NOwnership, No Problem: Why Millennials Value Experiences Over Owning Things

I was in Los Angeles this weekend for my birthday. Chatting over sushi with my father-in-law, he mentioned he was listening to Rush Limbaugh on the radio. Limbaugh was talking about how millennials value experience over ownership of goods. I thought it was compelling to hear that these new realities had spread so far and wide they made it to AM radio. There are many ways this new reality has played out in modern life. The sharing economy is booming. People are renting or borrowing products. They are hiring their neighbors to drive them to work, paint their house or rearrange their closet.

This Is How Scientists Do A Summer Street Fair

It's not your typical muggy Sunday street fair. Astronauts share their tips for going to the bathroom in space, kids play with computer microscopes and food trucks compete for road space with robots.

How Do You Want Your Customers To Feel?

I have been conducting some research lately by interviewing a group of 25 CEOs. One of the questions I asked them is, how do they want their customers and clients to feel about their company? They thought the question strange at first, so I gave them a comprehensive list of emotional responses to choose from.

As Enterprise Cloud Computing Adoption Matures, Investments In Application Development Increase

Application development (34%), managed services (27%), ERP implementations (22%) and cloud (20%) are the highest spending priorities for enterprises in 2015 according to the latest Cowen & Company IT spending survey.

Apple Further Legitimizes Augmented Reality Tech With Acquistion Of Metaio

Once thought of as gimmicky or primarily for gaming applications, Augmented Reality (AR) technology has the ability to quite literally reshape the landscape in many markets, with new capabilities from simple telepresence to industrial and architectural design, to navigation and tracking. Google has been heavily behind the technology for a while now, with Google Glass and their Project Tango tablet, and Facebook/Oculus recently moved in on AR firm Surreal Vision. Now it appears Apple is apparently turning its gun sights on the market space as well.

Researchers Create Semiconductor Chip From Wood

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) in collaboration with researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have created a semiconductor chip made almost entirely of wood. This paves the way for the development of a completely biodegradable chip in the future. The researchers wanted to focus on alleviating the environmental burden of electronic devices. Makes sense since Globally in 2012, consumers threw away 48.9 million tons of electrical and electronic goods and that's expected to rise by a third by 2017. The top four countries disposing the most electrical waste are China, United States, United Kingdom and Qatar. The new semiconductor chip is wood-substrate with the silicon substrate parts replaced with an environmentally friendly cellulose nanofibril (CNF), a flexible, biodegradable material made from wood. Because CNF is a bio-based material, it makes the chip more sustainable, bio-compatible and biodegradable. Currently most other polymers are petroleum-based polymers. According to the researchers the new CNF material is important for microwave chips used in mobile phones. The researchers focused their work on resolving two barriers to using wood-based materials in electronics: surface roughness and thermal expansion.

'Earth Defense Forces 2 Portable V2' To Get Western Release

Late last year we saw the Japanese of Earth Defense Forces 2 Portable V2 on the Vita. This was a port of the PSP game that had originally appeared on the PS2. It was also really good. Well, it seems that Xseed Games are planning on bringing the game to the West this Fall.

The .Sucks Domain Name Launch Delayed While Lawyers Scramble

Every business these days needs to have a solid domain name, and the scramble for a unique .com domains has long been a problem for companies looking for their home online. But there are new problems coming for companies as a result of the new generic Top Level Domains (gTLD) like .sucks.

VPN Company Hola Is Reselling Its Users' Home Broadband Bandwidth To Businesses

There's no such thing as a free lunch, as the saying goes, and that's something that people using the Hola free VPN are now learning. The service, it has emerged, has been selling domestic users bandwidth to business users through its Luminati service.

Is Instacart On Track?

Instacart's expansion of their executive team was reported in TechCrunch yesterday with the addition of Nikhil Shanbhag as general counsel and Andrea Saul as vice president of communications. Both new hires have impressive credentials including policy experience as Washington insiders, but not in grocery or consumer packaged goods.

Snapchat Raises $537.6 Million In New Funding As App Makes Media Push

Snapchat raised $537.6 million in new venture capital funding, the company disclosed Friday in a regulatory filing. The ephemeral messaging service could raise as much as $650 million.

A New Method For Flushing Out Fake Fossil Finds

A new method that involves using lasers to zap dinosaur fossils is uncovering both fake fossils and hidden surprises on already-described specimens

Xbox One Likely Getting A New Controller Next Month

The Xbox One controller looks to be getting a redesign, if a very slight one. An image on the official Xbox Support page (since amended) showed a picture of the Xbox One controller with a 3.5 mm headphone jack on the bottom, saying that it would have a 3.5 mm headphone jack in the base. The Xbox One currently only has a proprietary headphone jack, which can be a bit frustrating if you've got already got a headset with 3.5 mm jack. It's a frequently requested improvement, so glad to see Microsoft is moving on it. The rest of the controller design appears to be totally intact.

Google, In Search Of More Android Developers, Creates Online 'Nanodegree' With Udacity

Google has a problem, and it's turning to Sebastian Thrun for an answer.

Six Tactics to Maximize the Purchasing Function, Tactic 3

Barry Olson

This article is the third in a series of six tactics in which the electrical contractor can maximize purchasing power and profitability though procurement. Click here for part 2.

Can You Trick A Mother Robin Bird With 3D Printed Bird Eggs?

The American Robin might become a paranoid bird, given the number of creatures trying to fool it. Scientists have known for quite some time that a parasite-type bird exists: the brown-headed cowbird. Rather than build its own nest, this stocky blackbird with a brown head, lays its eggs in other bird nests hoping the tricked bird will raise the abandoned chicks-to-be. According to a new scientific study, 3D printing eggs may help scientists learn how different birds respond to this activity.

Senate to return early to debate Patriot Act phone dragnet

The U.S. Senate will return early from a week-long recess in a last-ditch effort to extend provisions of the Patriot Act that the National Security Agency have used to collect millions of domestic telephone records over the past nine years.

The Senate is scheduled to resume debating whether to extend or amend Section 215 of the Patriot at 4 p.m. ET Sunday, hours before that part of the counterterrorism law is due to expire. The Senate was previously scheduled to return from an extended Memorial Day break on Monday, but Section 215 of the Patriot Act expires at 12:01 a.m. that day.

It’s unclear what direction the Senate debate will take. As of Wednesday morning, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hadn’t announced what votes will be taken Sunday evening.

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Chevrolet Equips 14 Car Models With Apple And Google Operating Systems

Google and Apple have shown a keen interest in the car industry. They both have announced operating systems tailored specifically for the car with Apple's CarPlay and Android Auto, but like in anything in the auto industry, it takes a while for anything to happen.

Securing Smart Cities

When you think about it, a smart city is like a giant graduate thesis for the Internet of Things (IoT). Having grasped the individual technologies, these must be combined on a grand scale. There are millions of sensors, mesh networks, big data infrastructure, and a variety of standards involved. There are also hundreds of individual IoT vendors and IT organizations working together at the cost of billions of dollars, orchestrating everything to make sure it all works smoothly because, if one piece should fail, it could cause a massive ripple effect with potentially catastrophic results.

Big Firms Increasingly Resort To 'Corporate Cocaine'

Excessive share buybacks lead to secular economic stagnation

What Do Investors Need To Know About E-Commerce In Mexico?

Mexico’s e-commerce market is quickly becoming one of the most dynamic growth sectors in the country’s economy. Companies such as Amazon, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Palacio de Hierro are all investing in e-commerce in Mexico. I checked in with David Bernardo, the founding partner of LITS ebusiness, a leading e-commerce consulting firm that is based in Mexico City. Bernardo is widely considered to be one of the leading experts in the emerging field of e-commerce in Mexico and has also launched the ebusiness academy, a school focused on e-commerce education. Here are his responses to my questions.

Let Data Put You Out Of Business

Modern marketing isn’t just about crunching numbers to target audiences better. It’s critical to find the right balance between data analysis and gut instinct, between technology and creativity.

How An iPhone 5c Saved A Man's Life

When Apple launched the iPhone 5c in September 2013, it looked a bit different from other iPhones because it was available in five colors and it was built with a hard-coated polycarbonate body instead of an aluminum enclosure. The iPhone 5c was heavily criticized because it was not priced as low as analysts were predicting and because it appeared to look “cheap.” The notion about the iPhone 5c being made with cheap components may change because the device helped save someone’s life. Last year, a British man named Daniel Kennedy was shot by a sawn-off shotgun and he survived because an iPhone 5c was in his pocket — which ended up taking the “brunt of the blast.” On October 15, 2014, a group of teenagers gathered around the St. Michael’s View apartment complex in Widnes, England, which is a block of flats where Kennedy lives. The teenagers were known for intimidating some of the residents and even turned off the water supply to the flats. After returning from home and walking his dog, Kennedy noticed that his water was turned off. Fed up with the intimidation, Kennedy decided to confront the teenagers. Shortly after a scuffle took place, Kennedy started to chase 19-year-old Ryan Duggan down a footpath. After being chased around the apartment building, Duggan turned around and shot Kennedy with a shotgun. Kennedy fell to the floor, but he managed to get up and alert the authorities. Police retrieved the firearm under a bush, which was wrapped in clingfilm and the spent cartridge inside. Detective Inspector Gary McIntyre said that if his iPhone 5c (pictured below) was not in Kennedy's pocket, “he would have undoubtedly have died.” The victim is still being treated for his injuries, says the Cheshire Police report.

"Our Kids Will Not Believe Humans Ever Drove Cars" - The Real Question About Driverless Autos

Do you remember a time before the internet, and a time before television? Now answer the same question for your parents. And do it again for your children.

10 Best Gadgets For Summer Travel

The summer travel season begins this week. Here are a bunch of awesome gadgets to make travel better, easier, more fun, and more.

This Cloud Thing Is Real--EMC Drops $1.2B For Virtustream

EMC is a funny sort of an organization, often held up as one of the legacy companies that isn't able to respond to the move to the cloud. The truth of the matter is that they have some pretty interesting things going on. EMC is, of course, the company that co-founded Pivotal. Pivotal is a fascinating company that delivers a bunch of big data and platform tools suited to the modern requirements of enterprises.

Why Zenefits Is Worth $4.5B And Possibly Much, Much More

Is Zenefits really worth $4.5B? This question was originally answered on Quora by Paul Bohm.

Samsung Announces Galaxy S6 Edge Iron Man Limited Edition

About a week ago, I wrote an article about how Samsung teased a limited Iron Man edition of the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge through Twitter. Now Samsung has officially announced the Galaxy S6 edge Iron Man Limited Edition as part of a collaboration with the action-packed Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron film. The metal of the Galaxy S6 edge sports a red color on the front and back with a gold trim around the sides -- which are Iron Man's signature colors. The Galaxy S6 edge Iron Man Limited Edition also has 64GB storage, a matching wireless charger and a clear cover. The back of the Galaxy S6 edge Iron Man Limited Edition has Iron Man's face etched in the center (just like the box it was packaged in). The Galaxy S6 edge Iron Man Limited Edition also has a custom Avengers theme preinstalled. And the wireless charger in the Galaxy S6 edge Iron Man Limited Edition was designed to look like the Arc Reactor.

Scaling Customer Experience In The Sharing Economy

I take UberX to the train station for work. I bought my wedding veil off of Etsy. I hired a TaskRabbit to paint our walls. I’ve stayed in AirBNBs in Prague. I get my groceries delivered by Instacart. I’ve had our laundry done by Washio.

8 Cloud Computing Books Worth Reading On Cloudy Summer Days

With the summer season rapidly descending upon those in the northern hemisphere, it's time to kick it down a notch and engage in some less stressful pursuits than running a business -- namely, reading up on cloud computing. Let's face it, there will be cloudy days through the summer, so why not get into a cloud frame of mind?

LG Watch Urbane Review: Wonderful Hardware But Android Wear Is Still Frustrating

The LG Watch Urbane is the cream of the Android Wear crop, but its biggest problem is Google's Android Wear

Move Over Paleontology Barbie, There Is A New Fossil Hunter In Town

Fossil Hunter Lottie, a new release by the company Arklu, has already become a huge hit for budding young paleontologists. Released for sale last week on Mary Anning's birthday, Lottie is already sold out on all online retailers, illustrating there is a strong desire from consumers for positive female role model toys beyond typical princesses and Barbies.

Saturn's Spectacular Sights Stun Skywatchers, On Earth, In Orbit And At Saturn Itself

Once per orbit, as the Earth completes its annual revolution around the Sun, it also passes and laps the outer worlds, who move so slowly they take decades -- or, in the case of Neptune and Pluto, centuries -- to complete even one orbit around our central star. It's for this very reason that Saturn, the farthest naked eye planet and slowest moving world relative to the backdrop of stars, has been known since antiquity as the "old man of the skies."

Game of Thrones' Biggest Problem Isn't The Boltons, It's Dorne

Last week, I opted to skip the debate that ensued after a particularly controversial sequence (spoilers) in which Ramsay Bolton not only rapes his new bride Sansa Stark on their wedding night, but makes Theon Greyjoy watch as he does so. The act set off an explosive chain reaction among fans, some of whom defended the show’s right to do whatever it wants, and cited a long history of similarly despicable acts in both the HBO series and books to show how it wasn’t outside of the norm. On the other side, many longtime fans announced that because the show has such a long history of similarly despicable acts, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and they’re leaving for good.

Coffee May Perk Up More Than Men's Brains: It May Ward Off Erectile Dysfunction

A new study links 2-3 cups of coffee per day to reduced odds of having erectile dysfunction.

'Viagra 007' Dietary Supplement For Erectile Dysfunction Contains The Active Drug In Viagra

Advertising a supplement as a safe alternative to a prescription drug and then putting that very same drug in the supplement is the peak of irresponsibility.

'Viagra 077' Dietary Supplement Contains The Active Drug In Viagra

Advertising a supplement as a safe alternative to a prescription drug and then putting that very same drug in the supplement is the peak of irresponsibility.

Fly Over Tesla's Gigafactory In This Cool Video

It's safe to say the Tesla Motors gigafactory is the most-watched manufacturing project in the United States, if not the world.

Is Holacracy Succeeding At Zappos?

Despite worrying signs, the evidence is unclear

More Thoughts on How to Write a Constitutional Revenge Porn Law

At a recent congressional briefing spearheaded by Congresswoman Katharine Clark and domestic violence advocacy groups, Michelle Garcia (director of the Stalking Resource Center), game developer Zoe Quinn, John Wilkinson of AEquitas, and I talked about the prevalence of online threats, the harms victims experience, law enforcement's difficulties enforcing existing threats laws, the First Amendment issues, and legislative next steps. Although the briefing focused on online threats involved in cyber harassment and stalking, the audience wanted to know if we should pass a federal law banning unauthorized publication of nude images and if we could do so consistent with the First Amendment. The briefing left us limited time to talk about such legislative efforts and the various critiques of proposed statutes. I've written about this issue quite a bit--in my book Hate Crimes in Cyberspace, articles, and op eds. But now that we are thinking about federal criminal legislation, it might be time to return to the issue with important critiques in mind.

PSB M4U 4 Preview: New $300 In-Ear Headphones With A Cool and Different Design

PSB, known for their excellent speakers and headphones, has launched the M4U 4, their first in-ear headphones. Featuring an interesting hybrid design, they look to be very interesting.

T-Mobile To Drop Price Of 64GB Samsung Galaxy S6 / S6 Edge Over Memorial Day Weekend

T-Mobile and MetroPCS are offering deals for its new and existing customers on Samsung’s newest flagship smartphones over Memorial Day weekend between May 23rd and May 25th. Through T-Mobile, the 64GB Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge will cost the same as the 32GB versions.

Five Top VCs Predict The Future

Robocars, the hyperloop and universal broadband are nearly here -- or so some top venture capitalists think.

Leaked Adult Friend Finder user database still online

Adult Friend Finder, one of the largest online dating sites, may have been breached more than two months ago, and the sensitive files—include names, ages, email addresses, zip codes and more—are apparently still online.

British broadcaster Channel 4 reported Thursday that the website had been breached, although information regarding the breach had been trickling out in a low-key way for some time.

FriendFinder Networks, a California-based company that owns Adult Friend Finder and other dating websites, said in an advisory that it has contacted law enforcement and is investigating.

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US Senate leader to push for vote to renew NSA phone dragnet

The U.S. Senate on Thursday failed to move forward on efforts to extend the section of the Patriot Act that the National Security Agency has used to collect millions of domestic telephone records.

Congress is facing an effective deadline of this weekend to extend the phone records collection section of the antiterrorism law, with Section 215 of the Patriot Act expiring June 1 and lawmakers scheduled to take a weeklong break after finishing business this week.

On Thursday, Senators were wrestling with three alternatives: allow the Patriot Act’s records collection program to expire, extend the program with no new limits, or pass a House of Representatives bill that aims to end bulk records collection but allows the NSA to search phone and business records in a more targeted manner.

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Alibaba-Backed China E-Commerce Niche Player Seeks A Lift Post Its NY IPO

Alibaba-invested Chinese e-commerce niche player Baozun raises $110 million in NY IPO and seeks to cement its lead in helping multinational companies to market and manage their brands online in China's high-growth online sector.

NSA planned to hijack Google Play Store, Samsung app store to deliver malware

App stores from Google and Samsung reportedly became targets for government hijacking a few years ago, as the National Security Agency and its allies ramped up their data collection efforts.

As reported by CBC News and The Intercept, the plan involved hijacking the connections between smartphones and their app marketplace servers, and then planting malicious software on targeted devices. The NSA and friendly spying agencies could then secretly collect data, and possibly even send “selective misinformation to the targets” for propaganda or confusion purposes.

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Why 'The Witcher 3' Is So Much Better Than 'The Witcher 2' (So Far)

Here at Forbes, we sometimes have different opinions. While we all seem to like CD Projekt Red's The Witcher 3, Erik Kain says that he still likes The Witcher 2 more, at least in these early moments of the story. I don't! It's always interesting to see where different reviewers converge, and where they differ. The Witcher 3 has, so far, been that breath of open-world fresh air I've been waiting for for a long time, but the Witcher 2 never really did that for me.

Ancient Marine Parasites Make Their 21st Century Debut

It may be pleasing to find out pentastomid parasites—or “tongue worms” as they are colloquially known—do not attach to the vertebrate tongue, they merely just look like one. A newly described 425 million year old tongue worm makes its debut this week in an article in Current Biology by David Siveter, Derek Briggs, Derek Siveter, and Mark Sutton. This remarkable discovery is shedding light on the evolution and behavior of this enigmatic group of parasites. In fact, this rare occasion of fossilization should be celebrated because parasites like tongue worms are soft-bodied and are not frequently preserved in the rock record.

Six Ways To Get The Most Out Of Your Industry 4.0 Data

The fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0 for short is changing the way the industrial sector looks at data and analytics. Many industrial businesses feel overwhelmed by this data, a recent survey reveals, with many finding that “they cannot use them in an integrated manner or access them at company level”. Industry 4.0 relies on data as its beating heart – in fact, 90% of those surveyed were “convinced that the ability to efficiently analyse and effectively use large data volumes will be of vital importance for the future success of their business model.”

Bandits, Mafia, Cartel. Forex Traders' Outrageous Online Chat

Oh dear. Not only did big bank traders fix the foreign exchange market, but they did so online, with some pride.

'The Witcher 3' From CD Projekt RED

The Pixel Generation:Those Who Learned Through Games

There exists a generation of people that have yet to receive a defining name. A generation that exists in a unique time period. The other generations are easy to define. The Lost Generation fought in the trenches during WWI. The Greatest Generation/ the GI Generation fought WWII. The Silent Generation or the Lucky Few were born between wars, and fought in Korea and a few in Vietnam. The Baby Boomers, those born from when the soldiers returned from WWII (including all those born up until the late 1950s). Generation X, all those born from the 1960s to the late 1970s. The Millennials, born between the late 1990s and the early 2000s, named for the transition to a new millennium. Did you notice a gap? Right between Gen X and the Millennials. Those on either end of the spectrum in this group often get lumped into the proceeding or following generation, but that's not really fair. Because its not true. I'm a member of this misfit band of people, and it bothers me that we don't have a name. But we do. It's just that no one's ever really said it.

Why EAT Threw Out That Infuriating Excel Spreadsheet

Spreadsheets are much loved but won't always do the job.

Virtual Reality: The Next Big Advertising Medium Is Here

Advertisers are already starting to create commercial messages to reach people while they're immersed in their Oculus Rift and other virtual reality headsets.

Senators stall vote to extend NSA phone records dragnet

Four U.S. senators ground the chamber’s business to a halt Wednesday in an effort to prevent lawmakers from voting on a bill to extend portions of the Patriot Act used to collect telephone and business records from the country’s residents.

Time is running out for the Senate to extend the telephone records collection section of the Patriot Act before it expires at the end of the month. In an effort to block a vote, Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, took control of the Senate floor in a filibuster mid-Wednesday, with Senators Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, and Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat, joining him later in the day.

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StartupDelta: Holland's Alternative to Silicon Valley

If you're looking to launch a startup tech company, the Netherlands would like a word with you.

Amid Merger Rumors, Salesforce Clocks Another Strong Quarter Ahead Of Estimates

Another quarterly earnings, another checkmark in the books for Marc Benioff and Salesforce.com. The company beat Wall Street's already bullish consensus across the board on Wednesday in its Q1 fiscal 2016 results, while declining to comment on rumors that Salesforce has received interest from a potential acquirer.

Is 'House of Wolves' Destiny's 'Diablo 3' Moment?

Yesterday, Destiny’s second DLC launched, The House of Wolves, but it wouldn't be surprising if you assumed an entirely new game was debuting, judging by the hype beforehand and the reaction from fans after.

Instagram's Free Collage App Layout Is Now Available For Android

A couple months ago, Facebook’s photo social network Instagram released a popular collage app called Layout for iOS. Now Layout is available for Android. The Layout app lets you create a collage of your photos and it can be shared on social networks like Facebook or Instagram. The photo collage also saves to your Android device so that you can message it to your friends and family. The Layout Android app lets you select photos from your camera roll and it has a built-in Photo Booth feature. Photo Booth is a feature that uses your front-facing camera to take 4 selfie photos immediately within seconds. The collage is created after the 4 photos are taken. The Layout app lets you remix up to 9 of your photos at a time to create personalized layouts. You can use the "Faces" tab to quickly find photos with people in them. You can also easily see the last 30 photos you have taken in the "Recents" tab. To make layouts stand out even more, you can pair it with Instagram’s photo filters and tools. Best of all, there is no sign-up required to create photo collages. “Layout's smooth, intuitive process gives you complete creative control. Tap to mirror, flip or replace images, hold and drag to swap them, pinch to zoom in or out, or pull the handles to resize. You're the editor, so get creative, tell a story, show off an outfit or just splice, dice and change the look of your regular photos to convey a mood or theme,” wrote Instagram in the description of the Layout app. Instagram also launched a new feature for its main Android app. The feature is called Structure, which lets users bring out details and textures. This feature will be available in the Instagram app for iOS soon. Layout is not the only separate app that Instagram created. Instagram launched an app for iOS called Hyperlapse in August 2014. The Hyperlapse app lets users easily create time-lapse videos. Hyperlapse is not available for Android yet. You can download Layout for Android for free on the Google Play Store. However, Layout is compatible with devices that are powered by Android 4.1 and above.

Google's Big Android Wear Update Lands With Whole Host Of New Features

Google isn’t just going to sit back and let Apple take all the glory when it comes to smartwatches. The search giant has just begun rolling out the first major update for its Android Wear platform, adding a plethora of new features to the smartwatch mix.

Apple, Google urge Obama to reject encryption back doors

Apple and Google are appealing to U.S. President Barack Obama to reject proposals to allow encryption “back doors” in mobile devices.

A letter signed by Apple and Google to be sent Tuesday is aimed at protecting privacy and limiting law enforcement access to encrypted data, according to a report in The Washington Post.

“Strong encryption is the cornerstone of the modern information economy’s security,” the paper quotes the letter as saying.

Over 140 technology companies, technologists and civil society groups also signed it, calling on the president to not “in any way subvert, undermine, weaken or make vulnerable” security software.

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The Cloud Is Ready To Handle The Big Data Crush, With Some Exceptions

Is cloud making a difference in Big Data efforts? Can it deliver the agility and scalability required to handle petabytes and exabytes' worth of data coming out of enterprises and the Internet of Things?

Cisco, EMC, Once Allies Now Frenemies, Have Similar Strategy To Maintain Dominance

Commodification promised to kill old tech stalwarts like Cisco, EMC and Oracle as standardized, mass produced hardware paired with open source software undermined their high-margin businesses. However the road to irrelevance was detoured by an instinctive response: adapt or die. Each company's resulting metamorphosis from peddling boxes to building full stack IT systems has been both predictable and impressive. Predictable in that the old tech response to ankle biting commodity products follows the classic Clayton Christensen disruptive technology playbook: move up the performance and feature axis. But today's old tech response deviates from the economic model by introducing a third axis: services. Cisco and EMC realize that they can't win the price/performance game. Instead, each has concluded that businesses, even tech savvy firms, don't obsess over about speeds and feeds, but business outcomes and competitive advantage. Old tech vendors can't win a price war, but they can win a results war.

'Destiny' Completely Changes When You Join A Clan

For the past week or so, I've made my way back into Destiny. Partially, it's because I was waiting for The Witcher 3, and the soothing rhythm of a pseudo-MMO seemed like just the perfect thing to pass the time. But more than that, it had been a long time since I touched the game, and I wanted to see if House of Wolves would be able to bring me back when it arrived. The Destiny I remembered was a flawed beast indeed: these were the days of the loot cave, when a purple engram was as likely to give you blue pants as it was an aneurysm. So I wanted to see what had changed, and, initially, it didn't seem like quite enough had. The expansion meant that a huge amount of content was gated off to my underleveled character -- he had never quite bridged the no man's land between 20-26 -- and the path forward was murky as always.

FTC recommends conditions for sale of RadioShack customer data

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has weighed in on the contentious issue of the proposed sale of consumer data by bankrupt retailer RadioShack, recommending that a model be adopted based on a settlement the agency reached with a failed online toy retailer.

The state of Texas, which is leading action by several U.S. states, has opposed the sale of personally identifiable information by RadioShack, citing the online and in-store privacy policies of the bankrupt consumer electronics retailer.

Apple and some wireless carriers have opposed the sale of some of the customer data, which it said was collected from their respective customers and was governed by their privacy policies.

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Inside The Store Of The Future

Samsung Teases An Iron Man Edition Of The Galaxy S6 Edge

Samsung recently published a tweet revealing that an Iron Man edition of the Galaxy S6 Edge will be “coming soon.” The tweet — which has since been deleted — contains a photo that appears to be the box of the Iron Man edition of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge handset. The Iron Man edition of the Galaxy S6 Edge is the result of a partnership between Samsung and Marvel. In the photo that Samsung tweeted of a red and gold box containing the Iron Man edition of the Galaxy S6 Edge, there is a logo for the film Avengers: Age of Ultron and the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge etched in the bottom corners. And there is a large Iron Man face emblazoned in the center. This is not the first time that Samsung partnered with Marvel. Samsung gave away four limited edition Avengers cases for the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and there is a Battle For The Avengers Tower experience available for the Gear VR headset. Samsung is also offering an Avengers: Age Of Ultron theme for the Galaxy S6, including a set of wallpapers, lock screens and icons. It is unknown whether there will be additional editions of other Avengers characters for the Galaxy S6 line, but that would likely be determined based on how well the Iron Man edition does. The Iron Man edition of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge probably has the same hardware specifications as the original Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. This means it would have a 5.1-inch Quad HD display (577 pip), Exynos 7420 processor, 16-megapixel rear camera, 5-megapixel front-facing camera, 3GB RAM and 32/64/128GB storage options along with the signature Galaxy S6 Edge dual edge display. The price of the Iron Man edition is not yet known, but I will update this article once we have more information about it. Here is the photo that Samsung tweeted of the Iron Man edition box of the Galaxy S6 Edge:

The Serious Ground Rules of Playing With Your Brand

John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld discuss three "rules of play" for advertisers who want to play with their brands.

CSC Sues Eric Pulier--Alleges Fraud As A Valuation-Increasing Strategy

Things are heating up in the case of cloud vendor ServiceMesh and its CEO Eric Pulier. Readers will recall that CSC acquired the company in October 2013 for the sum of $260 million. At the time eyebrows were raised about the purchase price but, at least in part, the price was determined by the apparent success of a large ServiceMesh contract with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA).

4 Things You Should Know About Platforms

Power no longer resides at the top of the heap, but at the center of the network; that is in platforms.

Invisible Shield Glass: A Glass iPhone 6 Screen Protector

GM's Volt In Trouble? Here We Go Again

I was surprised to learn this week that my Chevy Volt is destined for oblivion. Damn. I wish my local Chevy dealer had told me first.

Why DeNA Need Nintendo And What It Means For The Future Of Gaming

In a recent financial report, DeNA reported yet another drop in their annual operating profits. While many see Nintendo falling behind with their lack of mobile solutions, it is clear DeNA need some help as well.

Consoles Aren't Going Anywhere But Big Budget Games Are Dying

With hundreds of millions of console gamers across the globe, the console approach still has a valid market. Yet with news that Alien: Isolation’s 2.11 million sales were deemed “weak” by their publisher, it’s clear that the era of big budget games has had its day.

School Of Tech: Building A $400 Mini-ITX Gaming PC Is Fine, But What Can I Build With $800?

This week we're exploring the component recipe for a Intel/Nvidia-driven small form factor gaming PC that packs some serious 1440p chops.

Uber Vs. Taxis: One City's Incredibly Simple Solution To The Turf War

"We believe Long Beach is the first city to modernize regulations to allow taxis to compete more effectively in the sharing economy," says the city's mayor.

The 25 Largest Companies In The World 2015

New App To Attract Gen Z To Banking

Infosys aims a youth banking app at banks that want to aim at Gen Z and have the solution up and running quickly.

DNA Via Cosmic Barbecue?

News of recent lab experiments --- demonstrating how chemical “cosmic barbecues” around nearby dying carbon-rich stars might have created life’s prebiotic building blocks --- glossed over one key point. That is, would enough of such material have survived the journey from interstellar space through Earth’s atmosphere to a violent impact on the surface of our young planet?

Penn State College Of Engineering Network Disabled Following Two "Incredibly Serious" Cyber Attacks

In response to two "incredibly serious" cyber attacks against its network, Penn State announced Friday that it has taken its College of Engineering network offline. At least one of the attacks originated in China, according to Mandiant's investigation.

First Warm-Blooded Fish Is A Deep Water Athlete

There's now at least one fish that joins the ranks of mammals and birds among the world's warm-blooded creatures.

The Oracle Cloud Worm Has Turned So Much That It's Doing Somersaults

Perhaps the favorite video of every cloud commentator starring Oracle founder and CTO Larry Ellison is from a few years ago when Ellison opined on the cloud. The video recorded back in 2009 when Ed Zander interviewed Ellison at the Churchill Club, saw an animated Ellison pour scorn on all the hype around cloud computing. Ellison went on to suggest that "cloud" was simply a marketing term of no real importance. The video is Ellison at its finest and worth a watch.

Paramount To Co-Finance 'Ghost In The Shell' Movie

In addition to DreamWorks, it seems that Paramount will also co-finance the upcoming live action Ghost in the Shell movie starring the somewhat controversial Scarlett Johansson.

"How long will Xiaomi go?"

The online fan blog at Xiaomi, the China smartphone vendor that has overtaken all comers in China’s world-leading smartphone market with the exception of Apple, playfully starts out a post yesterday with questions that involve billions and billions of dollars of profits for investors and the company's rivals around the world:

'Legends Of Tomorrow' Trailer Introduces Heroes And Villains Both New And Old

The DC Universe team-up spin-off looks like a lot of fun.

Can These Glasses Really Fix Color Blindness? We Put Them To The Test

Video

A confession: I am color blind. It's not that I can't see any colors—I had actually lived most of my life without being a bit aware of my condition—but when I'm presented with one of those tests where a jumble of different colored dots supposedly spell out a specific number, I'm

Forget CTR. Build an AdWords Campaign To Convert

This is a follow-up on the Google Adwords tutorials that we have been publishing on our blog. With this recent article, I intend to clear up some confusion surrounding the concepts around building successful AdWords campaigns. Has your marketing agency or marketing person touted how great your click through rate is and discounted the fact […]

Can The Stanford Brand Help Organize The Latino Tech Entrepreneur Community?

It was almost exactly two years ago that I first got the opportunity to attend the Silicon Valley Latino Leadership Summit, an annual event held at the cozy and clubby Stanford Faculty Club. It’s a great experience – thanks largely to the work of the event’s principal organizer, Frank Carbajal. But my entry in the community that formed around SVLLS came at a very special time. As I noted in my coverage of the event that year, the Latinos of Silicon Valley had begun to make noticeable progress in coming together. The reason: the emergence of Latino entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley. To build a culture of entrepreneurship, I noted, requires that people learn to work with one another.

Appeals court judge shoots down DOJ's defense of NSA phone program

A U.S. appeals court judge shredded the government’s defense of an extensive National Security Agency program targeting the phone records of the nation’s residents.

Judge Gerard Lynch, writing for a three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, picked apart the Department of Justice’s arguments for the phone records collection program, revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in mid-2013.

The appeals court ruled that Congress didn’t authorize the massive phone records collection in the Patriot Act of 2001, the antiterrorism law the past two U.S. presidents have used as a basis for the collection. A representative of the U.S. White House’s National Security Council noted that President Barack Obama’s administration is working with Congress to create a more limited program.

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Alexander The Great's Father Found In Tomb With Foreign Princess

Researchers claim to have found definitive evidence of Philip II and a Scythian princess in an ancient Greek tomb, but what do the skeletons really tell us?

Tesla Gets Go-Ahead For Direct Sales In Maryland, Will Meet China Charging Standards

Tesla got the green light for direct sales in Maryland, while also committing to meet China's charging standards on Tuesday.

20 Cars With The Best Fuel Economy

Five Pictures We Draw When We Talk About Physics

A look at some of the things physicists draw on cocktail napkins and the backs of envelopes when we start talking about science.

MarkLogic Secures Pre-IPO $102M Funding Round

More news of massive cash influxes as MarkLogic, a database vendor, announces another $102 million in growth funding. MarkLogic has been in existence for over a decade and delivers a NoSQL database platform. NoSQL, as opposed to regular relational databases, are better suited to unstructured data. The NoSQL approach has come to prominence with the rise of social networks and the increasing amount of unstructured data needing to be stored and processes.

Rackspace "Does A Dell"--Hopes To Be The Switzerland Of The Cloud

Rackspace has had a torrid time of it in recent years. On the one hand, it has arguably done the best job of moving from a traditional web hosting model to being a cloud vendor. On the other hand, despite this initial advantage, and its massive investment in nurturing the OpenStack cloud computing offering, Rackspace hasn't really achieved the sort of success that was expected from it.

Should Hacking Be Legalized? A Top-10 Hacker Says No

Should hacking be legalized? This question was originally answered on Quora by Adrián Lamo.

Mirantis And Pivotal Ink A Deal--Part Brand Building, Part Customer Value-Add

Another in the long line of partnership announcements for both Mirantis and Pivotal. But this time with a twist, they're partnering with each other. Mirantis is, of course, perhaps the most successful OpenStack service provider. While other OpenStack players either have less than stellar exits or fail outright, Mirantis seems to be going from strength to strength. For its part, Pivotal Cloud Foundry is the Platform as a Service (PaaS) part of the Pivotal operation. Pivotal is a joint venture between EMC and VMware and has gained serious attention since its inception.

Killing Off Characters Won't Fix 'Game Of Thrones'

Killing off random characters or entire plot-lines won't "fix" HBO's Game of Thrones.

Powerful Victims

Powerful Victims

'Arrow' Season 3, Episode 22 Review: 'This Is Your Sword'

Oliver's secret plans are revealed, and one of 'Arrow's' main characters is killed.

The Disengagement Factory

Can you remember your first "real" job? I don't mean the one where you worked at a grocery, a movie theater, or a telemarketing agency (I worked at all three). I mean your first job out of college where you had to write cover letters, interview, and negotiate a salary. I remember mine vividlu. After graduating college with honors and a dual B.A. in business management and economics from UC Santa Cruz, I ended up working at a technology company in downtown L.A. I was still living at home with my parents but was very excited to land my first job. During the interview I was told I'd be going to business development meetings, traveling, meeting influential people, and helping to grow the company. Sounded amazing! I was even willing to forego the 1.5 hour commute each way to and from work. After months of working there I was stuck doing data entry, powerpoint presentations, and cold-calling. I was officially disengaged. This a story and experience that all too many employees around the world face. Our companies have become "disengagement factories."

Chinese Consumers Go Mobile

"In the US, e-commerce is just online shopping. In China, e-commerce is a lifestyle," said Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, which went public on Nasdaq In September 2014 and raised $25 billion to become the largest initial public offering in history. Alibaba's rise symbolizes the breaknecek growth of China's Internet and e-commerce sectors. By 2016, China will have 730 million Internet users and 380 million online shoppers, up from 460 million and 145 million in 2010.

Flood Of Shale Gas Spilling Into Communities Across America

Not many years ago, the U.S. steel industry found itself losing ground.

What Edward Snowden Said At The Nordic Media Festival

On May 8, Edward Snowden spoke to the audience at the Nordic Media Festival in Bergen, Norway about surveillance and digital security. This is a lightly edited transcript of Runa Sandvik's interview with Snowden.

'Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost' Gets Extensive Update And New Freemium Approach To DLC

The successful PS3 port of Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost is to get a substantial update at the end of this month, including a new freemium type approach to handling the game’s DLC.

Yoshimitsu Returns To the Fight In Tekken 7

A long running and fan favorite Tekken and Soul Calibur character, that of Yoshimitsu, has returned for Tekken 7 with a very interesting re-design.

Latest Dragon Ball Movie Tops Previous Japanese Box Office Record For The Series

The latest Dragon Ball movie, Resurrection of “F”, has surpassed the previous movie, Battle of the Gods, in terms of its Japanese office takings in only nineteen days.

Android Circuit: Galaxy S6 Edge Review, Apple Stealing Phablet Users, Android M's Codename

This week’s Android Circuit highlights a number of stories including a long-term review of the Galaxy S6 Edge, the iPhone 6 Plus Killer is launched in China, Lollipop reaches for a ten percent share, LG's Urbane smartwatch, phablet fans switching to Apple, A/B testing for Android developers, I/O sessions and topics, and what does the 'M' stand for in Android M?

Using Analytics To Predict The Future Of TV Content And Distribution

Leveraging the latest major events in the TV industry and predictive analytics studies, I predict the future of the TV content and distribution.

10 Things You Didn't Know About Oracle

Oracle's Corporate Citizenship Report unveils the myriad ways the company and its employees advance education, protect the environment, and enrich community life.

Don't Do SaaS In A Vacuum

In a digital economy that relies on how well companies simplify information flow and access, companies must take care to integrate cloud services, both SaaS and PaaS.

Nintendo Teams Up With Universal Theme Parks And Announces New Mobile Development Head

Following the news that Nintendo has reported strong profits for the first time in a good few years, they have also announced an interesting partnership with Universal Theme Parks. As well as indicated who will be heading up their mobile development with DeNA.

Fitbit Has A Problem - And It Isn't Apple

Fitbit just filed a $100 million IPO, but there's a real problem looming that could cripple their business. And it's not Apple.

'The Flash' Season 1, Episode 21 Review: 'Grodd Lives'

Spoilers through Season 1 of 'The Flash' follow.

Spotting the Centaur at SapphireNow

I have always had a soft spot for centaurs, the half human, half horse creatures in Greek Mythology because they successfully straddled two worlds – the wild and the intellectual. Big corporate technology conferences like SAP’s SapphireNow running this week in Orlando, Florida exhibits some of the same dichotomous elements –

Last Minute Gifts for Moms Who Make Things Happen

The Maker Movement is not a fad. It's an ever-growing ideological practice that recognizes the very essence of why making things is so wonderful. People are doing it for the sake of art, for the environment, for productivity, or just for fun. However, it's important to note that people have been doing it for years however, these days, it appears as if it's now rather hip to be a maker. If that is the case, then we can proudly announce this to be true: In many homes today, Mom is and has always been the King Maker of the house.

Civil liberties groups oppose bill ending NSA's bulk phone records program

Legislation intended to end the U.S. National Security Agency’s bulk collection of domestic telephone records is drawing opposition from several unlikely sources, digital and civil rights groups.

The USA Freedom Act, approved last Thursday in a 25-2 vote by the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, doesn’t go far enough to protect privacy, several digital rights groups and government whistleblowers said in a letter to members of Congress.

The USA Freedom Act would result in “minimal reforms” to the NSA telephone records program, said the letter, sent Wednesday by CREDO Action, Demand Progress, Fight for the Future, the Republican Liberty Caucus and other groups.

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4 Questions For Tableau Software In Its First-Quarter Report

Tableau Software is in the Big Data business, making software that people use and love because they helps make sense of what they ordinarily might see as chaos.

Water Oceans Likely To Be Ubiquitous, Say Astronomers

Water oceans on other earthlike planets are likely to be ubiquitous, says a team of U.K. astronomers. New ground-based observations of the atmosphere of a cooling stellar white dwarf point --- the burnt-out remains of a star once like ours --- indicate that at least one of this dying solar system’s asteroids was rich in water ice. As such, the team notes that it would have been capable of seeding an earthlike planet with as much as a third of its oceans’ water.

PS4 Could Very Well Become The Best-Selling Console In History

There was a common refrain around the PS4 launch. Sure, it shattered launch records, everyone said, but there was no way that Sony's new machine could ever outsell the indomitable PS2. The PS2 was a product of its time, they said, and there was no way any one machine could capture the complete attention of the video game world ever again -- we have smartphones now, after all, and, I mean, 155 million units. It just seems unreal. I'll cop to saying pretty much that, and more, but the past few years have been good to games overall and the PS4 in particular. The PS4 surprised a lot of people at launch, and it continued to do so throughout its first two years as it solidified its place at the top of the current generation of consoles. Could the PS4 actually outsell the PS2? Now that we've watched the trajectory, we've seen the way the gaming world has responded and we can start to think about the future, the question becomes: why not?

Xbox One Could Be Getting TV DVR Feature This Year

Remember how the Xbox One was meant to be the complete center of your entertainment world, capable of handling everything that has anything to do with your living room TV through one simple interface? That never really happened. Sure, you can plug a cable box into the machine and switch between TV and games with voice controls, but that only takes us so far. But we may be getting, at least, a little bit closer: notable Microsoft blogger Paul Thurrott says that the Xbox One will be getting DVR capability for Live TV, possibly by the end of the year, as a way of shoring up the gap left by the soon-to-be defunct Windows Media Center.

Google Launches Bigtable, A Big Managed Database In The Cloud

Google's early work on Bigtable influenced a range of web-scale database developments, including Cassandra, HBase, and the NSA's Accumulo. The company has continued to develop and depend upon Bigtable internally, and now it's launching a managed version in the cloud for anyone to use. This market is pretty crowded, but Google bets that customers will pay to get management and support from a company that clearly knows how to run these things at scale.

Housing.com's Startup Shenanigans Agitate India's E-commerce Sector

One glorified startup in India’s sizzling e-commerce scene, Housing.com, is providing a much-needed reality check to the sector along with an unintended dose of mirth. Earlier this week, the CEO of the SoftBank-backed startup, Rahul Yadav, resigned after a public statement to the board that, “I don’t think you guys are intellectually capable enough to have any sensible discussion anymore.” Sure enough, he backtracked a day later and announced in an email to co-workers that it was just another day at Housing. “I am still your CEO, have fun” he said and appended that with a smiley emoticon.

What Will Hortonworks Q1 Earnings Tell Us?

Hortonworks, the first of the Hadoop vendors to go public, is reporting earnings for the second time on May 12. What are we likely to learn?

Year Of The Participant -- Brought To You By Apple's ResearchKit

The key limitation to the sort of patient-led change Sage and others have long advocated has traditionally been the difficulties of scaling – the challenges of getting beyond the ultra-engaged quantified selfers and the severely afflicted patients (and associated stakeholders). ResearchKit (in partnership with Sage) offers the possibility of changing this, and bringing participatory research to the masses (those with an iPhone, anyway), and extracting at least a measure of control from the medical centers who have dominated it in the past.

How Digital Leaders Outperform Their Peers

by Cesare Mainardi and Christopher A.H. Vollmer

Microsoft Windows 10 Introduces Offensive New Emoji

Microsoft gets edgy and runs into trouble...

Waratek Takes Top Honors In RSA Security Meet

Aiming at improved efficiency for Java, Waratek also hit security, a target it hadn't originally aimed at.

The 10 Most And Least Common Jobs In The U.S.

Google Buys Experimental Software That Kills Procrastination

Startup Timeful runs experiments on users to develop its time-crunching algorithms, which will now boost the intelligence of Google’s Gmail, Inbox and Calendar.

EMC Enhances All Flash Beast And Hyperscale Products

EMC has successfully adjusted itself to keep its products current and attractive even as the market has moved towards hyper-converged architectures in order to support the growing applications in the cloud, powering today’s economy.

PS4 Continues to Dominate, But Xbox One Catching Up Very, Very Slowly

Over the holiday shopping season, Microsoft gave the Xbox One a series of aggressive price cuts to give it some chance of at least slowing the advancement of Sony's ascendant PS4. First it chopped $100 along with the Kinect, then another $50 to bring it in under the PS4. Aggressive bundling made it pretty difficult to pick up 2-3 free games along with the console. It paid off in the short term, at least in the US: Xbox One outsold the PS4 during some crucial shopping months, giving Microsoft some badly needed good news. But the real goal was obviously to gain momentum that the Xbox One could carry over into the new year, making something like a comeback to make up for the bungled launch. That didn't happen in any appreciable way: Sony's PS4 went back to the top of the NPD reports even after Microsoft made its "promotional" price cut permanent. But now that we're a quarter into 2015 we get to to see some of what the console war looks like two years in. Is the Xbox One catching up? A little bit, at least.

Carly Fiorina On Education: 6 Things The Presidential Candidate Wants You To Know

Carly Fiorina, the former CEO and chairman of Hewlett-Packard, today announced her run for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. She has never held public office and calls her run a “return to citizen government.” She pokes fun at her undergraduate degree from Stanford in medieval history and philosophy but says it comes in handy when she wants to poke holes in President Obama’s comparison of ISIS terrorism with the Crusades.

RocNMedia Video Marketing Florida Exceptional 5 Star Review by Lois G.

RocnMedia and http://www.vtsleads.com- http://www.virtualtechsolutionsllc.com 800-983-8926 Palm Coast Reviews New Review I own a real estate company in Florida and they did a fantastic job of doing lead marketing for me..the videos were great. I highly recommend RocNMedia. Call them at 1-800-983-8926 Lois RocNMedia Palm Coast Parkway Palm Coast FL 32164

Chris Hjelm Is Kroger's Board-Level CIO

Kroger Chief Information Officer Chris Hjelm has led IT at a number of leading companies such as FedEx, eBay, and Cervantes prior to joining the $108 billion business, operating food retail and drug stores, multi-department stores, jewelry stores, and convenience stores nearly ten years ago. Not content to lead a mere support organization, Hjelm has always thought about the strategic use of technology, and has long been a contributor to top and bottom-line gains to the enterprises of which he has been a part. For example, Hjelm has instituted a research and development-type function within Kroger IT to investigate new innovations. Examples include investments in locationing technology that help the company ensure enough people are at the cash register before a rush of people have arrived to check-out, and digital shelf signage that help associates and customers more readily find what they seek. He also encourages his team to think like customers as they shop for groceries. It is no wonder that Hjelm has been asked to join a number of boards in his time, as other companies seek to have him bring the same creative thinking to their companies. In the process, he has forged a path that a variety of others should seek to follow. (To listen to an unabridged audio version of this interview, please visit this link. This article is part of my series on board-level CIO series. To listen to the prior articles featuring the CIOs of companies like FedEx, Cardinal Health, The World Bank Group, and Southwest Airlines, among others, please visit this link. To read future articles in the series, please click the "Follow" link above.)

Are You Spending Your Information-Security Budget On The Wrong Technology?

“Which firewall should I use?” is a question that I am frequently asked when I meet businesspeople at conferences and networking events.

'Game Of Thrones' Season 5, Episode 4 Review: Sons Of The Harpy

Finally the HBO adaptation of 'Game of Thrones' delves into R+L=J territory as the back story is fleshed out.

How To Succeed Like PayPal Co-founder Peter Thiel: Six Of His Rules for Business Success

Peter Thiel co-founded internet payments pioneer PayPal and big data consultancy Palantir Technologies and was an early investor in Facebook, in which he once held a 10% stake.

GM Cuts Price On Next-Gen 2016 Chevrolet Volt: Will It Move The Needle?

Chevrolet announced pricing for the redesigned 2016 Volt this morning. Will it get more buyers interested in the plug-in hybrid?

Ratan Tata Investment Underscores How Xiaomi Defies Odds

It was only last December when Chinese smartphone sensation Xiaomi was getting bad press for a reported intellectual property trouble in India. Five months later, that story has faded, replaced by a well-received product launch in the country in April along with even more striking news: Esteemed Indian tycoon business leader Tata has bought a stake in the company. Terms weren’t disclosed.

'Avengers' Review: 5 Things 'Age Of Ultron' Gets Dead Wrong

The many reasons 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' fails to live up to its predecessor.

On Climate Change We Are All Shareholders

Each global citizen has the right to voice an opinion on the running of business when it comes to the survival of the planet. One could say that on this occasion, we are all shareholders.

ReMarketing and Affinity Lists for Increased Relevance and Sales

Have you ever wanted to reach potential customers who have visited your website and keep your brand in front of them and have another chance to earn their business? Yeah. We all would. This has been possible for a few years and gets easier with each passing year. If you’re confused about remarketing vs retargeting, […]

Day 1 of 2015 NFL Draft Third Most-Watched On ESPN, Down 29% From Last Year

7.03 million total viewers tuned into ESPN to watch Round 1 of the 2015 NFL Draft, making it the third most-watched, but down 29% from last year.

Facebook will give you control over the data you're sharing with apps and websites

Users are getting greater choice over what information is shared with websites and apps when they log in using their Facebook ID.

A new version of Facebook Login, which begins its wide roll out this week, will present users with a prompt to “Edit the info you provide.” Clicking that will let users grant or deny access to different types of information. The login now also highlights who will see content posted by the app in Facebook, for apps that request the ability to do so.

Facebook first announced this system during its F8 developers conference in April 2014. Many of the most popular apps, like Pinterest and Netflix, are already using it and over the next few weeks, Facebook will turn on the system for every app that uses the Facebook Login.

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Is Microsoft Testing Our Software, Seriously?

Building software is important, but that ‘build’ word is just one of several components in the so-called software application development and operations lifecycle. The whole process should ideally be a system of plan, code, build, test, release, deploy, use and then monitor -- and then plan again for ongoing Continuous Delivery.

On IBM's Cloud Ambitions, An Interview With Big Blue's Cloud Tsar

Much has been said and written (including by me) about IBM's cloud ambitions and its ability to deliver upon those ambitions. IBM is in a funny space. On the one hand it counts some of the biggest organizations in the world as its customers, the "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" adage is alive and strong in many traditional enterprises. On the other hand, however, IBM has very much been seen as a laggard in the cloud space. I remember attending the Cloud Connect conference around 2010 and hearing IBM opine its cloudy viewpoint - sitting in a room of well-informed cloud commentators, it was seen as a serious case of "cloud washing".

Sirius XM's Strong Subscriber Growth Bolsters Outlook

Satellite radio provider Sirius XM reported a strong increase in its new subscriber additions for the first quarter of 2015, building on its sturdy 2014 performance. The company added 431,000 net new subscribers during the quarter, a 61% improvement over 267,000 subscribers added in the same quarter last year. Self-pay subscriber additions for the quarter stood at 394,000, way ahead of the year ago figure of 173,000. The strong rise in the number of new subscribers even prompted the company to raise its full year subscriber guidance to 1.4 million from the earlier estimate of 1.2 million. Sirius XM’s diverse content, its aggressive foray in the used car market, and increases in new vehicle sales are driving growth in not only the satellite radio company’s subscribers, but its top- and bottom-lines as well.

Google Forced To Update Password Alert After 'Embarrassing' Weakness Exposed

Google released Password Alert this week, but one security professional managed to bypass it with some remarkably simple JavaScript code. The tech titan has now fixed the issue, but the tool, designed to show where users are typing their Google password into scam sites, or phishing pages, may be open to other forms of attack.