makers, which are likely to follow Apple in offering touch recognition for mobiles from next year. Read more of this post

Cloud price war is bad news for technology industry’s old guard; Lowering the price will determine the fate of much of the IT industry

December 4, 2013 12:02 pm

Cloud price war is bad news for technology industry’s old guard

By Richard Waters in San Francisco

Lowering the price will determine the fate of much of the IT industry

Sometimes, the news headlines from the tech industry seem to be attention-grabbing stunts with little bearing on immediate business reality. Take the titillating suggestion from Amazon boss Jeff Bezos this week that his company will shortly be in a position to deliver small packages using aerial drones. Few experts think such an eventuality, though technically feasible, is likely in the near term. Read more of this post

China Startups Focus on Pay-to-Gain

Dec 4, 2013

China Startups Focus on Pay-to-Gain

With a bevy of Internet companies that have grown successful on clones of Western products from YouTube to FacebookFB -0.70%, the Chinese Internet industry has long been maligned–often unfairly—as a domain of copycats. Though in some cases that has been true, the emphasis on the products put out by some of China’s largest Internet companies has obscured another area where Chinese companies have for years been pushing the boundaries: The ways they make money online. Read more of this post

Your fridge just texted: Japan electronics firms pin hopes on ‘smart’ appliances

Your fridge just texted: Japan electronics firms pin hopes on ‘smart’ appliances

4:41pm EST

By Maki Shiraki and Sophie Knight

TOKYO (Reuters) – For Japan’s electronics firms, the kitchen is the final frontier. Companies from Panasonic Corp to Toshiba Corp are diverting engineers and money away from their TV operations and into developing ‘smart appliances’ after losing out in the living room to cheaper Asian rivals. A fridge that texts pictures to show what’s for dinner, a voice-controlled washing machine – appliances like these are being designed to talk to each other via the cloud to cut energy bills. Read more of this post

Spotify Reveals the Math Behind Its Music Royalties

Spotify Reveals the Math Behind Its Music Royalties

Streaming Service Pays Less Than a Penny for Each Use

SVEN GRUNDBERG

Dec. 3, 2013 7:27 p.m. ET

Ever wonder how much an artist gets every time you click their song on services like Spotify? The Swedish streaming-music provider is looking to provide some answers amid continued debate over whether artists and music rights holders get a fair shake from their business model. Read more of this post

The web has not yet killed the art of sales; Techniques have not changed as much as some online evangelists claim

December 2, 2013 3:54 pm

The web has not yet killed the art of sales

By Andrew Hill

Techniques have not changed as much as some online evangelists claim

Call me naive, but somehow I expected more from the double-glazing salesman I recently invited into my home. I knew about confusing pitches, pressure tactics, cowboy installers and fly-by-night manufacturers. You do not have to do much research to appreciate that sellers of double glazing are in the hard-sell hall of fame, alongside used-car vendors and estate agents. Read more of this post

Apple Buys Topsy, a Social Media Analytics Firm; Topsy focuses on analyzing the half a billion messages sent over Twitter every day

December 2, 2013

Apple Buys Topsy, a Social Media Analytics Firm

By BRIAN X. CHEN and VINDU GOEL

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple is not known for being social — rather, it is known for being buttoned up about everything it does. But on Monday, the company confirmed that it had bought Topsy Labs, a research company that could help Apple better understand what people are talking about on social media networks like Twitter. Read more of this post

Smart gloves mimic human touch, making winter more bearable

Smart gloves mimic human touch, making winter more bearable

December 3, 2013 – 12:08PM

Christine Erickson

There is nothing worse than the cold winter wind mocking you as your gloved hand swipes the screen of your touch-sensitive mobile device and nothing happens. With the dropping temperature comes the frustrating inability to use your smartphone. Fortunately, AEON Attire is offering a range of gloves that are not only smartphone compatible, but stylish, too. AEON’s fitted, genuine leather gloves are windproof and water resistant. Their design incorporates nanotechnology that mimics the properties of human skin so that you can operate personal devices without sacrificing the convenience of being warm and dry. AEON’s glove line was originally launched as a Kickstarter campaign but has since moved to a separate website for pre-orders, as it currently has more than $US25,000 funded of its $US2500 pledge goal. The gloves, priced at $US65, are already in production, according to AEON’s Kickstarter page. The company says “the gloves should be good to arrive before the holidays”

Google takes on Amazon by cutting cloud service prices

Google takes on Amazon by cutting cloud service prices

12:55pm EST

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc will lower prices on cloud services as the search giant gears up to take on Amazon.com Inc, International Business Machines Corp and Microsoft Corp in the fast-growing market of Internet services for corporations. In a Monday blogpost, Google outlined key features and pricing for “Compute Engine,” part of a broader service that vies with Amazon’s AWS in providing storage and computing power to corporate clients as in-house datacenters are gradually phased out. It will lower prices 10 percent on most standard services, and 60 percent on high-end data storage. Google said the service was now “generally available,” signaling that it meets internal standards and is ready for a wider rollout. It is “embarking on a significant multi-billion infrastructure-as-a-service opportunity,” analyst Colin Sebastian of R.W. Baird wrote. “Google is positioned to become the next large player in cloud services, with a robust platform of application, platform and infrastructure services, competing for an increasing share of the IT spending pie.”

Google Puts Money on Robots, Using the Man Behind Android; The company has acquired seven companies in hopes of automating electronics assembly and maybe even taking on Amazon in retail delivery

December 4, 2013

Google Puts Money on Robots, Using the Man Behind Android

By JOHN MARKOFF

PALO ALTO, Calif. — In an out-of-the-way Google office, two life-size humanoid robots hang suspended in a corner. If Amazon can imagine delivering books by drones, is it too much to think that Google might be planning to one day have one of the robots hop off an automated Google Car and race to your doorstep to deliver a package? Read more of this post

Audi Non-Blinding High Beams Seek Edge in BMW Sales Race

Audi Non-Blinding High Beams Seek Edge in BMW Sales Race

In its bid to overtake Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) as the world’s best-selling luxury-car maker, Audi wants to dazzle, not blind. In a pitch-black museum hall near Dusseldorf in October, the Volkswagen AG (VOW) unit had a woman walk to and fro in front of a harsh white cone of light from a car’s high beams. Instead of blinding the woman, who was carrying a flashlight to simulate a bike rider at night, the light automatically shied away from wherever she went while keeping the roadway lit. Read more of this post

Amazon Sees Sunshine in a Cloudy Play; Opportunity in Cloud Computing Is Big Enough for Both Google and Amazon.com

Amazon Sees Sunshine in a Cloudy Play

Opportunity in Cloud Computing Is Big Enough for Both Google and Amazon.com.

DAN GALLAGHER

Dec. 3, 2013 3:28 p.m. ET

Amazon.com AMZN -1.95% investors shouldn’t sweat Google‘s GOOG -0.12% stepped-up efforts in cloud computing—yet. Google has formally launched its Compute Engine, a cloud-based service that effectively rents out to businesses large and small the Web search giant’s huge network infrastructure. This is similar to the efforts Amazon has made with its own Web-services business known as AWS. Read more of this post

3D printer boom lures new wave of Japan entrepreneurs

3D printer boom lures new wave of Japan entrepreneurs

4:24pm EST

By Stanley White

TOKYO (Reuters) – Junichiro Asami gave up a stable job to join a group of Japanese entrepreneurs building businesses based on 3D printing, showing the sort of pioneering spirit Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hopes can revitalize a calcified economy. Whether these entrepreneurs can lay the foundations for a new era in Japanese products though may depend on whether Abe can tear down barriers in a wider business culture that shuns risk and supports the status quo. Read more of this post

Cable’s Pied Piper of Consolidation: Why Liberty Media Chairman John Malone is back in the cable business

Cable’s Pied Piper of Consolidation

Why Liberty Media Chairman John Malone is back in the cable business.

HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.

Dec. 3, 2013 7:11 p.m. ET

Never have so many been spurred to such frenzy by so few. By “few,” of course, we meanJohn Malone. The 72-year-old Mr. Malone, the original cable guy, has sidled back into the industry he helped create decades earlier. In March, his Liberty Media LMCA -0.91% bought a 27% stake in Charter Communications, CHTR -2.57% a midsize operator with a laggard history. Mr. Malone announced the time was ripe for consolidation. That’s all it took. Read more of this post

Comcast tests new ad tech to help networks capture binge viewers

Comcast tests new ad tech to help networks capture binge viewers

12:02am EST

By Liana B. Baker and Lisa Richwine

(Reuters) – Comcast Corp, the largest U.S. cable operator, is testing new advertising technology that inserts up-to-date commercials into past episodes of TV shows that are available on demand, a development that could help television networks generate additional revenue. As people get used to catching up on or binging on older episodes of shows through online services like Netflix and Hulu, cable companies and TV networks are plying viewers with past episodes from current seasons that can be watched on demand through their cable set-top boxes. Read more of this post

Amazon to WNS Tap South African Accent for Call-Center Expansion

Amazon to WNS Tap South African Accent for Call-Center Expansion

From an office park in Cape Town, Gershwin Osman fields a call from a woman in the English town of Worcester and helps update her utility account. Osman is one of about 2,500 people employed in South Africa by WNS Holdings Ltd. (WNS), a Mumbai-based back-office services provider lured by government incentives, tumbling communications costs and a pool of workers whose diction and accents suit the U.K. market. Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), the world’s largest online retailer, set up a call center in 2010 in Cape Town to service British, American and German clients. Read more of this post

Smart socks may be the future of wearable technology

Smart socks may be the future of wearable technology

November 30, 2013

Will Oremus

When the email appeared in my inbox, I thought it was a joke. Smart socks? For $150? The concept sounded, well, the opposite of smart. That impression did not diminish when I saw a prototype of the socks – or, rather, the sock. (Only one in each pair is blessed with intelligence.) At first glance, it’s just a regular old cotton sock, but with a whitish, plasticy, curved band stuck to it via a pair of metal snaps. Look closer and you’ll notice a discolored patch on the bottom, with a thread running up to meet the plastic band. The iPhone of ankle-wear, this is not. Read more of this post

Get Caught Up in T.J. Maxx’s Web; There are reasons off-price stores, which buy excess inventory and off-season fashions from department stores and manufacturers, have been late e-commerce adopters

Get Caught Up in T.J. Maxx’s Web

MIRIAM GOTTFRIED

Dec. 1, 2013 3:32 p.m. ET

T.J. Maxx has left the building. In September, TJX Cos., the off-priced retailer’s parent company, launched an e-commerce platform for its flagship brand. For a retailer to offer online sales in the year 2013 is hardly cutting edge. But T.J. Maxx had reasons for waiting, and investors may be rewarded for their patience. Read more of this post

Lenovo’s rise amid giants defies critics

Lenovo’s rise amid giants defies critics

Sunday, December 1, 2013 – 15:52

China Daily/Asia News Network

In the time that you take to read this, people around the world will have snapped up a Lenovo computer, tablet or smartphone – about one of these electronic devices every four seconds or so. Lenovo Group Ltd has defied the skeptics to prove that an Asian company, in this case a Chinese personal computer maker, can emerge as a multinational player – not just as a manufacturer of products for other companies but as a truly global brand. Read more of this post