Weekly#113

  • Oculus VR said Wednesday the debut consumer version of its headset will ship in the first quarter of 2016, with preorders beginning later this year (WSJ)
  • Spotify, which is laying plans to enter the hotly competitive Web-video business, according to people familiar with the matter, posted a net loss of €162 million last year, compared with a net loss of €55.9 million in 2013. Revenue soared 45% to €1.08 billion from €747 million in the same period. (WSJ)
  • Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated today in its first quarter earnings call that the company received more than 38,000 reservations for the Powerwall, which includes roughly 2,800 businesses looking to purchase the commercial version called the Powerpack.
    Last week, Tesla unveiled two versions of the Powerwall – a 10kWh configuration that’s optimized for use as a backup system and a 7kWh designed for daily cycling. These devices go for $3,500 and $3,000, respectively. (The Next Web)
  • Best practices from the most active Slack users (Fast Company)

  • Robinhood, a Snoop Dogg and Marc Andreessen-backed app that lets you buy and sell stocks without a fee, just raised $50 million (Business Insider)

  • Alibaba, just released earnings, it announced that COO Daniel Zhang will replace Jonathan Lu as CEO. (Business Insider)

  • 15 predictions Bill Gates made in 1999 that became true (WEF)
  • Charlie Rose : Megan Smith, chief technology officer of the United States, on data, innovation, and women in technology.

  • Shockwave of Traffic Jams

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

Weekly#112

    • Apple latest Q results (WSJ)
      • Led by the larger-display iPhones it introduced last fall, Apple on Monday said it sold 61.2 million iPhones in the three months ended March 28, up 40% from the year-earlier period.
      • The average selling price of an iPhone during the latest quarter was $659, up more than $60 compared with a year earlier.
      • In the six months since Apple introduced the new iPhones, the company’s revenue increased by more than $29 billion, compared with the year-ago period. That is roughly equal to Nike Inc.’s annual revenue in 2014.
      • gross margin, a closely watched measure of profitability reflecting the percentage of revenue that remains after manufacturing costs, was 40.8%, above its estimated range of 38.5% to 39.5%
      • At the end of March, Apple’s cash totaled $193.5 billion, up from $178 billion at the end of December. That is greater than the market capitalization of all but 15 other companies in the S&P 500.
  • Build 2015: Keynote Highlights

  • Salesforce World Tour Chicago
  • European VC Investment in Q1 2015 (WSJ)
    • €285 million
      The largest fund of the quarter was HV Holtzbrinck Ventures Fund VI which accounted for 33% of the total amount raised for 1Q 2015.
    • €2.6 billion
      The amount European companies raised in 345 deals during 1Q 2015, an increase of 41% in the amount raised from 4Q 2014 despite a 5% slide in the number of deals completed.
    • 1st Place
      Germany was the most favored destination for equity financing during 1Q 2015, receiving €921 million across 64 deals. The country took 35% of all equity financing for the quarter, tripling its 4Q 2014 investment total.
  • Selfie Arm (Business Insider)

  • 10 things humans are doing right now to reach Mars (Business Insider)

  • How Sony Makes Money Off Apple’s iPhone (WSJ)
    The Japanese company is the world’s largest supplier of image sensors in digital cameras. To meet surging demand, Sony plans to invest $375 million in its image-sensor factories on top of nearly $900 million announced earlier this year.

 


 

 

 

Weekly#111

    • The European Patent Office (EPO) has announced its finalists for the 2015 European Inventor Awards, honoring brilliant inventions from a range of scientific fields. (QZ)

    • Companies spend more than $300 billion on servers, software and IT services each year, but growth in those markets is flat, said Richard Villars, an analyst at IDC.

      The infrastructure-services market, which Amazon dominates, doubled in 2014 to more than $9 billion, and is expected to expand to $16 billion in 2016. “It’s clearly where companies are spending money to transform their business,” said Mr. Villars.

      According to Amazon, AWS makes up the bulk of that category, which accounted for $1.67 billion in net sales during the fourth quarter of 2014, and $4.5 billion for the year.
      (WSJ)

    • Netflix subscribers streamed 10 billion hours last quarter,that’s roughly 55 hours per subscriber, per month.
      First Quarter Earning Reports [PDF] (QZ)
    • How Makerspaces Help Local Economies (The Atlantic)
      The first is the availability of “hacker” or makerspaces. There are some 2,000 of them around the world
    • Google Fi Project

    • WhatsApp now has 800 million monthly active users, continuing a pace of growth that may put the mobile messaging app on track to hit one billion users later this year. (WSJ)
    • For much of the early 2000s, the price of a solar panel or module hovered around $4 per watt. …
      ….Then, from 2007 to 2014, the price of crystalline silicon modules dropped from $4 per watt to $0.50 per watt, all but ending the development of thin films…..
      ….Ten years from now we could easily see the cost of solar modules dropping to 25 cents per watt, or roughly half their current cost (QZ)
    • In World First, Scientists Genetically Modify Human Embryos (Discover Magazine)
    • Airbnb Ad – Never A Stranger

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

Weekly#110

  • For a More Creative Brain, Travel (The Atlantic)
    New sounds, smells, language, tastes, sensations, and sights spark different synapses in the brain and may have the potential to revitalize the mind.
  • IMF World Economic Outlook (WEO) Growth: Short- and Long-Term Factors, Chapter 3 [PDF]
  • Virtual-Reality Projects Get Hollywood Treatment (WSJ)
    Directors like Steven Spielberg are creating content for immersive offerings ahead of consumer headset push 
  • Jawbone Puts Mobile Payments Into New Up4 Fitness Band (WSJ)
    The Up4 will be the first Jawbone band to include an NFC chip, and that chip will be dedicated to mobile payments.

  • Netflix Inc. added a better-than-expected 4.88 million subscribers in the March quarter, as the streaming service sacrificed some profits to keep up its aggressive international expansion.

    Investors cheered the subscriber growth, which topped Netflix’s own forecast for 4.05 million additions. Including customers signed up for free trials, Netflix now has more than 62 million subscribers world-wide. (WSJ)

  • ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ PC Version Benchmarked Across 14 Nvidia And AMD Graphics Cards (Forbes)
  • 5 Moleskine Hacks To Boost Your Productivity (Medium)
  • How to Track the Team’s Mood with a Niko-niko Calendar (Agile Trail)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weekly#109

  • Google Wants to Be Handier for Handymen (WSJ)
    Google  is planning a service to connect users with plumbers, electricians, roofers and other home-service providers, according to two people familiar with the matter.
  • Apple Watch and Beats Music Unite in Pulse-Activated Playlist App, recommend tracks playing nearby based on changes in your pulse (PSFK)
  • The electric grid’s latest threat? Rooftop solar cells (QZ)
    Power-generating panels, called solar photovoltaics (PV), represent the fastest-growing source of electric power in the United States. In percentage terms, installed PV has grown four-fold over the past several years, and costs have fallen as rapidly as installations have risen.
  • Amazon Hints at Smart Home Future Through Echo Device (WSJ)
    The company is adding new capabilities to its Wi-Fi-connected speaker and virtual assistant, such as the ability to remotely operate lights and appliances. With just voice commands, for example, someone in bed could turn a television on and turn off the lights. Amazon informed Echo owners about the new services in an email Wednesday.
  • Android Creator Andy Rubin Launching Playground Global (WSJ)
    The creator of Android, the world’s largest mobile operating system, is returning to his roots in hardware.Mr. Rubin said Playground had raised $48 million from investors including Google, Hewlett-Packard Co., electronics manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., and other tech companies. Playground won’t invest in startups, but will take equity stakes in return for its support.

 

 

Weekly#108

 

  • Tesla’s secret breakthrough home battery will be announced at the end of April (BGR)

The battery has apparently been in testing in 230 houses in California, with 100 more Tesla Stationary Batteries being placed in homes out of the state.

Interestingly, one tester operated such a battery for a year and a half from his garage. According to Chowdry, a 10kWh battery could cost $13,000 with a 50% rebate from PG&E. The buyer who talked to the analyst purchased his unit for $1,500 down, followed by 120 monthly installments (10 years) of $15 each.

  • Comcast’s new broadband service is twice as fast as Google Fiber (Engadget)
  • Comcast has drawn a new battle line against Google Fiber by launching a 2Gbps fiber broadband service called Gigabit Pro. It arrives next month in Atlanta and will be available in 18 million homes across the US by the end of the year.
  • BBC releases 10-episode Doctor Who box set as a $12 BitTorrent Bundle (VentureBeat)

The BBC launched an exclusive BitTorrent Bundle today to mark the 10-year anniversary of the new Doctor Who, spanning 10 of the series’ best episodes as well as video commentary from the 12th Doctor, Peter Capaldi. You can download A Decade of the Doctor now for $12.

  • Google Lab Puts a Time Limit on Innovations (WSJ)
    • Mobile-focused projects get two years to prove themselves; hiring mostly outside experts
    • Google is one of the world’s great innovators and invests heavily in research and development. Spending on R&D soared 38% last year to $9.8 billion, outpacing percentage-wise the company’s 19% increase in revenue.
  • IBM to Invest $3 Billion in Sensor-Data Unit (WSJ)
  • International Business Machines Corp. plans to invest $3 billion over four years on a new business helping customers gather and analyze the flood of data from sensor-equipped devices and smartphones
  • UBS to Open Blockchain Research Lab in London (WSJ)
    Swiss banking giant UBS is to open a technology lab in London to explore how blockchain technology can be used in financial services.

    The lab, set to open this month and occupy a dozen desks at Canary Wharf-based fintech accelerator space Level39 – a hub in London for financial technology startups– will bring together technology experts from the bank and the wider fintech community, UBS said.

  • Why China May Have the Most Factory Robots in the World by 2017 (WSJ)

    China is already the world’s largest market for industrial robots—sales of the machines last year grew 54% from 2013. The nation is expected to have more factory robots than any other country on earth by 2017, according to the German-based International Federation of Robotics.

    The trade group says one reason China will continue booming is because it has relatively low “robot density.” China has about 30 robots for every 10,000 factory workers. In Germany, the density is 10 times higher. In Japan, it’s 11 times higher.

  • Microsoft ended support for Windows XP almost a year ago… and it still has more users than Windows 8 (BGR)

  • U.S. Smartphone Use in 2015 (PEW)

  • 10% of Americans own a smartphone but do not have broadband at home, and 15% own a smartphone but say that they have a limited number of options for going online other than their cell phone. Those with relatively low income and educational attainment levels, younger adults, and non-whites are especially likely to be “smartphone-dependent.”

  • Smartphones are widely used for navigating numerous important life activities, from researching a health condition to accessing educational resources. Lower-income and “smartphone-dependent” users are especially likely to turn to their phones for navigating job and employment resources.

Weekly#107

  • Morse Code Translator
  • Facebook is building a fleet of giant solar-powered drones (Business Insider). Aquila can reportedly stay in the air for up to three months at a time, and beam high-speed internet from between 60,000 and 90,000 feet in the air. They’ll be lighter than a small car, but as long as a Boeing 767.

  • Apple could release 3 new iPhones this year (Business Insider)
    the iPhone 6S, the iPhone 6S Plus, and a smaller device currently known as the iPhone 6C.

  • Amazon Cloud Drive Unlimited Storage for 60 USD (Digital Trends)
  • A Navy Diving Suit That Recycles Wasted Oxygen and Helium (Wired)
  • Adorable Plant Monitors (Trendhunter)
  • Google To Build Robotic Surgery Platform With Johnson & Johnson (TechCrunch)

 

 

 


 

 

 

Weekly#106

  • Smart cities will house 9.7 billion IoT devices by 2020: Gartner (ZDNet)
  • Germany Moves Away From U.S.-Dominated IoT Standards Groups (WSJ)
  • Top 15 IoT Takeaways From South By Southwest (Forbes)
  • The Digital Transformation of Industry(PDF Report by Roland Berger)
    • “By 2025, Europe could see its manufacturing industry add gross value worth 1.25 trillion euros – or suffer the loss of 605 billion euros in foregone value added.”
  • PowerPoint Karaoke Brings Stress Relief to Silicon Valley’s Embattled Office Workers (WSJ) Participants give improvised talks in front of slides they haven’t seen before.
  • Microsoft announces Azure IoT Suite (Microsoft Blog)
  • 27 Revenue Model Options (SlideShare)
  • A developer kit for Nvidia’s self-driving car platform, the Drive PX, will go on sale in May for $10,000, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said today at the company’s GPU Technology Conference. (Recode)
  • 5 Internet of Things Things from CeBit (WSJ)
  • Xiaomi began public beta testing Tuesday of an online money-market fund that lets users earn interest on money saved in Xiaomi’s wallet app, a spokeswoman said (WSJ)
  • Ford Motor Co. is turning to longtime partner Microsoft Corp. to make over-the-air software updates standard in its next generation of cars. (WSJ)
  • Andreessen Horowitz Invests $7.5 Million in Big-Data Startup Tachyon “Tachyon is a memory-centric storage system that is both faster and more reliable than the previous generation of file-based storage systems, Mr. Levine said.” (WSJ)
  • Facebook Announces a Payments Feature for Its Messenger App (NyTimes)
  • Orange Seeks Foreign Partner for Video Site Dailymotion (NyTimes)
  • Google Now will open more broadly to more third-party apps (Mashable)
  • Carbon3D’s revolutionary new 3D printer is 25 to 100 times faster (Inhabitat)
  • Delphi’s self-driving car is set to take a road trip from San Francisco to NYC (Inhabitat)

 

 

 

Weekly#105

  • Algorithmia Launches With More Than 800 Algorithms On Its Marketplace (Techcrunch)
  • Curiosity Is as Important as Intelligence (HBR)
  • Smartphones are about to become network hubs (NetworkWorld)
  • Apple Event in 90 Seconds (TechCrunch)
  • Starbucks Mobile Order & Pay Expands to the Pacific Northwest (Yahoo)
  • Three European countries have already hit their 2020 renewable energy goals (QZ)
    • In 2010, the European Union set a goal of producing 20% of its total energy from renewable sources by 2020. The latest figures show that the union as a whole reached the 15% mark in 2013. But the combined figure includes some countries already exceeding thier targets, while others lag far behind.
      Three out of the 28 EU member states have surpassed their 2020 goals. Sweden had one of the most ambitious goals, planning to produce 49% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. It’s already gone further than that, with 52.1% from renewable sources in 2013. Bulgaria and Estonia also are producing more than they had been targeting, five years ahead of schedule
  • 4G around the globe: Spain has the fastest LTE speeds, the U.S. has among the slowest (VentureBeat)
  • WhatsApp hits 1 billion installs on Android, the second non-Google app to do so (VentureBeat)
  • Who Coined ‘Cloud Computing’? (Technology Review)
    Part of the debate is who should get credit for inventing the idea. The notion of network-based computing dates to the 1960s, but many believe the first use of “cloud computing” in its modern context occurred on August 9, 2006, when then Google CEO Eric Schmidt introduced the term to an industry conference. “What’s interesting [now] is that there is an emergent new model,” Schmidt said, “I don’t think people have really understood how big this opportunity really is. It starts with the premise that the data services and architecture should be on servers. We call it cloud computing—they should be in a “cloud” somewhere.”

    The term began to see wider use the following year, after companies including Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM started to tout cloud-computing efforts as well. That was also when it first appeared in newspaper articles, such as a New York Times report from November 15, 2007, that carried the headline “I.B.M. to Push ‘Cloud Computing,’ Using Data From Afar.” It described vague plans for “Internet-based supercomputing.”

    Sam Johnston, director of cloud and IT services at Equinix, says cloud computing took hold among techies because it described something important. “We now had a common handle for a number of trends that we had been observing, such as the consumerization and commoditization of IT,” he wrote in an e-mail.

    Johnston says it’s never been clear who coined the term. As an editor of the Wikipedia entry for cloud computing, Johnston keeps a close eye on any attempts at misappropriation. He was first to raise alarms about Dell’s trademark application and this summer he removed a citation from Wikipedia saying a professor at Emory had coined the phrase in the late 1990s. There have been “many attempts to coopt the term, as well as various claims of invention,” says Johnston. (Source)

 

 

 

 

Weekly#104

    • Google’s Android to Take On Facebook in Virtual Reality
      Secret team at search giant working on new version of popular OS for virtual reality (WSJ)
    • Zombie Projects: How to Find Them and Kill Them (HBR)
      • 1- Use simple, transparent, predetermined criteria. 
      • 2-Involve outsiders. 
      • 3-Codify lessons learned along the way. 
      • 4-Expand the definition of success.
      • 5-Communicate widely. 
      • 6-Provide closure.
    • Preview 27 different Apple Watch apps in your browser (GigaOM)
    • Sony to release Playstation 4 virtual reality headset in 2016 (GigaOM)
    • Report: Google preparing iOS app for Android Wear smartwatches (GigaOM)
    • How companies assess your financial risk based only on your email address (QZ)
      • Email domain: “The analysis of the email domain can be very powerful, as it allows the understanding of the existing controls around the creation of an email address,” Carvalho tells Quartz. In general, corporate email addresses pose less risk when it comes to online fraud versus email services open to the public, such as Yahoo or Gmail.
        Age of email address: Emailage can obtain information about the age of some email addresses. An email address created around the time an order was placed is another red flag for merchants.
        Numeric patterns: Patterns in email handles, such as the numbers in John12345, can also be a possible sign of fraud.
        Logic patterns: More sophisticated fraudsters use technology to automatically generate email addresses. “The act of creating these addresses often reveals patterns of logic used to create them,” says Carvalho. “We can detect these patterns and identify other email addresses associated with the same fraud ring before fraud happens.”
        Email tumbling: Some email addresses, such as those from Gmail, still work when users add special characters, such as a period or plus sign, to the handle. People sometimes use this workaround to create multiple accounts with one email address. (Source QZ)
    • Apple Suppliers Told to Produce Larger iPad in Second Half (WSJ)
    • Minecraft’s Markus Persson Tells All On His Sale To Microsoft, And What’s Next (Forbes)
    • Haiku Deck’s new AI tool can automatically generate your next presentation (TNW)
    • Microsoft releases Office for Mac 2016 Preview with Retina graphics and cloud integration (TNW)
    • Apple may partner with HBO on the launch of its $15/month streaming service (VentureBeat)
    • Reid Hoffman’s Two Rules for Strategy Decisions (HBR)
      • Reid’s first principle is speed. One of his most popular quotes is, “If you aren’t embarrassed by the first version of your product, you shipped too late.” Another is, “In founding a startup, you throw yourself off a cliff and build an airplane on the way down.” Practically, Reid employs several decision making hacks to prioritize speed as a factor for which option is best — and to speed up the process of making the decision itself.
      • Reid’s second principle is simplicity — simplicity enables speed
    • Music discovery app Shazam will now identify products (BI)

    • Here’s why Apple joining the Dow is a ‘historic moment’ for the company (BI)

      * Stocks in the Dow have more visibility
      * Joining the Dow also opens up Apple to a new class of investor
      * According to Dow Jones, “a stock typically is added only if the company has an excellent reputation, demonstrates sustained growth, and is of interest to a large number of investors,” and so on some level, Dow Jones is reaffirming Apple’s corporate reputation with this addition.