Fundraising + Daily Deals = Business Inspiration; Stacey Boyd realized she could apply the idea behind sites like Groupon to help educators raise money

Fundraising + Daily Deals = Business Inspiration

December 2, 2013

For Stacey Boyd, inspiration was all about making a quick connection between two very different ideas. The former teacher and principal in San Francisco was reading a newspaper story about the school budget cuts in California on her iPad. Then she turned the page and saw a story about how daily-deal sites likeGroupon GRPN -0.55% and LivingSocial were providing a new revenue stream for local businesses. Read more of this post

Amazon Developing Drones for Deliveries

Amazon Developing Drones for Deliveries

GREG BENSINGER

Dec. 2, 2013 12:51 a.m. ET

Amazon.com Inc. AMZN +1.79% Chief Executive Jeff Bezos said the online retailer is developing pilotless flying vehicles he calls “octocopters” that can deliver packages within a half-hour of customers placing an order. Mr. Bezos showed Charlie Rose an early version of the drone in development on an episode of the CBS news program “60 Minutes” aired Sunday evening. Read more of this post

How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

by David A. Garvin

Since the early days of Google, people throughout the company have questioned the value of managers. That skepticism stems from a highly technocratic culture. As one software engineer, Eric Flatt, puts it, “We are a company built by engineers for engineers.” And most engineers, not just those at Google, want to spend their time designing and debugging, not communicating with bosses or supervising other workers’ progress. In their hearts they’ve long believed that management is more destructive than beneficial, a distraction from “real work” and tangible, goal-directed tasks. Read more of this post

Silicon Valley catches Bitcoin fever

Last updated: December 1, 2013 8:22 pm

Silicon Valley catches Bitcoin fever

By Richard Waters in San Francisco

Silicon Valley is starting to catch Bitcoin fever – though the entrepreneurs and venture capitalists being drawn to the virtual currency claim that the biggest profits will come from using it to build a new digital finance industry rather than just as a vehicle for speculation. Digital currency companies that have attracted early rounds of venture capital in recent weeks include Circle Internet Financial, headed by Jeremy Allaire, a serial entrepreneur from the media technology industry, and Ripple Labs, whose founder, Chris Larsen, was behind pioneering peer-to-peer lending company Prosper. Read more of this post

Smile, You’re on Candid Webcam; A YouTube stunt shows how easy it is to collect personal information from social-media posts

Smile, You’re on Candid Webcam

A YouTube stunt shows how easy it is to collect personal information from social-media posts.

L. GORDON CROVITZ

Dec. 1, 2013 6:34 p.m. ET

More than one billion people now use social media around the world, but users are still figuring out how much privacy they are willing to trade for being able to share with their friends—and sometimes with strangers. Comic Jack Vale, who has a channel on YouTube featuring hidden-camera spoofs, recently conducted what he called a “social media experiment prank.” He went to a shopping district in Irvine, Calif., and searched social media services to see who was nearby and what he could learn about them. Read more of this post

Web Companies Embrace TV Ads; New Media Find the Reach of Television Commercials Hard to Resist

Web Companies Embrace TV Ads

New Media Find the Reach of Television Commercials Hard to Resist

SUZANNE VRANICA

Dec. 1, 2013 7:15 p.m. ET

Google Inc., GOOG -0.33% AOL Inc. AOL -0.27% and Yahoo Inc. YHOO +0.05% are doing their best to lure advertisers away from television in favor of their outlets. But television’s appeal is tough to resist—even for many website owners. TripAdvisor Inc. TRIP +0.01% recently kicked off a $30 million TV advertising campaign, the company’s first. For 13 years, the travel website has relied largely on digital ads such as sponsored search results and, more recently, social media. While that has helped build a “decent level” of name recognition, the company says, it now wants to go further. Read more of this post

Running A Luxury Flash-Sale Site in China: Interview with Glamour Sales CEO Thibault Villet

Running A Luxury Flash-Sale Site in China: Interview with Glamour Sales CEO Thibault Villet

By Guest Editor on December 2, 2013

Editor’s Note: The Interview is done for TechNode by Timothy Coghlan, an expert on the fashion industry in China and writes about the China fashion business in his blog maosuit

A seasoned veteran of luxury brand retail in Asia, Thibault Villet held senior positions at both L’Oreal and Coach before launching Glamour Sales in China in 2009. With Glamour Sales now a proven and growing business in China’s super-competitive e-commerce space, Thibault spoke to TechNode about the business and operating at the intersection of fashion, luxury and technology. Read more of this post

Aussies venture into Silicon Valley’s elite investment world

Nassim Khadem Reporter

Aussies venture into Silicon Valley’s elite investment world

Published 27 November 2013 09:46, Updated 28 November 2013 07:56

Silicon Valley investors and companies are more attracted to Australian start-ups and engineers than ever before, the co-founder and managing partner of fast-growing recruitment firm MitchelLake Group says. Australian Phaedon Stough heads San Francisco-based MitchelLake Group, which is ranked 75th in the 2013 BRW Fast 100 and is on track to reach $US2.4 million ($2.6 million) in revenue in 2013-14. He has spent the past few years helping Australian tech companies establish themselves in Silicon Valley. Read more of this post

Yahoo’s Mobile News Service Is A Bold Move

Yahoo’s Mobile News Service Is A Bold Move

MARTIN HIRST, THE CONVERSATION UK
NOV. 29, 2013, 6:37 PM 2,093 3

Yahoo’s new business model appears to be taking shape, following the surprise announcement that the NASDAQ-listed search and mobile App tech-giant has employed a group of well-known and high-profile journalists and editors to staff its own news portal. For Yahoo, it is a move into quality mobile content with a news focus, in an attempt to win the mobile advertising market. The question is: will it work? Read more of this post

When Algorithms Grow Accustomed to Your Face; Companies are developing software to analyze our fleeting facial expressions and to get at the emotions behind them

November 30, 2013

When Algorithms Grow Accustomed to Your Face

By ANNE EISENBERG

People often reveal their private emotions in tiny, fleeting facial expressions, visible only to a best friend — or to a skilled poker player. Now, computer software is using frame-by-frame video analysis to read subtle muscular changes that flash across our faces in milliseconds, signaling emotions like happiness, sadness and disgust. With face-reading software, a computer’s webcam might spot the confused expression of an online student and provide extra tutoring. Or computer-based games with built-in cameras could register how people are reacting to each move in the game and ramp up the pace if they seem bored. Read more of this post

WhatsApp Has Surpassed Facebook As The Most Popular Mobile Messaging Service

WhatsApp Has Surpassed Facebook As The Most Popular Mobile Messaging Service

GILLIAN WEST, THE DRUM NOV. 30, 2013, 5:24 PM 9,142 2

Messenger service WhatsApp has leapfrogged Facebook to become the leading mobile social messaging service. According to the results of a survey of nearly 4,000 smartphone users in five countries, 44 percent used WhatsApp at least once a week, compared to 35 percent using Facebook messenger. On Device’s report revealed that social messaging apps, such as WhatsApp, BBM and WeChat, dominated the way people communicate via mobile, eclipsing calls and texts with 86 percent using social messaging daily. 73 percent, 75 per cent and 60 percent said they used their handset daily for voice calls, SMS and email respectively. Read more of this post

Software eats dinner: Why VCs are pouring cash into food startups

Software eats dinner: Why VCs are pouring cash into food startups

ERIN GRIFFITH 
ON NOVEMBER 29, 2013

Startups are seeking to change the way we buy groceries, eat out, host dinner parties, pay for drinks, and cook our meals. OpenTable proved there’s a lucrative business in reservations, earning its investors a solid return. Now, with the Web 1.0 flameout Webvan a distant memory, a new, massive wave of food startups are seeking to cash in on the way we eat. Investors are paying attention. The question is, what do they know about food? Venture capital is well-suited to invest in software. The easy scalability of a software startup, where you build the product once and sell it to everyone, means companies can grow abnormally fast compared to their analog counterparts. But it’s strange to see high-growth venture capital injected into old-school analog industries, particularly one as old-school as food. Food-tech even has its own Lumascape, created by Brita Rosenheim of Rosenheim Advisors. Read more of this post

Master of the Game: With the success of Grand Theft Auto V, CEO Strauss Zelnick has put Take-Two Interactive Software on the path to long-term prosperity

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2013

Master of the Game

By DYAN MACHAN | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

With the success of Grand Theft Auto V, CEO Strauss Zelnick has put Take-Two Interactive Software on the path to long-term prosperity.

Strauss Zelnick’s early success in the movie industry earned him the epithet media wunderkind. It stuck like Krazy Glue, no matter that the kid is now 56.

A serial hit maker in multiple media, Zelnick has another winner on his hands with the videogame Grand Theft Auto V, launched in mid-September by a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive Software (ticker: TTWO), the gaming company he has chaired since 2007 and run as CEO since January 2011. The latest installment in a controversial but hugely popular crime series, GTA sold nearly 29 million units in its first six weeks on the market. And the long-awaited kickoff of the first major videogame-console cycle in seven years— Microsoft (MSFT) introduced the Xbox One last month, and Sony (SNE), the PlayStation 4—can only mean more sales for Take-Two’s flagship property. Read more of this post

Inside the mind of Marc Andreessen; The successful venture capitalist opines on Facebook, the media industry, and why cars may go the way of the buggy whip

Inside the mind of Marc Andreessen

November 21, 2013: 5:00 AM ET

The successful venture capitalist opines on Facebook, the media industry, and why cars may go the way of the buggy whip.

Interview by Andy Serwer, managing editor

FORTUNE — Marc Andreessen is never short on opinions and never shy about sharing them either. The co-creator of Mosaic, the first commercially used web-browser that he helped evolve into Netscape, he now runs the upstart and uber venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (with partner Ben Horowitz.) Andreessen serves on the board of Facebook (FB) and HP (HPQ) and has invested in Twitter (TWTR) among myriad other advisory and investment relationships. Now an emblematic figure of Silicon Valley, Andreessen is actually a product of the Midwest, growing up in Cedar Falls, Iowa and New Lisbon, Wisconsin and attending the University of Illinois. He returned to that part of the world to speak at an investor meeting at BDT Capital Partners in Chicago, a merchant bank run by Byron Trott that invests in and advises large family-controlled and closely held companies. The inspiration for this conversation came from an interview of Andreessen I did there. What follows are the highlights. Read more of this post

Short on Space, Taiwan Embraces a Boom in Recycling

November 29, 2013

Short on Space, Taiwan Embraces a Boom in Recycling

By CAIN NUNNS

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Twenty-five miles west of here on Taiwan’s rugged northwest coast, a cavernous warehouse under construction represents the new priorities for an island where the streets were once littered with piles of discarded electronics and other refuse. At the clean and tidy construction site, building materials are stacked neatly and even workers’ cigarette butts are carefully collected. The surroundings are designed to evoke a Roman villa, with lagoon, garden and canopies. The energy-saving shade tiles are made out of old CDs, DVDs and computer motherboards. Read more of this post

Pearson sells subscription-based news service Mergermarket for $624 million (382 million pounds, revenue 100 million pounds) to focus on education business

Pearson sells Mergermarket to focus on education business

Fri, Nov 29 2013

LONDON (Reuters) – British media and education group Pearson has agreed to sell its Mergermarket news service for 382 million pounds ($624 million), to invest in its global education business. The sale to funds advised by private equity group BC Partners was at a higher price than the 300 to 360 million pounds banking sources had expected. Pearson Chief Executive John Fallon is reorganizing the company to concentrate on fast-growing economies and digital services, rather than Europe and North America, where austerity measures have hit public spending. Read more of this post

Samsung’s marketing splurge doesn’t always bring bang-for-buck

Samsung’s marketing splurge doesn’t always bring bang-for-buck

Wed, Nov 27 2013

By Miyoung Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics Co is expected to spend around $14 billion – more than Iceland’s GDP – on advertising and marketing this year, but it doesn’t always get value for money. The outlay buys the South Korean technology giant publicity in TV and cinema ads, on billboards, and at sports and arts events from the Sydney Opera House to New York’s Radio City Music Hall. Google Inc spent less on buying Motorola’s handset business. Read more of this post

Mixi Doubles in 10 Days as ‘Monster Strike’ Soars: Tokyo Mover

Mixi Doubles in 10 Days as ‘Monster Strike’ Soars: Tokyo Mover

Mixi Inc. (2121) surged in Tokyo trade and the stock has more than doubled in the last 10 days as investors bet on the prospects for new apps including games similar to those sold by Japan’s GungHo Online Entertainment Inc. (3765) Shares rose by the daily limit, jumping 21 percent to close at 2,874 yen. They have more than doubled since Nov. 15 when the stock closed at 1,225 yen. The TSE Mothers index has risen 5.1 percent in the same period and gained 1.2 percent today. Read more of this post

Wal-Mart Uses Wristbands to Deter Holiday Shopper Melees

Wal-Mart Uses Wristbands to Deter Holiday Shopper Melees

With an estimated 140 million Americans predicted to shop this weekend, retailers are bolstering security, deploying Segway patrols and putting on live music to distract shoppers and avoid the deal-hunting scrums that can foster Black Friday tramplings. Malls are beefing up patrols with off-duty cops. Chains including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. are using quota systems for popular doorbusters from iPads to jewelry. The National Retail Federation issued crowd management guidelines, urging stores to prepare for flash mobs, long lines of angry customers and crowded washrooms. The Washington-based trade group has sent out the memo annually since a Wal-Mart worker was trampled to death in 2008 during a Black Friday melee. Read more of this post

Telepresence: What is it like to attend a conference remotely, via a robot proxy that provides video-conferencing on wheels?

Telepresence: What is it like to attend a conference remotely, via a robot proxy that provides video-conferencing on wheels?

Nov 30th 2013 | From the print edition

SCI-FI writers have long imagined technologies that would allow you to manipulate and control a perfect replica of yourself in a distant location. Today’s remote-presence robots are crude by comparison, amounting to little more than videoconferencing on wheels. But they can still be surprisingly nifty, as this correspondent discovered while pottering around RoboBusiness 2013, a robotics conference recently held in California, from the comfort of a desk 1,500 miles (2,500km) away, in Austin, Texas. Read more of this post

Technical Illusions’ Hologram Glasses

Technical Illusions’ Hologram Glasses

By Nick Leiber   November 27, 2013

Innovators: Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson
Ages: 39 and 42
Titles: Co-founders of Technical Illusions, a startup in Woodinville, Wash.

Form and function: Technical Illusions has developed castAR, a pair of high-tech glasses that project 3D hologramlike images, and a “magic wand” that can be used to interact with the holographic projections to enliven gaming and teaching.

Plague Inc. App Thrills Gamers and Public Health Officials Alike

Plague Inc. App Thrills Gamers and Public Health Officials Alike

By Meg Tirrell November 27, 2013

The disease didn’t look like a killer. The symptoms were coughs and sneezes, and its spread attracted little notice. Then someone with the virus got on a plane, launching its journey around the globe. Sneezes gave way to fatal hemorrhages; thousands of infected turned into millions. The virus mutated and developed drug resistance. Soon it wiped out the human race. For players of the mobile game Plague Inc., that counts as a win. Read more of this post

High-tech winemaking: Technology has already made poor plonk a thing of the past. What can it do to improve the world’s finest wines?

High-tech winemaking: Technology has already made poor plonk a thing of the past. What can it do to improve the world’s finest wines?

Nov 30th 2013 | From the print edition

IT IS five o’clock in the morning at the height of California’s harvest season, and the full moon hanging low over the Carneros hills bathes the chardonnay vineyards in cheese-yellow light. A crew of 30 Mexican grape-pickers, wearing headlamps and orange safety vests, races down the rows in silence, deftly severing the bunches with crescent-shaped knives and dropping them into plastic bins. They have to work fast in the cool night air, taking a few seconds to strip each plant, because within an hour it will be too warm to harvest the fragile grapes. “They are skilled, more than they’re given credit for,” says Towle Merritt, a general manager at Walsh Vineyards Management, the viticulture firm that employs them. Read more of this post

Grocery has so far resisted the rise of online shopping. That may be about to change

Grocery has so far resisted the rise of online shopping. That may be about to change

Nov 30th 2013 | LONDON AND NEW YORK | From the print edition

THERE is “a huge difference between being late and being too late,” said Dalton Philips, the boss of Morrisons, on November 21st, as he announced the launch of the British grocer’s online-shopping service. Morrisons’ competitors have been selling broccoli and baby food via the internet for more than a decade. Britain’s fourth-largest grocery chain had shunned e-commerce as a profit-sapping distraction. It paid with falling market share and the defection of some of its best customers to Tesco, the country’s biggest grocer, and Ocado, an online-only supermarket. Read more of this post

Environmental technology: A combination of two desalination techniques provides a new way to purify the water used in fracking

Environmental technology: A combination of two desalination techniques provides a new way to purify the water used in fracking

Nov 30th 2013 | From the print edition

WATER injected at high pressure into rock deep underground during the process of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, often returns to the surface as brine, having picked up a lot of salt on its journey. It is also contaminated with chemicals from the fracking process itself. So a cheap and effective way of separating the salt and other chemicals from the water would be welcome. General Electric (GE), an American engineering conglomerate, is now putting one through its paces. Read more of this post

Apple prepares for push into gaming market

November 28, 2013 12:51 pm

Apple prepares for push into gaming market

By Tim Bradshaw

While the Xbox One console is delivering Apple-like revolutions to TV viewing, the iPhone maker could yet take on Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony at their own game. At its annual Worldwide Developer Conference this summer, Apple quietly announced a new scheme to allow peripheral makers to create “made for iPhone” games controllers. These joysticks would attach to an iPhone and be used to control a game on the small screen, replacing the touchscreen controls that are often too fiddly for fast-paced games. Read more of this post

Apple fades in race to conquer TV; Microsoft, Sony and Samsung adopt a more radical approach

November 28, 2013 2:03 pm

Apple fades in race to conquer TV

By Tim Bradshaw in San Francisco

It is the revolutionary television that gadget fans have been waiting years for. A camera recognises you and instantly personalises the screen. Ask what is on the Discovery Channel, the voice recognition understands and shows you. Call up Breaking Bad, and the device offers a choice of episodes on live TV, Netflix or its own video service. This might have been the Apple TV that Steve Jobs had in mind when he told his biographer Walter Isaacson in 2011 that he had “finally cracked” the perfect user interface for TV. Read more of this post

Acer On the Hunt for New Top Executives

Nov 28, 2013

Acer On the Hunt for New Top Executives

EVA DOU

The return of Acer Inc.2353.TW +0.94%’s founder Stan Shih last week raised memories of two other famous comebacks in the PC industry — Steve Jobs returning toApple Inc.AAPL +2.35% and Michael Dell taking back the helm of his eponymous company. But unlike the founders of Apple and Dell, the 69-year-old Mr. Shih is not planning to keep hold of the reins at the troubled Taiwanese PC maker for long. Read more of this post

Cinema economics: Bigger on the inside; Now showing at your local cinema: operas, circuses and television shows

Cinema economics: Bigger on the inside; Now showing at your local cinema: operas, circuses and television shows

Nov 30th 2013 | NEW YORK | From the print edition

“WHOVIANS” habitually sit on the sofa—or hide behind it—to watch their favourite time-traveller battle Daleks, Cybermen, Zygons and other monsters. But on November 23rd thousands of them, all around the world, settled into cinema seats to see “Doctor Who” in 3D. The 50th-anniversary episode of the British television show was screened on 800 big screens in 20 countries at the same time as being broadcast on the BBC’s channels. Read more of this post