Martyn Williams
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Comcast said to abandon Time Warner merger plan
Comcast has abandoned plans to merge with Time Warner Cable, according to a Bloomberg News report on Thursday.The report quoted “people with knowledge of the matter” and said a formal announcement could be made as soon as Friday.The decision, which was not immediately confirmed by the companies, came a day after the Federal Communications Commission referred the proposed deal to a hearing in front of a judge—a move that had been viewed as a “death sentence” for the plan because of the time and effort it would have taken.The U.S. Department of Justice was also reported to be leaning towards blocking the merger on antitrust grounds should it have received FCC clearance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Comcast abandons $45B Time Warner merger plan
Comcast has abandoned plans to merge with Time Warner Cable.Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts said in a statement: "Today, we move on. Of course, we would have liked to bring our great products to new cities, but we structured this deal so that if the government didn’t agree, we could walk away.Comcast NBCUniversal is a unique company with strong momentum. Throughout this entire process, our employees have kept their eye on the ball and we have had fantastic operating results. I want to thank them and the employees of Time Warner Cable for their tireless efforts.I couldn’t be more proud of this company and I am truly excited for what’s next."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Google, Apple, Amazon spend record amounts on lobbying
Google, Apple and Amazon.com spent record amounts in the first quarter attempting to influence U.S. politicians and policy.Google, which was already the biggest tech lobbyist in Washington, D.C., spent $5.47 million in the first three months of the year, according to a report filed with the Senate Office of Public Records.That made it the fifth biggest federal lobbyist across all industries during the quarter, according to an analysis by Maplight.Google has been steadily increasing the amount it spends to influence the course of policy and law on a range of issues. Since mid-2011, it has spent on average at least a million dollars each month in areas both central to its business, such as online advertising and security, and tangential to it, such as international tax reform and drone technology.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Google, Apple, Amazon spend record amounts on lobbying
Google, Apple and Amazon.com spent record amounts in the first quarter attempting to influence U.S. politicians and policy.Google, which was already the biggest tech lobbyist in Washington, D.C., spent $5.47 million in the first three months of the year, according to a report filed with the Senate Office of Public Records.That made it the fifth biggest federal lobbyist across all industries during the quarter, according to an analysis by Maplight.Google has been steadily increasing the amount it spends to influence the course of policy and law on a range of issues. Since mid-2011, it has spent on average at least a million dollars each month in areas both central to its business, such as online advertising and security, and tangential to it, such as international tax reform and drone technology.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Google’s Project Loon close to launching thosands of balloons
Google says it’s Project Loon is close to being able to produce and launch thousands of balloons to provide Internet access from the sky.Such a number would be required to provide reliable Internet access to users in remote areas that are currently unserved by terrestrial networks, said Mike Cassidy, the Google engineer in charge of the project, in a video posted Friday.The ambitious project has been underway for a couple of years and involves beaming down LTE cellular signals to handsets on the ground from balloons thousands of feet in the air, well above the altitude that passenger jets fly.“At first it would take us 3 or 4 days to tape together a balloon,” Cassidy says in the video. “Today, through our own manufacturing facility, the automated systems can get a balloon produced in just a few hours. We’re getting close to the point where we can roll out thousands of balloons.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Google’s Project Loon close to launching thousands of balloons
Google says its Project Loon is close to being able to produce and launch thousands of balloons to provide Internet access from the sky. Such a number would be required to provide reliable Internet access to users in remote areas that are currently unserved by terrestrial networks, said Mike Cassidy, the Google engineer in charge of the project, in a video posted Friday. The ambitious project has been underway for a couple of years and involves beaming down LTE cellular signals to handsets on the ground from balloons thousands of feet in the air, well above the altitude that passenger jets fly. “At first it would take us 3 or 4 days to tape together a balloon,” Cassidy says in the video. “Today, through our own manufacturing facility, the automated systems can get a balloon produced in just a few hours. We’re getting close to the point where we can roll out thousands of balloons.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Samsung expects big drop in first-quarter profits
Samsung Electronics expects first quarter profits to drop by more than 30 percent, marking the sixth straight quarterly decline at the company, which is struggling to compete with Apple at the top of the smartphone market.Operating profit for the quarter, which included the key year-end sales period, will be around 5.9 trillion won (US$5.4 billion), a drop of just over 30 percent versus the last three months of 2013, while revenue is expected to be 47 trillion won, down 12 percent, the company said in its earnings guidance. It will report its full quarterly results at the end of the month.The profits outlook isn’t as bad as analysts had feared.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Samsung expects big drop in first-quarter profits
Samsung Electronics expects first quarter profits to drop by more than 30 percent, marking the sixth straight quarterly decline at the company, which is struggling to compete with Apple at the top of the smartphone market.Operating profit for the quarter, which included the key year-end sales period, will be around 5.9 trillion won (US$5.4 billion), a drop of just over 30 percent versus the last three months of 2013, while revenue is expected to be 47 trillion won, down 12 percent, the company said in its earnings guidance. It will report its full quarterly results at the end of the month.The profits outlook isn’t as bad as analysts had feared.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Samsung expects big drop in first-quarter profits
Samsung Electronics expects first quarter profits to drop by more than 30 percent, marking the sixth straight quarterly decline at the company, which is struggling to compete with Apple at the top of the smartphone market.Operating profit for the quarter will be around 5.9 trillion won (US$5.4 billion), a drop of just over 30 percent versus the first three months of 2014, while revenue is expected to be 47 trillion won, down 12 percent, the company said in its earnings guidance. It will report its full quarterly results at the end of the month.The profits outlook isn’t as bad as analysts had feared.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Samsung expects big drop in first-quarter profits
Samsung Electronics expects first quarter profits to drop by more than 30 percent, marking the sixth straight quarterly decline at the company, which is struggling to compete with Apple at the top of the smartphone market.Operating profit for the quarter will be around 5.9 trillion won (US$5.4 billion), a drop of just over 30 percent versus the first three months of 2014, while revenue is expected to be 47 trillion won, down 12 percent, the company said in its earnings guidance. It will report its full quarterly results at the end of the month.The profits outlook isn’t as bad as analysts had feared.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Apple Pay rival CurrentC coming in mid-2015
The mobile payments space is about to get more crowded: CurrentC, a platform backed by some of the country’s biggest retailers, will launch in the next few months and give Apple, Google and Samsung added competition.Few details are known about the service, but it is expected to merge payments and loyalty benefits and will give retailers additional insight into the spending habits of customers who are members. Less is known about the benefits it may offer consumers.A small -scale trial began last year and CurrentC is currently being tested in several undisclosed markets around the U.S. However, its use is restricted to employees of member retailers, which include Walmart, 7-Eleven, Dunkin Donuts, Sears, Best Buy, Exxon Mobil and Gap.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Apple Pay rival CurrentC coming in mid-2015
The mobile payments space is about to get more crowded: CurrentC, a platform backed by some of the country’s biggest retailers, will launch in the next few months and give Apple, Google and Samsung added competition.Few details are known about the service, but it is expected to merge payments and loyalty benefits and will give retailers additional insight into the spending habits of customers who are members. Less is known about the benefits it may offer consumers.A small -scale trial began last year and CurrentC is currently being tested in several undisclosed markets around the U.S. However, its use is restricted to employees of member retailers, which include Walmart, 7-Eleven, Dunkin Donuts, Sears, Best Buy, Exxon Mobil and Gap.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Confusion but hope as US faces payment revolution
In just under six months, a behind-the-scenes switch in the payments industry will change the way U.S. consumers shop and could bring wider acceptance for Apple Pay and its competitors.Beginning in October, liability for transactions with fraudulent credit and debit cards will shift from the card companies to retailers, if the retailers haven’t invested in terminals that don’t accept chip-based cards. The chip cards are already being sent from banks to customers, and some stores have them in place, but much is still up in the air.At this week’s Transact 15 expo in San Francisco, a gathering of companies in the electronic payments industry, everyone has questions and there are few answers. Could the shift be delayed, will banks mandate PIN numbers instead of signatures for purchases with the new cards, and will cybercriminals just shift their attention online?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Stanford breakthrough could make better chips cheaper
Researchers at Stanford University have come up with a new way to make chips and solar panels using gallium arsenide, a semiconductor that beats silicon in several important areas but is typically too expensive for widespread use.For several decades, silicon has been the go-to semiconductor for electronics. It’s abundant and cheap, and manufacturing processes are well understood, but it’s not always the best choice.Electrons move faster through gallium arsenide than through silicon, which makes it better suited for chips handling data at very high speeds or high-frequency radio signals. Solar panels based on gallium arsenide are more efficient than silicon panels at converting light to electricity.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Android’s smart lock now detects when you carry your phone
Google is adding a feature to Android’s smart lock that could significantly cut down on the number of times users need to enter a passcode to unlock their phones while they are out and about.On-body detection uses the accelerometer in the phone to detect when it’s being held or carried by a person. If enabled, the feature requires a passcode the first time the phone is accessed but then keeps the device unlocked until it is placed down.That means, for example, that someone walking down the street won’t have to unlock their phone every time they take it out of their pocket.The feature doesn’t appear to have been announced by Google, but it began appearing in some phones on Friday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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T-Mobile CEO ‘fairly confident’ net neutrality won’t kill Music Freedom
T-Mobile’s CEO says he’s confident that upcoming net neutrality rules won’t mean an end to the carrier’s “Music Freedom” promotion that allows unrestricted music streaming from certain sites.The rules, which were recently approved by the Federal Communications Commission but are not yet law, prohibit Internet providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web traffic and from offering paid traffic prioritization services. They’ve been opposed by Republican lawmakers and major telecommunications companies.John Legere said he’s still combing through the 400-page regulation, which the FCC passed after an unprecedented 4 million [m] public comments, but he doesn’t believe the service will be affected.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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T-Mobile CEO ‘fairly confident’ net neutrality won’t kill Music Freedom
T-Mobile’s CEO says he’s confident that upcoming net neutrality rules won’t mean an end to the carrier’s “Music Freedom” promotion that allows unrestricted music streaming from certain sites. The rules, which were recently approved by the Federal Communications Commission but are not yet law, prohibit Internet providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web traffic and from offering paid traffic prioritization services. They’ve been opposed by Republican lawmakers and major telecommunications companies. John Legere said he’s still combing through the 400-page regulation, which the FCC passed after an unprecedented 4 million [m] public comments, but he doesn’t believe the service will be affected.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Nvidia unveils $10,000 autonomous driving computer
As thousands of dashcam videos on YouTube vividly demonstrate, drivers see the craziest things. Be it an angry bear, a low-flying aircraft or even a guy riding a shopping cart on the freeway, the videos make for entertaining viewing but also illustrate a problem facing developers of self-driving cars: how can you program a computer to make sense of all this?On Tuesday, chip maker Nvidia introduced a $10,000 computer that it says will allow cars to learn the right and wrong reactions to different situations, essentially figuring out what to do from experience rather than a rigid set of pre-defined situations.“Driving is not about detecting, driving is a learned behavior,” said Jen Hsun Huang, CEO of Nvidia, during a presentation at the company’s GTC 2015 conference in San Jose.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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State Dept. expects email back online later Monday
The U.S. Department of State expects its main unclassified email system to be back in operation later Monday after security upgrades, but wider Internet access could take longer to get back online.The department, which says it fights off “thousands” of hacking attacks each day, took its system offline over the weekend “to ensure the integrity” of the network.“It was about further enhancing our security capabilities,” State Dept. spokeswoman Jen Psaki said at a regular briefing on Monday.She said it would take some time for the entire Internet system to be back online at the government department, but email would be the first step and is expected to return on Monday night.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Facebook acquires The Find e-commerce search engine
Facebook has acquired The Find, a nine-year-old company with a search engine that indexes products across thousands of e-commerce sites.The deal, the value of which was not disclosed, was announced in a post on The Find’s website.“Key members of our team are joining the company and will be working hard to integrate our technology to make the ads you see on Facebook every day better and more relevant to you,” the company said.That probably means the ads Facebook users see will be more relevant to products they’ve been browsing and buying online, perhaps highlighting local retailers. One of The Find’s features is that it attempts to mix online and local stores and says its results are based on “your social profile.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here