Pig Sales Fly Blind as Data Cut by Shutdown Hampers Firms

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

Pig Sales Fly Blind as Data Cut by Shutdown Hampers Firms

For Brian Duncan, a 49-year-old hog farmer in Polo, Illinois, the government shutdown is converting the economic fundamentals of his business into a guessing game. Duncan relies on U.S. Department of Agriculture commodity data to price his hogs. That information flow has been cut off with the partial shutdown of the federal government, which entered a fourth day today. The lapse has had a dramatic effect on his operation in north-central Illinois, he said. “Everyone in the food chain relies on the government to be an unbiased source of prices,” said Duncan, who sells 50,000 pigs a year to meat packers, including Tyson Foods Inc. (TSN), Smithfield Foods Inc. and Cargill Inc. “We have no clue what the price of hogs is or the price of the pork.” Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Swiss Retirees Traverse Pension-Fund Abyss by Dog Walking

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

Swiss Retirees Traverse Pension-Fund Abyss by Dog Walking

Swiss retirees are soothing concerns over the country’s 42.4 billion-franc ($47 billion) pension-fund deficit by walking dogs, tending bars and giving financial advice. The number of pensioners for hire at Zurich-based Rent a Rentner AG almost doubled to 2,245 this year, said Peter Hiltebrand, who founded the online booking agency in 2009. The retirees, who range from age 60 to 90, set their own fees, starting at a minimum of about 20 francs an hour. “It started out as a crazy idea because I didn’t just want to stay home all day after I retired and wanted to remain active,” said 69-year-old electrician Hiltebrand. “I thought surely there must be other pensioners who’d be interested.” Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

How to spot a healthy biotech investment

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

How to spot a healthy biotech investment

PUBLISHED: 7 HOURS 10 MINUTES AGO | UPDATE: 4 HOURS 42 MINUTES AGO

MICHAEL BAILEY, The Australian Financial Review

The equity analysts call them “pre-cash flow” companies. All investors really have to go on are the promises. Such companies provide a rare opportunity for ordinary investors to get in on the ground floor of potentially huge, global businesses. There are two main types of pre-cash flow companies in Australia. One type – junior resources explorers – is on the nose as commodity prices wane. As a result, there’s more interest in the other type: biotechnology companies, or “biopharma” as the sector is sometimes known. The success stories out of this sector are well known, but be warned. For every “ten bagger” like a Mesoblast or Sirtex, there are dozens of others that have wiped out their investors or perhaps struggled to break even. More dauntingly, success relies heavily on approval from the only regulator that big pharmaceutical companies care about – the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA). Read more of this post

Filed under Health, Investing Process

Construction chaos in Australia: another builder collapses as sector faces 40th straight month in doldrums; 20-year-old Walton Construction handed over to administrators

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

James Thomson Editor

Construction chaos: another builder collapses as sector faces 40th straight month in doldrums

Published 04 October 2013 08:48, Updated 04 October 2013 10:09

The carnage in Australia’s building sector shows no signs of abating, with yet another major construction group placed in the hands of corporate undertakers yesterday. Craig Walton, managing director of Walton Construction, described Thursday as the toughest day of his life as he handed control of his 20-year-old construction group to administrators. ‘‘It is also the saddest day because of the impact on our employees and their families who have been so loyal and outstandingly professional over the whole journey,” Walton told Fairfax. The company, which at its peak turned over $360 million and had 340 employees, has been buffeted by the seemingly never-ending post-GFC construction sector hangover. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Around 40% of phone numbers that listed companies in China provided to investors go unanswered or are constantly engaged

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

Under 60% of Chinese listed companies answer the phone

Staff Reporter

2013-10-04

Around 40% of phone numbers that listed companies provided to investors go unanswered or are constantly engaged, according to the China Securities Investor Protection Fund Corporation, a securities supervisory body established by China’s State Council or cabinet. The corporation recently posed as an anonymous client and made three rounds of phone calls to 2,468 companies listed on China’s A-share market and published its results. Of the 7,404 phone calls the company made, around 58.7% were answered and their questions were properly addressed. Around 40.1% of their calls went unanswered while the remainder were busy or had another situation which prevented a satisfactory outcome. The company said it received valid and useful information in 85.3% of calls which were answered and around 91.7% of staff members answering the calls were polite and friendly. The percentage of answered phone calls was highest among companies listed in Hong Kong’s Growth Enterprise Market which allows growth companies to raise capital based on a strong disclosure principle. 73.7% of these companies picked up the phone. They were followed by the Small and Medium Enterprise Board, Shanghai Stock Exchange’s Main Board and Shenzhen Stock Exchange at 63.1%, 52.8% and 52.7%, respectively.

Filed under Macro Trends

Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Explains How He Built A Web Empire

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Explains How He Built A Web Empire

GREGORY FERENSTEIN

posted yesterday

ohanian_pic

You don’t need to be a cut-throat jerk to be successful in the business of capitalism. Alexis Ohanian doesn’t stand out in a room; other than being tall enough to play NBA defense, he’s usually the unassuming guy in a corner making new friends with a big smile and a buddy-buddy attitude. Ohanian also happens to have founded one of the most influential websites in existence:Reddit.com, a popular news aggregator, snags over 1 billion page views a month and has the power to turn a news story into a viral sensation. Ohanian’s new book, Without Their Permission, reveals the origin story of Reddit as the earnest project of a do-good entrepreneur. Most importantly, it proves that there are many paths to unlocking the Internet treasure chest and at least one doesn’t involve selling your soul. Read more of this post

Filed under TMT Trends

A Chinese Mobile Startup With Global Reach: Android-Based Go Launcher Touches 80M Monthly Actives

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

A Chinese Mobile Startup With Global Reach: Android-Based Go Launcher Touches 80M Monthly Actives

KIM-MAI CUTLER

posted yesterday

screen-shot-2013-10-03-at-2-11-42-pm

As I’ve written about before, while the Chinese startup scene is sometimes criticized for producing copycats of Western businesses,there are emerging entrepreneurs building software products with global appeal. One of the startups with the largest reach is Go Launcher, a Beijing-based company making an Android homescreen that boasts 80 million monthly actives and three Android products with more than 50 million installs each. Read more of this post

Filed under TMT Trends

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has become the world’s largest integrated circuit chip supplier in terms of the final market value of its sales

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

TSMC emerges as world’s top semiconductor maker

CNA

2013-10-04

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has become the world’s largest integrated circuit chip supplier in terms of the final market value of its sales, the company’s acting spokeswoman said Thursday. Counting the final market value, TSMC’s IC chip sales reached an estimated US$54.6 billion last year, TSMC acting spokeswoman Elizabeth Sun said at a media event at the company’s flagship production complex in the Southern Taiwan Science Park. The sales figure surpassed those of IDM (integrated device manufacturer) giants such as Intel and Samsung, Sun said. Read more of this post

Filed under Investing Process, TMT Trends

If You Want Innovation, You Have to Invest in People

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

If You Want Innovation, You Have to Invest in People

by Mehran Mehregany  |   11:00 AM October 3, 2013

As the convergence of digital technologies drives unprecedented levels of change in global marketplaces, it is very much a reality that a company must, as Bill Gates put it, “innovate or die!” In the race for relevance to future customers, the greater a company’s innovation capacity, the greater its chance of success. So how does a firm build its power and agility in innovation? The answer is simple and, to my mind, obvious – yet, it is not the direction in which most innovation-seeking firms seem to be channeling their efforts. Having designed and managed innovation programs in a variety of settings, I know that a company’s innovation capacity comes down to its talent pool, and its commitment to building knowledge and competencies one individual at a time. Read more of this post

Filed under Innovation, Life

Help to get a good night’s sleep; Rest is as important as fitness in today’s working environment

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

October 3, 2013 4:57 pm

Help to get a good night’s sleep

By Emma Jacobs

Guy Meadows used to work as a researcher in sleep labs at the Charing Cross and the Royal Brompton hospitals in London. He would spend his nights observing those with sleep disorders as they tried to get some shut-eye. Eight years ago he decided he had had enough: “I was tired of watching people sleep. I was doing shift work. I know how bad that is for your health.” His work, however, had convinced him there was a market among people desperate for a cure to their sleep problems. Now the 36-year-old, who describes himself as a “normal sleeper with disturbances” – he has two children, aged three and one – works as a sleep consultant, running workshops and one-to-one counselling sessions to help people overcome insomnia. Read more of this post

Filed under Health, Life

Hong Kong’s handcarts keep the city on a roll

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

Hong Kong’s handcarts keep the city on a roll

20131003_oldlady_hongkong_afp

Thursday, Oct 03, 2013

AFP

HONG KONG – It’s a simple contraption – an iron frame, foldout handle and four rubber wheels – but in Hong Kong the old-fashioned handcart is what keeps the city rolling. In the shadow of skyscrapers, Hong Kong’s working class trolley pushers transport everything from crates of live seafood to appliances, financial documents, furniture and mail. But among the street cleaners, market traders and removal men, it is probably the city’s elderly scavengers who best highlight how vital handcarts are to the city. Lee Cheung-Ho, 78, spends all day pushing her cart, and says she even goes out when there is a typhoon. “I have to go out and make a living,” she told AFP without stopping. “It helps even if I can only earn a few dollars.” The estimated 10,000 scavengers in Hong Kong collect cardboard, tin cans and scrap metal, selling it on for a few dollars to recycling centres to ship to mainland China. Read more of this post

Filed under Life, Macro Trends

A new study found that reading literary fiction leads to better performance on tests of empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence.

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

OCTOBER 3, 2013, 2:15 PM

For Better Social Skills, Scientists Recommend a Little Chekhov

By PAM BELLUCK

Say you are getting ready for a blind date or a job interview. What should you do? Besides shower and shave, of course, it turns out you should read — but not just anything. Something by Chekhov or Alice Munro will help you navigate new social territory better than a potboiler by Danielle Steel. That is the conclusion of a study published Thursday in the journal Science. It found that after reading literary fiction, as opposed to popular fiction or serious nonfiction, people performed better on tests measuring empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence — skills that come in especially handy when you are trying to read someone’s body language or gauge what they might be thinking. Read more of this post

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Here comes the spoils society, ready to reap but not sow

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

Here comes the spoils society

By Robert J. Samuelson, Published: September 30

“To the victors belong the spoils”

— New York Sen. William L. Marcy, 1786-1857, arguing why victorious political parties deserve government jobs

We are, I fear, slowly moving from “the affluent society” toward a “spoils society.” In 1958, Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith published his bestseller, “The Affluent Society,” which profoundly influenced national thinking for decades. To the Great Depression’s survivors, post-World War II prosperity dazzled. Suburbia offered a quiet alternative to crowded and noisy cities. New technologies impressed — television, frozen foods, automatic washers and dryers. Never, it seemed, had so much been enjoyed by so many. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

How Brazil’s Richest Man Lost $34.5 Billion

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

How Brazil’s Richest Man Lost $34.5 Billion

By Juan Pablo Spinetto, Peter Millard, and Ken Wells October 03, 2013

feat_Batista41_d_315current_304x415feat_batista41chart_630

OGX’s FPSO OSX-1 oil production vessel in Rio

Eike Batista stands at the center of a specially built air-conditioned stage on his 22,000-acre-plus Açu port project, a massive oil and iron-ore shipping complex about 200 miles north of Rio de Janeiro. He’s beaming, flashing victory signs. He has on an orange-and-gray racing jacket of the type he wore as a champion speedboat racer two decades before. It clashes badly with his bright pink tie and gray pinstripe suit, but he doesn’t appear to care—in fact, the loud ensemble only serves to highlight a faux oil-stained handprint across the jacket’s left pocket—a corny hint about why he’s asked everyone here. Read more of this post

Filed under Investing Process, Life, Macro Trends

Taiwan famous show host Dee Hsu’s father-in-law admits to insider trading charges

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

Dee Hsu’s father-in-law admits to insider trading charges

Friday, October 4, 2013 – 10:51

The China Post/Asia News Network

TAIPEI, Taiwan — District prosecutors yesterday said Hsu Hsun-ping (徐洵平), chairman of Genome International Biomedical Co. Ltd. (GIBC), admitted during a questioning session that he participated in insider trading. From Wednesday morning through to Thursday morning the Taipei District Prosecutors Office questioned Hsu Hsun-ping, his wife Jiang Li-fen (姜麗芬), talk show host Dee Hsu’s (徐熙娣, also known as Little S) husband Mike Hsu (許雅鈞), and her father-in-law Hsu Ching-hsiang (許慶祥) over allegations of gaining profits through insider trading. The four of them hold GIBC shares. Read more of this post

Filed under Investing Process, Macro Trends

SGX suspends trading in Asiasons, Liongold and Blumont shares

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

SGX suspends trading in Asiasons, Liongold and Blumont shares

Friday, Oct 04, 2013

Reuters

In a dramatic move this morning, the Singapore Exchange (SGX) suspended the trading of three stocks, namely Blumont, Asiasons Capital and Liongold. SINGAPORE – The Singapore Exchange Ltd on Friday suspended trading in Asiasons Capital Ltd and Liongold Corp Ltd after their share prices fell sharply in the morning session. Asiasons shares plunged 61 per cent while Liongold Corp shares dropped 42 per cent before their trading suspension. According to statements filed by both firms, the Singapore bourse operator invoked SGX-ST Rule 8.10 to immediately suspend trading “to safeguard the interests of the market as there could be circumstances that would result in the market not being fully informed”. It also suspended the trading of Blumont Group Ltd shares after the company said it plans to take over a foreign-listed coal mining company, sending its shares plunging by more than 50 per cent. “This is to safeguard the interests of the market as there could be circumstances that would result in the market not being fully informed,” a stock exchange filing said. Blumont said before market hours on Friday that it had reached an agreement on the terms of a proposed takeover bid of a coal mining company for up to S$146 million ($117 million).

Filed under Investing Process, Macro Trends

Time to Ditch the Yale Endowment Model

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

Time to Ditch the Yale Endowment Model

Institutional investors are different from you and me — they have a lot more money. Pension plans in rich countries manage almost $30 trillion in assets, for example. This opens doors at the offices of hedge funds, private-equity firms and other expensive money managers and creates opportunities to directly invest in projects inaccessible to regular people, such as dams, natural-gas fields and real-estate developments. But while a select few institutions can generate higher returns — for less risk — than we lowly mortals can achieve with low-cost index funds, the average fund should avoid trying to get too creative. The modern style of institutional investing can be traced to Yale University’s David Swensen, who literally wrote the book on the subject. (Full disclosure, I’m a Yale graduate.) Three core ideas inform his thinking. Read more of this post

Filed under Investing Process, Macro Trends

Scaly Skin as Deadly as Cancer Spurs Psoriasis Treatment

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

Scaly Skin as Deadly as Cancer Spurs Psoriasis Treatment

Psoriasis, with its patches of itchy, flaky skin, is often nothing more than a benign cosmetic problem. Yet for many people it’s as disabling and life-threatening as rheumatoid arthritis or cancer. These patients often don’t tolerate existing medicines, or see them lose their power over time. Pharmaceutical companies, helped by a new understanding of the biology behind the disease, have developed a new class of drug candidates that may be faster and more effective for the more serious forms of psoriasis. The front runner, Novartis AG (NOVN), said yesterday that its experimental treatment met the main goals of a late-stage study. Read more of this post

Filed under Health

Health insurer NIB is set to launch a controversial and long-mooted website that rates and compares health professionals such as dentists, optometrists and chiropractors

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

NIB to launch healthcare directory

October 4, 2013

Madeleine Heffernan

Health insurer NIB is set to launch a controversial and long-mooted website that rates and compares health professionals such as dentists, optometrists and chiropractors. While previous plans were shouted down by industry bodies, NIB has confirmed that the site – called Whitecoat – will be launched later this year. Whitecoat will provide a directory of healthcare sites, customer service and comparative cost data. It will not cover general practitioners and medical specialists. The Australian Medical Association argues that one person’s bad experience is more likely to be aired than the good experiences of 99 people. Read more of this post

Filed under Health

Meet The 10 Family Dynasties That Rule New York Real Estate

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

Meet The Family Dynasties That Rule New York Real Estate

ADAM PINCUS, THE REAL DEAL OCT. 3, 2013, 4:33 PM 4,591 4

dynasty-chart

Seymour Durst and his brothers built six Manhattan buildings in a 12-year run. Paul and Seymour Milstein built 10 in about the same amount of time. And Lew and Jack Rudin built 11 in two decades. The breakneck pace of development — which was largely clustered in the 1960s and the 1980s — by those three families, and a slew of others, laid the foundation for many of New York City’s most established real estate dynasties. (Think Tishman, Fisher, Malkin, Resnick, LeFrak, Rose, and Zeckendorf.) Indeed, after passing down their real estate portfolios from one generation to the next, many of those families are sitting on bricks-and-mortar fortunes today. Read more of this post

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The Rise and Fall of the World’s 10 Most Valuable Brands

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

The Rise and Fall of the World’s 10 Most Valuable Brands

By Dorothy Gambrell October 03, 2013

Coca-Cola (KO) has been dethroned by Apple (AAPL) from its long-running position as the world’s most valuable brand, according to the closely watched Interbrand Best Global Brands survey. The soft drink giant had held the No. 1 ranking for 13 consecutive years but fell to No. 3 in this year’s study by the consulting firm. Interbrand (OMC) values the Apple brand at about $98 billion, and other tech companies such as Google (GOOG), IBM (IBM), and Microsoft(MSFT) finished in the top five. Here’s a look at the twists and turns of the top 10 brands in the Interbrand study, which analyzes a brand’s financial strength and influence, going back to 2000.

interbrand_top10_950

 

Filed under Life

The Global Popularity of Tudor Style: The look that originated in 16th-century England and Wales can now be found all over the world

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

October 3, 2013, 6:25 p.m. ET

The Global Popularity of Tudor Style

The look that originated in 16th-century England and Wales can now be found all over the world.

ALYSSA ABKOWITZ

OG-AA233_TudorM_D_20131003152101 OG-AA235_Global_NS_20131003152602

In Thames Town, handsome Tudoresque homes sit near English-style pubs, red telephone booths and a replica of Christ Church in Bristol, England. Some of the houses have family crests on them. But everything in this village was built less than a decade ago—and Thames Town is situated about 25 miles outside of Shanghai. “It’s like Disneyland, except it is in the real world,” says Andrew Ballantyne, a professor of architecture at Newcastle University in England. Read more of this post

Filed under Life

Teaching Robot Bartenders to Pick Up on Social Cues

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

Teaching Robot Bartenders to Pick Up on Social Cues

By Drake Bennett  October 03, 2013

Innovator: Jan de Ruiter
Age: 43
Title: Psycholinguist at Germany’s Universität Bielefeld, one of 19 project researchers across Europe
Form and function: James, short for Joint Action in Multimodal Embodied Systems, is a friendly robot being trained as a bartender. The goal is to teach him to interpret body language and other human behavior.

tech_innovator41_970

Filed under Life, TMT Trends

Porsche to BMW Help Bridge East-West German Divide

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

Porsche to BMW Help Bridge East-West German Divide

On a newly constructed bridge at Porsche AG’s growing factory in eastern Germany, a worker put up a handmade sign this summer with a tongue-in-cheek notice saying “Access to the West,” echoing Cold War language that once marked the former-communist region’s borders. For employees at the facility in Leipzig, a city where protests helped lead to German reunification 23 years ago today, the joke was obvious. With some of the most elite cars in the world rolling off lines there and a nearby Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) factory, the West has arrived. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Twitter Lost $69 Million On $254 Million In Revenue During The First Half Of This Year; Twitter Admits 5% Of Its ‘Users’ Are Fake

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

Twitter Lost $69 Million On $254 Million In Revenue During The First Half Of This Year

JAY YAROW OCT. 3, 2013, 6:24 PM 1,299

chart-of-the-day-twitter-revenue-losses

Compared to other major tech companies, Twitter is pretty small. The company’s IPO filing reveals that it lost $69 million on $254 million in revenue through the first six months of the year. Facebook earned $1 billion on $3.3 billion in revenue for the same period. Twitter is growing faster, though. Its revenue was up 107% on a year-over-year basis, compared to Facebook which grew 46%.  In this chart, you can see how Twitter’s revenue, and losses have been growing through the years on a quarterly basis. As you can see, Twitter just started getting aggressive on revenue two years ago. The majority of Twitter’s revenue — 87% — comes from advertising. The rest is from data licensing. The chart comes from BI Intelligence.  Read more of this post

Filed under TMT Trends

Roku’s Survival Will Take More Than Beating Apple TV

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

Roku’s Survival Will Take More Than Beating Apple TV

By Joshua Brustein October 03, 2013

tech_rokuchart41_202

Heavy users of streaming video love Roku, which makes puck-size boxes used to view Internet-streamed video on television sets. Since it began piping Netflix (NFLX) from broadband connections into viewers’ living rooms in 2008, Roku has become the favorite device among 37 percent of U.S. households with streaming players, compared with 24 percent for Apple TV, according to researcher Park Associates. On Sept. 25, Roku released new versions of its devices, making minor improvements to its cheaper models and adding content from M-Go, a video rental and purchase service owned by MediaNaviCo. Read more of this post

Filed under TMT Trends

One Big Doubt Hanging Over Twitter’s IPO: Fake Accounts; With Robot Accounts Spitting Tweets, Marketers May Want More Certainty They’re Reaching Humans

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

Updated October 3, 2013, 7:40 p.m. ET

One Big Doubt Hanging Over Twitter’s IPO: Fake Accounts

With Robot Accounts Spitting Tweets, Marketers May Want More Certainty They’re Reaching Humans

TOM GARA

MK-CG795_TWITTE_G_20131003183305 MK-CG791_TWITTE_G_20131003162703

At 4:45 p.m. on Thursday, the Twitter account for Mashable—one of the earliest movers into the now endless world of social media news sites—sent out its 60th tweet for the day. The tweet itself wasn’t particularly interesting, But what happened next was a small window into one of the biggest challenges Twitter will face as it seeks to convince investors that its more than 215 million users are one of the web’s most lucrative—and undeveloped—advertising audiences. Read more of this post

Filed under TMT Trends

For Twitter, Success Came After Founders’ Exit; Ailing Startup Finds Its Legs After Pushing Aside Those That Brought It to Life

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

October 3, 2013, 8:08 p.m. ET

For Twitter, Success Came After Founders’ Exit

Ailing Startup Finds Its Legs After Pushing Aside Those That Brought It to Life

SHIRA OVIDE and YOREE KOH

Twitter Inc., which Thursday detailed one of Silicon Valley’s most hotly anticipated IPOs, nearly died without a chirp. The company was a side project of an ailing startup and riven with internal power struggles before morphing into a communications tool that has helped foment revolutions, end political careers and change the meaning of the word “tweet.” It reached that point without any of its four co-founders, none of whom now work at the company. A promising idea only turned into a steady company when Twitter outgrew its founders, and the people in charge pushed aside those who brought the company to life. Read more of this post

Filed under TMT Trends

France delivers postal blow to Amazon; Law to aid bookshops stops internet booksellers offering free delivery

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

October 3, 2013 5:15 pm

France targets Amazon to protect bookshops

By Hugh Carnegy in Paris

France’s parliament has passed a law preventing internet booksellers from offering free delivery to customers, in an attempt to protect the country’s struggling bookshops from the growing dominance of US online retailer Amazon. On Thursday, Aurélie Filippetti, the culture minister who originally proposed the move, denounced Amazon for its alleged “strategy of dumping”, claiming that the company used offers of free delivery to get around French laws controlling the price of books. Read more of this post

Filed under TMT Trends

Amazon plans TV streaming box in time for holidays

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

Amazon plans TV streaming box in time for holidays: WSJ

3:12pm EDT

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc, which entered the gadget-making business with the Kindle e-reader, intends to sell a set-top box that can stream Internet content to televisions in time for the holidays, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The Internet retailer has approached media software developers as well as cable television providers in recent weeks, hoping to secure content partners for the device by mid-October, the newspaper reported, citing people briefed on the company’s plans. Read more of this post

Filed under TMT Trends

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