Wednesday, February 03, 2016

Amit Singhal, an Influential Engineer at Google, Will Retire - The New York Times

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... and Apple is the most-valuable company again "Alphabet, the parent of Google, is losing one of its most influential engineers, but...

Microsoft acquires SwiftKey in support of re-inventing productivity ambition - The Official Microsoft Blog

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Hey Cortana, why did Microsoft just pay ~$250M for a better keyboard app? "I’m pleased to announce that Microsoft has entered into a ...

Smartwatches will definitely overtake fitness bands, report says - The Washington Post

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Not only a matter of time "A new report from Gartner predicts that the wearables market will grow 18.4 percent in 2016, with sales o...

Amazon Plans to Open as Many as 400 Bookstores, Mall CEO Says - Bloomberg Business

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Perhaps coming soon to a mall near you; later in the article: "'This is a consumer electronics store housed in bookstore clothing,...

Zuckerberg Tops Bezos as World's Fourth Richest - Bloomberg Business

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Another snapshot of the tech titan times "An 18 percent decline this year for Amazon has cut $10.6 billion from Bezos’s fortune, lea...

Marissa Mayer Sets Yahoo on Streamlined Course - The New York Times

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tl;dr: for sale; also see  Mayer Defends Her Turnaround, Even as Board Puts Company on Block (Re/code) "Whether it is sold or survi...
Tuesday, February 02, 2016

Alphabet’s Price Target Raised by More Than Two Dozen Analysts - Digits - WSJ

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Perhaps a king-for-a-day experience for GOOG; according to Google Finance, Google ended the day up ~1.7%; Google Finance shows mkt caps $519...

Gmail now has more than 1 billion active users | VentureBeat | Apps | by Jordan Novet

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In other >= 1B active users news, apparently email is not dead yet... "Gmail, Google’s email service, now has more than 1 billion...

Apple iPad Pro Wins The Microsoft Surface Battle, But Will Lose The PC War - Forbes

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~2M to ~1.6M units; also keep in mind the iPad Pro was released mid-quarter (11/11/2015); also see  IDC: Tablet shipments decline 10.1% in ...

Google's Most Expensive Moonshot? Laying Internet Cables - Bloomberg Business

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Digging into "other bets" "Those hoping to see Alphabets’s fantastical businesses stacked up against one another were disapp...

Alphabet, not Apple, is now the most valuable company in the world - The Washington Post

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Another stock snapshot of the tech titans "The most valuable companies in America are now squarely in the tech sector. Google and Appl...

WhatsApp Joins the Billion Users Club - Digits - WSJ

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For more on possible business models, see  WhatsApp Ditches $1 Annual Fee, Tests Business Accounts But No Ads, Says CEO (TechCrunch) ...
Monday, February 01, 2016

Alphabet, the Google Holding Company, Reports Strong Growth - The New York Times

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A is for alpha "The early results look good. The company reported that, excluding currency fluctuations, revenue increased 24 percen...

Marissa Mayer to Make Case That Yahoo Can Be Turned Around - Bloomberg Business

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Yahoo's latest turnaround plan to be announced on Groundhog Day "Marissa Mayer is gearing up for yet another turnaround plan for Y...

Google Is Hearing Facebook’s Footsteps - WSJ

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A big day ahead for Alphabet, which announces fourth-quarter earnings this afternoon "In the continuing battle for world domination, a...

New Technologies Give Government Ample Means to Track Suspects, Study Finds - The New York Times

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Check Don’t Panic: Making Progress on the ‘Going Dark’ Debate (pdf) for the full report; tangentially, see  NSA Hacker Chief Explains How ...

Microsoft Plumbs Ocean’s Depths to Test Underwater Data Center - The New York Times

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Sunk cost "Such a radical idea could run into stumbling blocks, including environmental concerns and unforeseen technical issues. But ...

iPhone, therefore I am | The Economist

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Final paragraph from an Apple reality check "As an investment, Apple is surprisingly inexpensive. Its shares trade at about 10.4 times...
Friday, January 29, 2016

The End of Twitter - The New Yorker

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From a stark Twitter reality check; also see  Mossberg: Twitter has become secret-handshake software (The Verge) "Ultimately, Twitter...

Microsoft Tops Estimates Amid Nadella's Cloud Transformation - Bloomberg Business

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Later in the article: "Excluding the impact of foreign-currency exchange rates, revenue from Azure in the second quarter rose 140 perc...