“You Can Beat Global American Companies,” Says VKontakte Founder Pavel Durov

“You Can Beat Global American Companies,” Says VKontakte Founder Pavel Durov

Posted yesterday by Josh Constine, Kim-Mai Cutler

International startups shouldn’t call it quits just because a big American competitor tries to muscle into their homeland, said Pavel Durov on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin. His company, VKontakte, is the top social networking destination in Russia — even bigger than Facebook there. He believes by focusing on “speed, ease of use, and functionality,” you can defeat bloated apps that don’t understand how to localize well. Read more of this post

Learn from South Korea: its $9.16 billion gaming market is just $600M less than China’s and double Japan’s

Learn from South Korea: its gaming market is just $600M less than China’s and double Japan’s

October 29, 2013

by Anh-Minh Do

The total size of the worldwide gaming market is $78 billion. Only 18 percent of that is from the USA, where it totaled at $14.8 billion. As we reported yesterday, South Korea’s gaming market is worth $9.16 billion. That’s just $600 million short of China, which comes in at $9.7 billion for 2012. It is perhaps important to note that many Chinese play PC games at cybercafes, where revenue could be tricky to track. So there is a possibility that the research figure of China’s gaming revenue may not reflect the true figures. Japan, on the other hand, falls at a measly $4.6 billion. Read more of this post

Samsung Electronics showcased its new software which ensures seamlessly connectivity among smart devices including TV, smartphone, tablet, PC, home electronic appliances and camera

Samsung unveils new SDKs at Samsung Developers Conference

Sohn Jae-kwon

2013.10.29 17:59:10

Samsung Electronics showcased its new software which ensures seamlessly connectivity among smart devices including TV, smartphone, tablet, PC, home electronic appliances and camera. The goal is to go head-to-head against Apple and Google with its service platform accommodating about 300 million units of Samsung smart devices. Samsung Electronics unveiled Software development kits (SDKs) for developers at the Samsung Developers Conference (SDC) in San Francisco Monday (local time), which are designed to be worked into any app on multiple devices. Lee Jong-seok, head of Samsung Telecommunications America (STA) noted, “Samsung is the best smartphone maker in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and the Americas, and the world’s leading smart television manufacturer. Our border range of product, contents and service will enable consumers to enjoy fully-integrated experiences.” Samsung also unveiled ‘Group Play’ which allows users to enjoy music, games and share data at short distances. The new SDKs also include ‘Samsung Connectivity’ which connects network of Samsung devices at different locations, enabling easier access to contents regardless of time and space. At the STA, ‘Samsung Multiscreen SDK,’ designed to develop apps that can run on both smart TV and mobile device was also displayed.

Web Giants Threaten End to Cookie Tracking; Balance of Power in Ad Industry at Stake as Google, Microsoft Seek to Control Web Tracking

Web Giants Threaten End to Cookie Tracking

Balance of Power in Ad Industry at Stake as Google, Microsoft Seek to Control Web Tracking

ELIZABETH DWOSKIN

Updated Oct. 28, 2013 6:50 p.m. ET

The end could be near for cookies, the tiny pieces of code that marketers deploy on Web browsers to track people’s online movements, serve targeted advertising and amass valuable user profiles. In the past month, Microsoft Corp. MSFT -0.45% , Google Inc. GOOG -0.02% andFacebook Inc. FB -3.31% have said they are developing systems to plug into and control this river of data in ways that bypass the more than a thousand software companies that place cookies on websites. Read more of this post

SAP’s Plattner aims to remove the bugs from the human machine

Last updated: October 28, 2013 4:30 pm

SAP’s Plattner aims to remove the bugs from the human machine

By Chris Bryant in Potsdam

More than 40 years after he transformed the business software market by co-foundingSAP, Hasso Plattner has set his sights on an even more daunting challenge: prolonging human life. At an age when many of his peers are playing leisurely rounds of golf, SAP’s chairman, who turns 70 next year, is pressing the company to broaden its focus beyond helping businesses to run more efficiently, by helping human beings to run more efficiently as well. Read more of this post

Netflix Wants You To Be Able To Watch Movies At Home The Day They Hit Theaters

Netflix Wants You To Be Able To Watch Movies At Home The Day They Hit Theaters

ALYSON SHONTELL 16 MINUTES AGO 257 1

Netflix has found a lot of success creating its own TV shows like “Orange is the New Black.” It’d like to be able to disrupt blockbuster movies as well. But Netflix doesn’t want to just create movies. It wants to convenience people and help them watch hit films from anywhere, immediately. At least, that’s what its Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos communicated over the weekend. Read more of this post

Is Wikipedia getting worse? Behind the scenes of its many successes, Wikipedia has been roiled with controversy

Is Wikipedia getting worse?

October 28, 2013

Will Oremus

Wikipedia: Is paid editing making the site even less trustworthy?

Wikipedia is a glorious resource and one of the most dazzling accomplishments of the internet age. The online encyclopaedia, built and maintained primarily by volunteers, is the world’s largest repository of free information, and much of that information is quite good. A surprising 2005 Nature study found the quality of science articles on the site rivalled that of Encyclopaedia Britannica. The site today carries enough authority that Google uses it to directly answer search questions. Read more of this post

Fund Seeks Overlooked Tech Gems; Health-Care Tech Gives Manager Relief From High Internet Valuations

Fund Seeks Overlooked Tech Gems

Health-Care Tech Gives Manager Relief From High Internet Valuations

MATT JARZEMSKY

Oct. 28, 2013 6:48 p.m. ET

T. Rowe Price TROW +2.68% fund manager Henry Ellenbogen has made a career of discovering and investing in startup technology companies including Twitter Inc., and his $14.3 billion New Horizons fund has ridden Internet stocks to market-beating returns this year. But lately Mr. Ellenbogen is focusing on other areas—such as firms aiming to improve electronic records, care pricing and other aspects of the health-care industry, as well as innovators in financial payments—that he believes many market participants have overlooked. Read more of this post

Electricity Use Impedes Aereo’s March; Streaming-Video Service Has Other Challenges Besides Broadcasters’ Lawsuits

Electricity Use Impedes Aereo’s March

Streaming-Video Service Has Other Challenges Besides Broadcasters’ Lawsuits

SHALINI RAMACHANDRAN and AMOL SHARMA

Updated Oct. 28, 2013 7:50 p.m. ET

Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia holds one of his company’s miniature antennas as he stands next to a power-hungry server array of antennae. Associated Press

Aereo Inc.’s upstart TV streaming service has provoked a legal onslaught from broadcast networks. But even if it wins that fight, it still has to overcome more-pedestrian issues, like making sure it can pay for the electricity it needs. The service depends on tiny antennas assigned to each of its individual users, who rent them to stream broadcast TV channels over the Web. Each of those antennas, which Aereo warehouses in centralized facilities, uses five to six watts of power. On their own, that isn’t a whole lot—a typical set-top box rented by cable operators to customers can use four times as much, or more. But the power for a cable box is paid by consumers, whereas Aereo is footing the bill for every subscriber.

Read more of this post

Are gun sales on Instagram booming?

Are gun sales on Instagram booming?

October 28, 2013

Will Oremus

People are using Instagram to advertise guns for sale. Photo: Screenshot from Instagram

The Daily Beast’s Brian Ries this week wrote an interesting piece about gun sales on Instagram. By searching for various gun-related hashtags, he found examples ranging from an antique Colt to a “custom MK12-inspired AR-15”. It turns out that advertising guns for sale on the photo-sharing site is mostly legal (in the US at least), and Instagram has no special policy against it. Read more of this post

Apple looks to put down roots for the next decade

October 29, 2013 8:39 am

Apple looks to put down roots for the next decade

By Tim Bradshaw in San Francisco

Exactly a year ago Tim Cook stamped his mark on the company he inherited from Steve Jobs – after less than 18 months as its full-time chief executive, he instituted thebiggest reorganisation to Apple’s executive ranks in years. Out went Scott Forstall, a loyal Jobs ally who had headed iOS, and John Browett, retail chief. Up stepped Sir Jonathan Ive to oversee design in both software and hardware; Craig Federighi to become head of iPhone, iPad and Mac software; and Eddy Cue, who added the troubled Maps and Siri voice assistant to his responsibilities as services chief. Read more of this post

All companies are technology companies now; Technology is revolutionising the way even the smallest and most traditional businesses manage their operations

All companies are technology companies now

October 29, 2013 – 10:18AM

Sylvia Pennington

Michelle Jones from Blerick Tree Farm visiting her crop in China.

From humble home services to rural concerns, digital technology is revolutionising the way even the smallest and most traditional businesses manage their operations. Although only a fraction of companies around the world would consider themselves to be in the technology business, increasingly the great majority of them rely on technology to stay in business.  But John Roberts, Gartner vice-president and chairman of this year’s Gartner Symposium, held on the Gold Coast this week, says businesses are still working out how to extract maximum value from technologies, including social media, mobile communications, big data and cloud. Read more of this post

China’s Suning, Hony Capital to invest $420 mln in PPTV

China’s Suning, Hony Capital to invest $420 mln in PPTV

5:59am EDT

* Suning stake will be 44 percent of PPTV

* Deal values PPTV at $568 million

* Suning calls deal “strategic investment”

* Suning shares up 58 pct year-to-date

By Paul Carsten and Donny Kwok

BEIJING/HONG KONG, Oct 28 (Reuters) – China’s Suning Commerce Group and Hony Capital, an affiliate of Lenovo Group, will invest $420 million in PPTV, a Chinese online TV services provider, Suning said in a statement on Monday. Suning will invest $250 million to buy a 44 percent stake in PPTV and become its largest shareholder. It is believed Hony Capital will make up the remaining $170 million although the statement did not specify that. The deal values PPTV at $568 million. Read more of this post

Girls, Girls, Girls: Alibaba’s Play for Mobile ‘Losers’

October 25, 2013, 8:14 PM

Girls, Girls, Girls: Alibaba’s Play for Mobile ‘Losers’

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Alibaba is calling on desperate men to build a user base for its fledgling messaging application, Laiwang. In a new promotional campaign that began yesterday, Laiwang is sharing with users the profiles of more than 30,000 models with users on its messaging platform. The women are a part of Alibaba’s Tao Girl platform, which was created in 2007 as a resource for merchants who want to use professional models to show off their products on Alibaba’s massive e-commerce site. Read more of this post

Twitter Go-It-Alone App Strategy Boosts Costs Before IPO

Twitter Go-It-Alone App Strategy Boosts Costs Before IPO

Twitter Inc. (TWTR)’s operating costs are growing faster than its revenue. To understand why, consider how the microblogging service deals with would-be partners. More than four years after Twitter touted the importance of opening its doors for programmers to build businesses to complement its short-messaging site, startups are finding themselves shut out. The San Francisco-based company has restricted outside applications in its drive to shore up control of advertising sales on the site. Read more of this post

Silicon Valley: Feel the Froth: Tech Valuations Stir Memories of 1999, but There Are Some Differences

Silicon Valley: Feel the Froth: Tech Valuations Stir Memories of 1999, but There Are Some Differences

ROLFE WINKLER and  MATT JARZEMSKY

Updated Oct. 27, 2013 7:56 p.m. ET

Twitter Inc. plans to go public at a value of $11 billion, without turning a profit. Venture capitalists just valued Pinterest Inc., which generates no revenue, at nearly $4 billion, and an even younger, revenue-deprived company, Snapchat Inc., is angling for a similar price tag.  It isn’t quite 1999, when dot-com companies with scant revenue made initial public offerings and tripled in price on their first days of trading. When that bubble popped in 2000, scores of companies went bust, and millions of small investors suffered losses. Read more of this post

Samsung Pursues Developers, Seeking Orbit of Apps

Samsung Pursues Developers, Seeking Orbit of Apps

Smartphone Maker Slated to Hold First Developers Conference This Week

JONATHAN CHENG

Oct. 27, 2013 2:58 p.m. ET

This week, Samsung Electronics Co. 005930.SE +2.28% plans to hold its first global developers conference at a hotel in San Francisco, a big step in the South Korean smartphone maker’s effort to cultivate a host of software and services for its devices that can compete with those offered by Apple Inc. AAPL -1.12%. It won’t be an easy task, as even Samsung executives admit privately. Samsung built its reputation by streamlining the business of manufacturing electronic devices, and now leads the world in sales of mobile phones. On Friday the company said its net profit jumped 26% in the most recent quarter to a record 8.24 trillion won ($7.8 billion). Read more of this post

An enormous floating barge has been spotted in San Francisco Bay, and tech-savvy sleuths suspect it is a massive data center being constructed by Google

Google ‘building floating data center’

AFP-JIJI

OCT 27, 2013

SAN FRANCISCO – An enormous floating barge has been spotted in San Francisco Bay, and tech-savvy sleuths suspect it is a massive data center being constructed by Google, the CNET blog reported. The floating structure “stands about four stories high and was made with a series of modern cargo containers. . . . Locals refer to it as the secret project,” CNET wrote. “It’s all but certain that Google is the entity that is building the massive structure that’s in plain sight, but behind tight security.” CNET noted that Google “has a history of putting data centers in places with cheap cooling, as well as undertaking odd and unexpected projects like trying to bring Internet access to developing nations via balloons and blimps.” The barge is located off Treasure Island, an artificial island between San Francisco and Oakland in San Francisco Bay. CNET said Google is also linked to a huge hangar on Treasure Island.

Media Outlets Embrace Conferences as Profits Rise

October 27, 2013

Media Outlets Embrace Conferences as Profits Rise

By LESLIE KAUFMAN

Financially struggling media companies are racing to add conferences, festivals and other live events to their business strategy, convinced they can provide a reliable revenue stream and expand the reach of their brands. The number of organizations staging live events has surged in recent years, say publishers and their business partners, and concerns over conflict of interest, though still a delicate issue at some media companies, are largely bygone relics at others. Read more of this post

Are Eager Investors Overvaluing Tech Start-Ups?

OCTOBER 27, 2013, 11:00 AM

Disruptions: Are Eager Investors Overvaluing Tech Start-Ups?

By NICK BILTON

Pinterest is a kind of Internet message board where people post their favorite images of clothes or furniture. It’s a three-year-old company and though it has an estimated 50 million unique monthly users, it doesn’t have any revenue yet. Still, the investors behind a $225 million round of financing that was announced last week estimated the company’s value at $3.8 billion. Read more of this post

Disney Show Will Appear First on App for Tablets

October 27, 2013

Disney Show Will Appear First on App for Tablets

By BROOKS BARNES

LOS ANGELES — A cat in a pink cowboy hat is leading Disney’s television operation deeper into the Wild West of mobile viewing, where it hopes to connect with the company’s core audience. Noting that tablet computers like the iPad are increasingly the “first screen” for pre-school-age viewers, Disney executives said they would make the first nine episodes of a prominent new series available on mobile devices first. The series, “Sheriff Callie’s Wild West,” will arrive on the Watch Disney Junior app and a related Web site on Nov. 24. Then, early next year, the series will have its debut on two traditional TV networks, Disney Channel and Disney Junior. Read more of this post

Why Real-Time Bidding Is Going To Completely Change The Equation For Mobile Advertising

Why Real-Time Bidding Is Going To Completely Change The Equation For Mobile Advertising

MARCELO BALLVE OCT. 26, 2013, 2:27 PM 3,785 4

Real-time bidding is to digital advertising what high-frequency trading is to Wall Street. Computerized, algorithm-driven trading allows for the quick buying of ad impressions according to pre-set parameters. Desktop programmatic buying of display is already hugely popular. The coming impact on mobile stands to be even more significant. RTB should allow ad buyers to take full advantage of mobile’s virtues — its ability to reach users in real-time, and target potential customers according to demographics, location, and context. RTB should help sellers effectively monetize the huge, and growing, mobile audience. In a recent report from BI Intelligence, we explain what has kept mobile advertising prices depressed and how targeted RTB buying may in the long run help solve the mobile advertising CPM problem, detail RTB’s recent impact and successes on ad buyers and sellers, examine the potential obstacles to its widespread adoption, and look at how the holy grail of mobile advertising — simultaneous control, scale and efficiencies — may be reached through its use. Here’s an overview of why RTB or real-time bidding could make the difference in mobile, digital advertising’s new frontier: Read more of this post

Explore Online 3-D Printing Services; Shapeways, Cubify and i.materialise let everyone in on the 3-D printing revolution—no technical know-how required

Explore Online 3-D Printing Services

Shapeways, Cubify and i.materialise let everyone in on the 3-D printing revolution—no technical know-how required.

MATTHEW KRONSBERG

Updated Oct. 25, 2013 11:28 p.m. ET

1. Bracelet Constructionist Sleek (top), about $225, i.materialise.com, and Spring Bracelet, $100, cubify.com. 2. Cookie cutter designed at cookiecaster.com 3. Personalized 3-D Printed Star Trek Figurine, $70, cubify.com 4. Birdsnest Eggcups, $8.50 each, shapeways.com 5. Ora Pendant, $100, shapeways.com 6. Snowflame.MGX candleholder, about $17, i.materialise.com F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal

ACCORDING TO THE futurists, one day it will be commonplace to make just about anything—houses, chocolate bars, human tissue—using 3-D printers, those cutting-edge machines that can manufacture fully formed objects, as if by magic. Lose a button on your jacket? Need a new pair of glasses? No problem. Just print one up. Read more of this post

How Mobile Technology Is Changing the Way We Dine Out; Touch screens are becoming as integral to the restaurant experience as knives and forks

How Mobile Technology Is Changing the Way We Dine Out

Touch screens are becoming as integral to the restaurant experience as knives and forks

The ubiquity of smartphones can eclipse some of the very reasons we eat out: relaxation, discovery, camaraderie and a fleeting escape from our machine-driven lives.

BRYAN MILLER

Oct. 25, 2013 6:39 p.m. ET

Mobile technology is changing the way we eat out—from how we choose a restaurant and make a reservation to the way we order, pay the bill and share the experience with others. But are diners really better off? Photo Illustration by F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne Cardenas; Marcus Nilsson/Gallery Stock (salmon); Brett Stevens/Gallery Stock (salad)

OVER THE MANY years I made my living as a restaurant critic, I dined out 5,123 times, not counting the office cafeteria and numerous airport eateries that I described as “fast food served slowly.” Whenever people learn about my immoderate profession, they invariably ask, “How did you choose where to go?” My strategy was quite simple, at least in the unplugged 1980s: I asked around. Then came the World Wide Web, with its breathtaking search capabilities and lightning interactivity. This spawned all sorts of restaurant voting sites, as well as a nationwide upsurge of self-anointed restaurant reviewers sounding off around the clock, issuing so many contradictory opinions that they can be more confusing than constructive. Read more of this post

Amazon Puts Groceries in Its Shopping Cart

Amazon Puts Groceries in Its Shopping Cart

Online Retailer Pushes Into Produce Aisle

MIRIAM GOTTFRIED

Oct. 27, 2013 3:32 p.m. ET

Even if it is huge already, Amazon.com AMZN +9.39% can’t help but try to find ways to get even bigger. The e-retailer, selling everything from auto parts to videogames, may eventually become known for pushing kale and cucumbers. AmazonFresh, its grocery-delivery effort, is still in its infancy: After testing it in Seattle since 2007, Amazon brought the service to parts of Los Angeles in June. Read more of this post

Online shopping shakes up the funeral industry

Online shopping shakes up the funeral industry

Armina Ligaya | 25/10/13 | Last Updated: 26/10/13 12:07 PM ET

How We Die Now: “Death renders all equal,” wrote Claudian. How each one of us relates to death, however, is individual, and always changing — as we mature; as we contemplate life, and death, around us; and as society changes. In this special series in the National Post, we present stories and columns looking at the different ways we see, and prepare for, the Great Equalizer. To read the complete series, click here.

When Kim Darby’s mother passed away in July, she wanted to honour her mother’s memory but didn’t have a lot money for an expensive funeral. A friend recommended she take a non-traditional route by shopping for services online. “Immediately there is a relief,” said the 47-year-old from Ottawa. “Because there is nobody in your face. Nobody making you feel guilty that you’re putting a price on your loved one’s head.” Read more of this post