Computer giant Lenovo plays down China roots

Computer giant Lenovo plays down China roots

By Cecilia Kang, Published: November 19 | Updated: Wednesday, November 20, 7:59 AM

Computer giant Lenovo wants to tweak its image. That means emphasizing its global reach as the largest maker of personal computers and de-emphasizing its roots in China — where it has 35,000 employees. “We are a global company,” said chief executive Yang Yuanquing in an interview with Washington Post reporters and members of the editorial board this week. He pointed to the interconnected nature of the global technology industry, where a smartphone’s chips may come from the United States or South Korea and its glass screen from Japan or China. “We source from the same providers as U.S. companies.” Read more of this post

Xbox One: A family-focused console that goes beyond gaming

Xbox One: A family-focused console that goes beyond gaming

By Hayley Tsukayama, Updated: Wednesday, November 20, 1:01 PM

Microsoft’s Xbox One is the clearest example of the firm’s belief that game consoles must offer far more than games to succeed in a digital world. Even the device’s name, which is admittedly a bit discordant for the third model in the Xbox line, hammers that point home. The “one” hints at the fact that Microsoft is looking to unify home entertainment around its console and make a clean break with old expectations about what a console should be. Read more of this post

Wearable device market’s ’18 forecast at US$20 bil.

Wearable device market’s ’18 forecast at US$20 bil.

CNA
November 20, 2013, 12:11 am TWN

TAIPEI–The global wearable device market will see big gains in the coming years due to the growing popularity of the technology, according to a local research institute. The wearable device market will reach US$20.6 billion in 2018, with worldwide shipments totaling 191 million units, the Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center (IEK) under the government sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute predicted on Monday. “It has been a hot topic since Google Glass came out in 2012,” said Chen Yo-yi, a researcher at the IEK, adding that many technology companies have introduced wearable devices and that consumers have eagerly anticipated the impact such devices can bring. Wearable computing devices will not have a bright future in the consumer market, however, unless an industry standard for the devices’ specifications is created, said Hou Chun-yuan, a senior analyst at the IEK. Hou also said privacy remains a concern prior to the wider adoption of the devices by the public.

The other Waterloo tech titan: Open Text is the anti-BlackBerry; Unlike BlackBerry, Open Text has kept its focus squarely on the lucrative enterprise market — and has been rewarded with a stock surge, up 60% this year

The other Waterloo tech titan: Open Text is the anti-BlackBerry

Matt Hartley | 19/11/13 | Last Updated: 20/11/13 6:57 AM ET
Open Text Corp. may not be a household name or have achieved the international acclaim of its more famous Waterloo neighbour, BlackBerry Ltd., but there’s something to be said for consistency. Unlike BlackBerry, which branched out into the consumer market only to find itself spread thin when extraordinary competition devoured its market share, Open Text has kept its focus squarely on the lucrative enterprise market. Investors have continually rewarded the company for making acquisitions, including its largest-ever buy earlier this month, and the stock now stands near its highest-ever level, up 60% so far this year. Read more of this post

Tesla Sees Opportunity in Nation of Technophiles

November 20, 2013, 10:49 AM

Tesla Sees Opportunity in Nation of Technophiles

YOSHIO TAKAHASHI

While the big three U.S. car makers once again shun the Tokyo Motor Show, startup electric car maker Tesla Motors Inc.TSLA +3.71%  views Japan as a market brimming with opportunity. Why? Because Japan is a nation of technophiles. “From an American point of view, Japanese consumers are extremely open-minded. They are extremely open to new technology,” Kevin Yu, the Director of Retail Development for Tesla Motors in Asia Pacific, said at a briefing, held in Tokyo ahead of the motor show. Read more of this post

Skype founder’s fund set to shun chat apps; “The investments we focus on are not the ones building a big user base and then hope something will happen with a business model. It doubles the risk.”

November 19, 2013 9:46 pm

Skype founder’s fund set to shun chat apps

By Tim Bradshaw in San Francisco

Niklas Zennström, the chief executive of venture firm Atomico who previously founded messaging service Skype, said that he is unlikely to invest in fast-growing chat applications such as Snapchat from its latest fund. Atomico, which is based in London with offices in São Paulo, Beijing, Istanbul and Tokyo, announced on Tuesday it has raised a new $476m fund, which it plans to invest in technology companies primarily outside of Silicon Valley. Read more of this post

Samsung Electronics says Gear smartwatch shipments hit 800,000 in two months, defying some market concerns the accessory would fail due to a lack of compelling features

Samsung Electronics says Gear smartwatch shipments hit 800,000 in two months

7:03pm EST

SEOUL (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics Co said on Tuesday its Galaxy Gear has become the world’s most popular smartwatch with shipments reaching 800,000 since its debut two months ago, defying some market concerns the accessory would fail due to a lack of compelling features. The company’s statement referred to sales of the smartwatch, but Samsung later clarified that it was basing its figures on shipments to retailers and mobile operators. Read more of this post

Publicly Traded Patent Collectors Plaguing Google, Apple

Publicly Traded Patent Collectors Plaguing Google, Apple

In more than two decades as a publicly-traded company, Spherix Inc. (SPEX) developed diabetes treatments, marketed a low-calorie sweetener and handled campground reservations. Now it’s dealing in something completely different: patents. Two months ago, Spherix merged with North South Holdings Inc., owner of a portfolio of 224 patents. The new Spherix, which calls itself an “intellectual property development company,” is pursuing infringement cases against the likes of T-Mobile US Inc. and buying former Nortel Networks patents from a consortium set up by Microsoft Corp. and Apple (AAPL) Inc. Read more of this post

In the battle for smartphone supremacy, size doesn’t matter. Shape does.

In the battle for smartphone supremacy, size doesn’t matter. Shape does.

By Dominic Basulto, Updated: November 19 at 9:21 am

Seemingly out of nowhere, shape — not screen size or color — has emerged as the new battleground in the smartphone wars. In October, Samsung unveiled the first-ever “curved display” smartphone (the Galaxy Round) and in November, LG followed with another curved display phone that also happened to be flexible (the G Flex). And now come rumors that Apple is bringing two new curved iPhones to market  sometime late next year. It’s now all about shape, as companies begin to develop and deliver phones that are “curved,” “round,” “flexible,” and even “bended.” Read more of this post

Cisco to Emerge ‘Stronger’ From Slump, Chambers Says

Cisco to Emerge ‘Stronger’ From Slump, Chambers Says

Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) Chief Executive Officer John Chambers told shareholders at an annual meeting that the network-equipment maker will “emerge stronger than ever” from a sales slump by investing in developing markets. “We get the transitions right at Cisco,” Chambers said at the meeting, held today at the company’s headquarters in San Jose, California. “We get knocked down sometimes, but we get up in a way that no other company does.” Read more of this post

CDOs Are Reaching New Heights — and Quickly; Is the chief digital officer position the new path to the chief executive title?

CDOs Are Reaching New Heights — and Quickly

November 01, 2013  Reading Time: 3 min

Michael Fitzgerald

Is the chief digital officer position the new path to the chief executive title?

There aren’t a lot of chief digital officers around, but the position has already become something of a springboard to a chief executive or president’s title. There are at least seven recent moves by a chief digital officer (CDO) into top management slots. Mostly, people shift from one company to the next, a la Michael Bloom (@Michael_Bloom), who was CDO at Wenner Media and is now the CEO at Guardian News and Media, NA, or David Cautin, the former CDO at NYSE Euronext, now CEO at kgb, a directory service company. People also move up the ladder in their own company, like Paul Gunning, who was a chief digital officer at Tribal DDB and global CDO for DDB and is now the CEO of DDB Chicago. Read more of this post

Car, tech firms must work together to provide Internet, ‘apps’ : Ford executive

Car, tech firms must work together to provide Internet, ‘apps’ : Ford executive

2:03pm EST

By Ben Klayman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Automakers and technology companies need to cooperate more closely to ensure the rapid and smooth development of cars that are fully connected to the Internet, a top Ford Motor Co (F.N: Quote,Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) executive said on Tuesday. Read more of this post

Bill Gates Met With ‘a Lot’ of Microsoft CEO Candidates

Bill Gates Met With ‘a Lot’ of Microsoft CEO Candidates

Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates said he and other directors have met with “a lot of CEO candidates” to replace Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer. The board convened yesterday to discuss some of the candidates, Gates said at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Bellevue, Washington, Ballmer’s last before he steps down. Gates said he wouldn’t give a timeline for the decision. Read more of this post

In China’s smartphone boom, market share trumps margins

In China’s smartphone boom, market share trumps margins

11:51am EST

By Sayantani Ghosh and Neha Alawadhi

(Reuters) – Savvy U.S. chipmakers are hitching their wagons to Chinese smartphone makers, willing to sacrifice profit margins to boost sales volumes in the world’s second-largest mobile phone market. As demand in developed economies stagnates, a handful of component suppliers, including Qualcomm Inc and Synaptics Inc, have left competitors in their wake by expanding in China, where sales of cheap phones made by home-grown companies eclipse pricier models made by Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Apple Inc. Read more of this post

Ubiquitous cameras: It is getting ever easier to record anything, or everything, that you see. This opens fascinating possibilities—and alarming ones

Ubiquitous cameras: It is getting ever easier to record anything, or everything, that you see. This opens fascinating possibilities—and alarming ones

Nov 16th 2013 | SAN FRANCISCO |From the print edition

ABOUT halfway through Dave Eggers’s bestselling dystopian satire on Silicon Valley, “The Circle”, the reader meets Stewart, a bald, silent, stooped 60-year-old who has “been filming, recording, every moment of his life now for five years”. Stewart is the first of the novel’s characters to make all his actions visible to anyone with a computer who cares to look—the first “transparent man”. Read more of this post

The Year of the Paywall

The Year of the Paywall

By Edmund Lee November 14, 2013

In the early days of the Internet, digital libertarians scolded anyone trying to make a buck on the Web, and traditional newspaper publishers essentially gave away their expensive-to-create content for free. Today, the weakened industry’s survivors seem determined to get readers to pay up, and they’re busily erecting electronic paywalls around their news and entertainment to make sure that happens. Read more of this post

The Social Media “Bubble”: Six Important Points by Brad Cornell, Professor of Finance at Caltech

The Social Media “Bubble”: Five Important Points

by Global PostNovember 16, 2013

The Social Media “Bubble”: Six Important Points by Brad Cornell, Professor of Finance at Caltech

In a post on valuing social media companies, Aswath Damodaran, properly warns not to be misled by the fallacy of aggregation (http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2013/10/when-pieces-dont-add-up-micro-dreams.html).  More specifically, with regard to these companies relying on advertising as a source of revenue he notes that the total advertising revenues of the companies cannot exceed total online advertising.  His calculations suggest that the valuations of social media companies are inconsistent with this constraint – implied total advertising revenues of even a relatively small sample of companies exceeds total projected on-line advertising expenditure. Read more of this post

SurveyMonkey aims new product at businesses, hires first sales team

SurveyMonkey aims new product at businesses, hires first sales team

11:10am EST

By Alexei Oreskovic

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Online company SurveyMonkey rolled out on Monday its new polling product aimed at business customers, the company said. The company also is hiring its first sales people to pitch the new SurveyMonkey Enterprise product directly to corporations and other large organizations. The product will also be available internationally. Read more of this post

Spotlight on video streaming service Vimeo with 100mil unique users

Updated: Monday November 18, 2013 MYT 12:36:39 PM

Spotlight on video streaming service Vimeo with 100mil unique users

As one of the media properties tucked away within IAC/Interactive Corp’s vast group of online holdings, executives are putting the spotlight on Vimeo, breaking out the number of users and revenue for the first time. IAC revealed that Vimeo has an audience of more than 100 million unique users, 400,000 paying subscribers and about $40 million in revenue over the past 12 months ending October. Read more of this post

Software Makers’ Subscription Drive

Software Makers’ Subscription Drive

By Sam Grobart November 14, 2013

In 2013 consumer software companies proved they could pull off the switch from one-time software purchases to an online subscriber model that costs customers more long term. Market researcher IDC estimates software subscription revenue has risen about 16 percent, to roughly $65 billion this year from $56 billion in 2012, and will approach $78 billion next year. IDC analyst Amy Konary says it’s too soon for those software makers to declare victory, “but what they consider a success is having a [subscription] model out there, having customers choosing that approach.” Read more of this post

Snap Out of It: Kids Aren’t Reliable Tech Predictors; As Much as We Think Youth Know ‘the Next Big Thing,’ They Are Often Wrong

Snap Out of It: Kids Aren’t Reliable Tech Predictors

As Much as We Think Youth Know ‘the Next Big Thing,’ They Are Often Wrong

FARHAD MANJOO

Nov. 17, 2013 4:46 p.m. ET

I believe the children aren’t our future. Teach them well, but when it comes to determining the next big thing in tech, let’s not fall victim to the ridiculous idea that they lead the way. Yes, I’m talking about Snapchat. Last week my colleagues reported that Facebook FB -2.60% recently offered $3 billion to acquire the company behind the hyper-popular messaging app. Stunningly, Evan Spiegel, Snapchat’s 23-year-old co-founder and CEO, rebuffed the offer. Read more of this post

Salesforce.com’s CEO Marc Benioff To Steve Ballmer: Yes, You’re ‘An Emblem Of An Old Era’ And It’s Time To Leave Microsoft

Marc Benioff To Steve Ballmer: Yes, You’re ‘An Emblem Of An Old Era’ And It’s Time To Leave Microsoft

JULIE BORT NOV. 18, 2013, 8:53 PM 6,286 5

Salesforce.com’s CEO Marc Benioff has something to say about Steve Ballmer’s decision to leave Microsoft: You’re right, Steve. Time to go. Benioff was commenting on an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, where Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, described his decision to retire: Read more of this post

PayPal Nabs Uber Partnership in Pursuit of Mobile Growth

PayPal Nabs Uber Partnership in Pursuit of Mobile Growth

PayPal, the online payment service that succeeded by wedding itself to EBay Inc. (EBAY), is moving into more modern marketplaces through a deal with car-service company Uber Technologies Inc. Users of Uber’s popular mobile-booking application will be able to pay with PayPal starting today in the U.S., France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, David Marcus, president of PayPal, said in an interview. Riders who use PayPal before Nov. 28 will receive $15 or 15 euros toward their next trip. Read more of this post

New apps allow music fans to interact with records

New apps allow music fans to interact with records

12:04pm EST

By Natasha Baker

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Musicians in the digital age are turning to apps to woo fans and also engage them in the creative process to create new music and art. Apps featuring indie rock band Metric, pop sensation Lady Gaga and the late John Lennon were released last week that allow fans to re-mix tracks, create music-inspired art or access rare recordings. Read more of this post

Is It Game Over for Video Game Consoles?

Is It Game Over for Video Game Consoles?

By Cliff Edwards and Takashi Amano November 14, 2013

As a kid, Jared Cate spent long hours playing Nintendo’s (7974:JP) Pokemon and The Legend of Zelda video games. So when the company released its Wii U console before Christmas last year, Cate, 23, rushed to a local GameStop (GME) store in Atlanta to buy one. “I was about to move to San Francisco and figured it’d be a great thing to play with my family in my last few days at home,” he recalls. Read more of this post

Google Fosters South Korean Startups

Google Fosters South Korean Startups

U.S. Search Company Provides Links to Venture Capitalists, Helping Tech Firms Build Global Profiles

JONATHAN CHENG

Updated Nov. 17, 2013 6:04 p.m. ET

Dave Cho co-created Classting, a social-media app for South Korean schools that allows teachers to interact with students and parents. Jonathan Cheng/The Wall Street Journal

SEOUL—Until about nine months ago, Dave Cho woke up every morning to teach fifth-graders math, history and science at a school in the South Korean port city of Incheon. But Mr. Cho’s audience has changed. These days, the 28-year-old Mr. Cho is busy pitching his young technology startup to venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, Asia and the U.K., with assistance from Google Inc. GOOG +0.96% Read more of this post

Facebook, Still Dominant, Strives to Keep Cachet

November 17, 2013

Facebook, Still Dominant, Strives to Keep Cachet

By JENNA WORTHAM, VINDU GOEL and NICOLE PERLROTH

When Evan Spiegel peered into a crystal ball to divine a future for his company, Snapchat, he did not see Facebook. He saw something else, something much bigger — a social network that could exist on its own, outside Facebook. Facebook is still the dominant social media service, and has been an attractive suitor for many start-ups. And Snapchat most likely spurned Facebook partly because it thought it could fetch much more than the billions Facebook was willing to pay. Read more of this post