Why Hasn’t Asia Produced Its Own Facebook? Growing Web restrictions are thought to be one reason that Asia has produced virtually no global Internet brands like Google or Facebook

Why Hasn’t Asia Produced Its Own Facebook?

As with so many other industries — medical tourism, electric cars, phablets — Asia is widely considered to be the future of the Internet. There is, however, one very big “if”: If only the continent’s governments can get over their tendencies toward overregulation and censorship. Almost half the world’s Web users live in the region. Asia boasts some of the world’s fastest broadband speeds, as well as the fastest rate of growth in mobile broadband. Its share of the global e-commerce market stands at one-third and growing. Read more of this post

The Best Cheap and Probably Legal Way to Watch Every NFL Game Online; That’s the promise of Canadian startup Adfreetime.com, one of a handful of providers to offer what’s called a DNS-switching service

The Best Cheap and Probably Legal Way to Watch Every NFL Game Online

By Aaron Rutkoff October 11, 2013

The National Football League has $6 billion worth of annual incentives to keep Americans from watching games online. So fiercely does the league guard its lucrative television deals that to watch football online in the U.S., fans still have to pay a television provider: The only Americans who are technically allowed to watch NFL’s live streams are those customers who purchase DirecTV’s (DTV) all-access Sunday Ticket package, a deal worth $1 billion to the NFL. Read more of this post

SIM-Card Hackers’ Phone Fraud Is Costing Mobile Carriers a Fortune; Carriers around the world will suffer an estimated $3.6 billion in losses from fraudulent account takeovers

SIM-Card Hackers’ Phone Fraud Is Costing Mobile Carriers a Fortune

By Jordan Robertson October 17, 2013

Wireless carriers including AT&T (T) and South Africa’s Vodacom Group (VOD:SJ) are facing a new threat: the illegal hacking of SIM cards, the small plastic chips that verify the identity of customers on mobile networks. Globally, carriers are expected to rack up $3.6 billion in losses from account fraud this year, nearly triple the amount in 2011, according to the Communications Fraud Control Association. “Attackers are definitely getting more advanced,” says Lawrence Pingree, a mobile-security researcher at Gartner. “It’s almost like stealing at a bank—going right in and doing it in person. It’s very personal.” Read more of this post

Silicon Valley finds new ways to back tomorrow’s winners

Silicon Valley finds new ways to back tomorrow’s winners

12:15pm EDT

By Sarah McBride

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A group of high-flying Silicon Valley investors is betting that there is room for one more program that fosters early-stage companies. This time, they are focused on the massive amounts of information generated in part by the Internet and known collectively as big data. The creation of Data Elite, a hybrid between a venture fund and an incubator, underscores the obsession among the valley’s investors of finding promising companies at the very earliest stages. Read more of this post

PayPal shows strength, but competitors loom; Amazon stepped into the ring, announcing a new program, “Login and Pay,” that allows users to do just that by using their Amazon accounts to let the tech titan process and authorize payments

PayPal shows strength, but competitors loom

By Hayley Tsukayama, Published: October 17

Times are good for online payments, with PayPal reporting a 12 percent jump in revenue in the last quarter, even as parent company eBay reported a lower-than-expected future outlook, including the holiday season. On an earnings call, eBay chief executive John Donahoe said that PayPal users were up 17 percent in the past quarter and that the service now weighs in at 137 million users. And 32 percent of those users are coming in through mobile devices. Read more of this post

Billionaires Snubbed in Netherlands Show Phone Stocks Rebounding

Billionaires Snubbed in Netherlands Show Phone Stocks Rebounding

John Malone and Carlos Slim’s plans to expand their empires on the cheap in Europe’s beleaguered telecommunications market have been thwarted so far as companies in the region begin commanding higher prices. Both billionaires suffered recent setbacks in the Netherlands trying to turn leading stakes into full ownership. Cable company Ziggo NV (ZIGGO) rejected Malone’s offer and Slim’s America Movil SAB withdrew a 7.2 billion-euro ($9.8 billion) bid for Royal KPN NV after the targets said they wanted more. Read more of this post

Lenovo will face obstacles in any BlackBerry deal

Lenovo will face obstacles in any BlackBerry deal: source

7:52pm EDT

By Nadia Damouni and Euan Rocha

NEW YORK/TORONTO (Reuters) – Chinese computer maker Lenovo, which has signed a non-disclosure deal to examine BlackBerry’s books, faces regulatory obstacles if it bids for all of the company and will likely pursue just parts, a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday. BlackBerry Ltd said in August it was exploring options that could include an outright sale. And the Canadian company, which helped pioneer smartphones, has since been linked with a string of potential buyers from private equity firms to rival technology companies. Read more of this post

EBay founder and philanthropist Pierre Omidyar is launching a “new mass media organization “to cover general interest news,” through which he will support “independent journalists,”

EBay Founder Plans News Venture

Pierre Omidyar to Work With the Guardian’s Greenwald

WILLIAM LAUNDER and KEACH HAGEY

Updated Oct. 16, 2013 6:01 p.m. ET

EBay Inc. EBAY -0.83% founder and philanthropist Pierre Omidyar is launching a “new mass media organization” to cover general interest news,” he disclosed in a Web posting, the latest sign of how Silicon Valley riches are flowing to the news business. Mr. Omidyar, who remains eBay chairman and the e-commerce company’s biggest shareholder with a stake valued at about $6 billion, is reportedly committing at least $250 million to the venture, according to an interview he gave media academic and blogger Jay Rosen, who wrote about it on his blog PressThink. Read more of this post

Out of nowhere, China’s smart TV market explodes into the mainstream

Out of nowhere, China’s smart TV market explodes into the mainstream

By Kaylene Hong, 17 hours ago

Chinese Internet companies are flocking into the smart TV space as they aim to conquer the living room. Recently, a flurry of firms have rolled out smart TVs in the country, hoping to draw consumers with an impressive large screen that is typically the centerpiece of any household, which includes a range of Internet-based entertainment services. Many new smart TVs have arrived in China in recent months. In early September, popular Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi announced its move beyond handsets as it launched a 47-inch 3D smart TV which is retailing for CNY2,999 ($490). The TV went on sale Tuesday, and 3,000 sets were sold out in under two minutes. Read more of this post

Four billion reasons why Veeva just proved verticals are the new hotness

Four billion reasons why Veeva just proved verticals are the new hotness

BY SARAH LACY 
ON OCTOBER 16, 2013

For enterprise software nerds like me, little-known and newly public Veeva might be the Dos Equis Man of startups: It may be the most interesting software company in the world.

I don’t always build a $4.5 billion software company, but when I do, it only raises $10 million pre-IPO and is focused narrowly on the healthcare industry. 

Veeva is the first company I’ve seen that holds up all of the early 2000s’ promises of cloud computing. The idea that the cloud enabled venture capitalists and entrepreneurs to build a big multi-billion dollar company on less than $30 million or so in funding. The idea that cloud software companies would be able to spend dramatically less on sales and marketing costs than the previous generation of on premise software giants. The idea that profits could come early and effectively bootstrap a company most of the way to its IPO. And the idea that software could become better for everyone — not just the mainstream big business customer. Read more of this post

Here’s Why Apple’s Passbook App Has Already Become A Major Platform For Mobile Commerce

Here’s Why Apple’s Passbook App Has Already Become A Major Platform For Mobile Commerce

MARK HOELZEL AND MARCELO BALLVE OCT. 16, 2013, 4:00 PM 4,537

What is Passbook? The short answer is that it’s a place for large retailers and brands to connect with consumers. The list of the brands with a Passbook presence is impressive enough to suggest that Apple’s wallet app isn’t too far from being what it set out to become: an iPhone repository for coupons, travel and event tickets, gift and loyalty cards, and vouchers. The stuff that otherwise clutters wallets and purses, and powers commerce.  In the U.S. market, over 35 large retailers and restaurant chains — from Walgreens to Target to Dunkin’ Donuts to Starbucks — as well as event companies, global airlines, and sports leagues are already using it as a channel for acquiring and retaining customers. Apple’s Passbook is already the fourth-most popular mobile commerce app among U.S. consumers. One-fifth of iPhone owners use it. It’s Apple’s fast-maturing attempt at a virtual wallet. Apple has over 500 million credit cards on file. Amazon, its closest competitor in this regard, has less than half that amount of consumer accounts on file. Apple may one day leverage these credit cards to turn Passbook into a real transactions platform to boot, a la PayPal. Are brands ready?  Read more of this post

Jobs Right as Apple Consumers Prefer 5s to Cheaper IPhone: Tech

Jobs Right as Apple Consumers Prefer 5s to Cheaper IPhone: Tech

Apple Inc. (AAPL) co-founder Steve Jobs, who emphasized high-end consumer gadgets over cheaper ones, may have been right all along. Last month, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook introduced the colorful iPhone 5c, a less-expensive version of Apple’s smartphone, to “serve even more customers” around the world. It turns out people so far are more interested in its pricier, feature-rich cousin, the 5s. Read more of this post

Microsoft Has Invented Earbuds That Pick Music According To Your Mood And Health

Microsoft Has Invented Earbuds That Pick Music According To Your Mood And Health

JULIE BORT OCT. 14, 2013, 7:30 PM 4,204 2

We’ve heard predictions that our PCs will soon be able to recognize our facial gestures and understand our moods (maybe even better than our spouses can). Now Microsoft is working on a technology that will let a pair of earbuds monitor your heart rate, temperature and other biorhythms to figure out your health and mood. It’s a Microsoft Research project is called Septimu. Researchers at the University of Virginia Center for Wireless Health have written a smartphone app called Musical Heart for the Septimu earbuds, as spotted by the CyThings blog. Musical Heart automatically picks music according to your biorhythms. If you are upset and your heart is pounding and your body is tense, it can choose music to calm you down. Or if you are working out and want to keep your heart rate at a particular intensity, it will choose music to motivate you. Right now these are just research projects, not products you can buy. But one day … In the meantime, you can use apps like Songza or Stereomood to get playlists of music that match your mood.

Robotic arm now reads feeling of ‘touch’

2013-10-16 16:42

Robotic arm now reads feeling of ‘touch’

By Ko Dong-hwan

American scientists have developed a robotic arm that can read tactile senses, helping people to recognize objects that they touch through the arm. Sensors attached to the arm “imitate” the pressure applied, enabling the person doing the touching to recognize the object. The arm can control the amount and timing of electric currents passing through the sensors at the moment of touching. When the sensors’ readings are sent to hundreds of electrodes planted in the person’s brain as packets of cognitive signals, the person can interpret the signals.  “Making people believe as if they were feeling through their fingers by sending signals from the robotic arm sensors to electrodes planted at brain is no longer an impossible dream,” said Chicago University’s Dr. Sliman Bensmaia, who led the research. Scientists have already devised robotic arms and legs that can recognize signals that enable the limbs to “think and move.” But tactile perception capability is a major breakthrough, overcoming the challenge of sending signals in a reverse order. Dr. Bensmaia’s paper, titled “Spatial and temporal codes mediate the tactile perception of natural textures,” was posted online at the U.S. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Tuesday.

Vox’s new mega-round puts a bow on content’s “holy shit” moment

Vox’s new mega-round puts a bow on content’s “holy shit” moment

BY HAMISH MCKENZIE AND SARAH LACY 
ON OCTOBER 15, 2013

Today it was revealed that Vox Media, owner of The Verge, SB Nation, and Polygon has raised another $40 million of funding. Then came BuzzFeed’s scoop that Glenn Greenwald, the political reporter who broke the ongoing saga of Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks, is leaving the Guardian to join a new, “very well-funded” media venture that will cover general news. The new publication, whichReuters reports will be funded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, is yet to be revealed.

We must now take a break from our scheduled programming to say: “Holy shit, content is back!”

It’s not just the mysterious Greenwald venture and Vox Media, which has now raised a total of $80 million and is expected to reach profitability this year, that are cause for mild tech-media enthusiasm, however. Read more of this post

The control freak formula at Apple and Burberry; Ahrendts’ move demonstrates how the strategies of the two groups are related

October 16, 2013 7:01 pm

The control freak formula at Apple and Burberry

By John Gapper

Ahrendts’ move demonstrates how the strategies of the two groups are related

To tour the Burberry flagship store on London’s Regent Street – with its beautifully stacked clothes, its “magic mirrors” that illuminate with runway images, its signs in Arabic for Gulf tourists and its “VVIP” room on the top floor – is to enter as sweet a world as Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Its Wonka is Christopher Bailey, Burberry’s chief creative officer, and designer of all the contents, including a £70,000 “limited edition” white alligator skin jacket. His theatre of luxury is a few notches up the price scale from the nearby Apple store, outside which a queue formed yesterday for the iPhone 5s, but they are related. Read more of this post

FamilyMart launches pick-up service in Taiwan for Taobao products

FamilyMart launches pick-up service in Taiwan for Taobao products

CNA

2013-10-17

Taiwan’s FamilyMart general manager, RD Chang, left, and Daphne Lee, director of overseas business for Taobao at a FamilyMart store. (Photo Courtesy of FamilyMart)

Taobao, China’s largest e-commerce website, has partnered with the FamilyMart convenience store chain to launch a pick-up service in Taiwan, the chain announced Wednesday. FamilyMart said it has now become the first convenience store chain in Taiwan to offer a cross-border pick-up service, which expected to boost the growth of its pick-up service by more than 10%. Read more of this post

Why Government Tech Is So Poor; Fixing Procurement Process Is Key to Preventing Blunders Like Healthcare.gov

Why Government Tech Is So Poor

Fixing Procurement Process Is Key to Preventing Blunders Like Healthcare.gov

FARHAD MANJOO

Oct. 16, 2013 6:16 p.m. ET

Just before Healthcare.gov hobbled online, Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of health and human services, compared the federal health-care exchange to her iPad’s new operating system. If users found a few bugs in their iPads, she argued, most wouldn’t consider them a complete disaster. Instead, they’d recognize that technology is complicated, that errors are common, and they’d wait for an update. Apple Inc., AAPL +0.49% she added, has “a few more resources” than her department, so “hopefully [citizens will] give us the same slack they give Apple.” Read more of this post

Supercell Beats ‘Angry Birds’ From Obscurity to $3 Billion Value; Why a Finnish Gaming Company Is Worth $3 Billion

Supercell Beats ‘Angry Birds’ From Obscurity to $3 Billion Value

“Angry Birds” can fend off egg-swiping pigs, but they aren’t a match for medieval soldiers.

Supercell Oy’s three-year ascent from obscurity to a $3 billion valuation illustrates the fast-changing fortunes of the gaming industry. With a sale announced yesterday, the maker of the “Clash of Clans” strategy game stole the thunder of neighbor Rovio Entertainment Oy, the developer of “Angry Birds” long considered Finland’s most likely target for a gaming takeover or initial public offering. Read more of this post

SoftBank’s Run Not on Firm Ground; given that SoftBank’s stake in Alibaba is 36.7%, the implied value of Alibaba as a whole comes to roughly $109 billion

SoftBank’s Run Not on Firm Ground

AARON BACK

Updated Oct. 16, 2013 11:49 a.m. ET

Shares in Japanese conglomerate SoftBank 9984.TO +1.22% have been on a tear, more than doubling this year even as the company has been on a global acquisition spree. Speculation over the value of its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group is a major factor behind the rise. But there is little upside left to this trade. SoftBank shares rose 2.2% on Wednesday after it acquired a controlling stake in Finnish mobile game developer Supercell, though it hardly appears to have gotten a bargain. It is likely that investors were also cheered by Alibaba’s robust earnings, revealed the night before by fellow shareholder Yahoo. YHOO -0.87% Alibaba’s net profit in the three months to June surged to $707 million from $273 million a year earlier, Yahoo’s disclosure showed. Read more of this post

San Francisco’s Twitter Bet Pays Off as IPO Boosts Millionaires

San Francisco’s Twitter Bet Pays Off as IPO Boosts Millionaires

Two years ago, San Francisco offered a payroll-tax break to keep Twitter Inc., then with 400 employees, from moving its headquarters out of town. The gamble has since paid off, spurring other technology companies to choose the city as their base and boosting the local economy. The social-media company, now with 2,000 workers, is seeking to raise $1 billion in an initial public offering of shares, people with knowledge of the matter have said. The move is likely to create more millionaires, jobs and technology investment in California’s fourth-largest city, while driving up housing prices that will force some residents to move out. Read more of this post

IBM blames China for slide in revenues; IBM Craters To 2 Year Low On Massive Revenue Miss, Asia-Pac, BRIC Sales Both Plunge 15%

October 16, 2013 10:09 pm

IBM blames China for slide in revenues

By Richard Waters in San Francisco

IBM blamed stalling sales in China, caused by uncertainty ahead of the country’s pending economic reform plan, for a large part of an unexpected slide in revenues in the latest quarter, wiping 6 per cent from its market value late on Wednesday. It was a setback for the US technology group’s so-called “growth markets” unit – a term meant to encompass emerging countries that represent the best hopes for expansion – as sales fell by 9 per cent in the quarter. Read more of this post

Cloud company Veeva’s shares nearly double in debut to $5 billion on $129.5 million in revenue and $18.8 million in profit; Instead of building a generic cloud offering, Gassner decided to build what he calls the “Industry Cloud”, focusing on the healthcare industry

Cloud company Veeva’s shares nearly double in debut

11:37am EDT

(Reuters) – Veeva Systems Inc shares nearly doubled in their market debut on Wednesday, underscoring strong demand for cloud-based software makers with niche technologies and healthy revenue. Veeva’s share price touched a high of $39.64 on the New York Stock Exchange, valuing the company at nearly $5 billion. Read more of this post

Apple’s Dual iPhone Strategy in Doubt; Company Cuts iPhone 5C Orders, Raising Concerns About Demand for Lower-Cost Device

Apple’s Dual iPhone Strategy in Doubt

Company Cuts iPhone 5C Orders, Raising Concerns About Demand for Lower-Cost Device

LORRAINE LUK, EVA DOU and IAN SHERR

Updated Oct. 16, 2013 7:13 p.m. ET

Apple Inc. AAPL +0.49% hoped to broaden its appeal with a cheaper version of theiPhone. But that effort appears to be faltering after a few weeks. The tech giant has reduced orders to assemblers for its lower-end iPhone, the 5C, people familiar with the situation said. At the same time, retailers and telecom operators report tepid demand for the device, prompting some to cut prices. Read more of this post

Alibaba Financial Arm to Boost Apps as China Net Users Go Mobile

Alibaba Financial Arm to Boost Apps as China Net Users Go Mobile

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s financial affiliate plans to add functions to its mobile apps as users in China increasingly access the Internet from smartphones and tablets. The financial arm of China’s biggest e-commerce company will also introduce fund products and promote a cloud-computing service, said Lucy Peng, chief executive officer of Alibaba Small & Micro Financial Services Group that includes the Paypal-like third party payment system Alipay.com Co. Read more of this post

Billionaire Masayoshi Son on Buying Spree as SoftBank Chases Growth

Billionaire Son on Buying Spree as SoftBank Chases Growth

A day after SoftBank Corp. (9984) said it was buying a majority stake in gamemaker Supercell Oy, billionaire Chairman Masayoshi Son is at it again. Japan’s third-largest wireless carrier is in talks to buy a stake in Brightstar Corp., a U.S.-based mobile-phone distributor, the company said in a filing to the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The Nikkei newspaper earlier reported the deal could be worth more than 100 billion yen ($1 billion). Read more of this post

What Supercell’s $1.5B deal means for mobile, global gaming, and Finland

What Supercell’s $1.5B deal means for mobile, global gaming, and Finland

BY HAMISH MCKENZIE 
ON OCTOBER 15, 2013

Finnish mobile gaming company Supercell, maker of “Clash of Clans” and “Hay Day,” has just announced that it has sold 51 percent of itself to Japan’s SoftBank and GungHo, a fellow game maestro, for $1.5 billion. The deal values Supercell, a 130-person company (last time we checked) that is headquartered on a single floor of a Helsinki skyscraper formerly occupied by Nokia, at more than $3 billion. Here are the basics, before we get into some analysis:

Softbank and GungHo, maker of “Puzzles & Dragons,” have set up a company in Finland that will own the 51 percent stake.

Co-founder Ilkka Paananen will remain CEO, and the company will continue to operate independently.

Every Supercell employee is getting a share of the cash. Read more of this post

Technopreneurship and the Early Stage Ecosystem in China in 2013

An overview of China’s tech and startup ecosystem in 20 slides

October 16, 2013

by Paul Bischoff

We came across this slideshow put together by Beijing-based Innovation Works partner Chris Evdemon yesterday. It’s one of the best summaries of China’s early stage tech landscape I’ve ever seen.  Evdemon covers where China is in 2013, where it’s going, and what it needs in 20 slides. If you want to educate yourself or someone else in less than half an hour, then take a look. It has pictures! Here’s a few major points:

Mobile is huge in China with Android as its central play. Chris believes that the next few billion dollar companies will probably be Android-focused.
Web and mobile penetration is growing ridiculously fast along with the upper-middle class. Chinese internet culture must be understood to capitalize on it.

Freemium is very China and the world has a lot to learn from her. Chris drafted up an interesting  ”hierarchy of needs” for Chinese gamers, claiming that Chinese game industry could pull in four times more ARPU than the US.

Despite having lots of venture capital money in China ($7 billion as Chris wrote), there are very few angels in China. China needs more early-stage investment and startup-friendly services.

How Google Figured Out How To Make Money

How Google Figured Out How To Make Money

WILL OREMUS SLATE
OCT. 15, 2013, 2:56 PM 3,511 3

The idea that made Google the world’s greatest search engine was all Larry Page and Sergey Brin.  But the idea that set it on the path to becoming the world’s greatest company wasn’t theirs originally. It was borrowed, with some key modifications, from their biggest early rival. In September 1998, Page and Brin founded Google based on an algorithm called PageRank that they had developed as Stanford Ph.D. students.  Other search engines ranked pages based on the relevance of the text they contained, which allowed spammers to game the system by filling their pages with commonly searched keywords.  Read more of this post