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Thursday, November 3, 2011

Groupon raises $700M with IPO at $20 per share (AP) : Technet

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Groupon raises $700M with IPO at $20 per share (AP) : Technet

Groupon raises $700M with IPO at $20 per share (AP)

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 09:20 PM PDT

By RACHEL METZ and BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writers Rachel Metz And Barbara Ortutay, Ap Technology Writers – 37 mins ago

SAN FRANCISCO – Daily deals pioneer Groupon raised about $700 million with an initial public offering of stock priced well above expectations.

The IPO was set late Thursday at $20 per share, above the anticipated range of $16 to $18. The higher price indicated investors are eager to snap up the Chicago-based company's shares.

Groupon Inc. is expected to make its trading debut Friday on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker symbol "GRPN." That will give a better indication of general sentiment for the company's stock, since it will be the first time that a broader audience will be able to buy it.

The IPO's price gives based Groupon a market value of $12.7 billion. That makes Groupon's IPO the second largest by an Internet company behind only that of Google Inc. in 2004.

The online search leader made its public debut at a market cap of $23.1 billion seven years ago. In comparison, LinkedIn Corp. went public in May with a market value of $4.3 billion and was worth $8.4 billion at the end of trading Thursday.

The pricing is a milestone in a process that served as a reality check for Groupon, a rapidly growing company that has evoked memories of the dot-com boom's exuberance. Coming at a time of worldwide market turbulence and deep economic woes, Groupon's IPO has been closely watched by fellow Web startups looking to follow a similar path.

It's a lofty appraisal for a service that started just three years ago, but a big comedown from the $25 billion estimate floated when the company filed its IPO plans in June, months after rejecting a $6 billion buyout offer from Google.

Groupon began in 2008 when computer programmer Andrew Mason figured out how to get people excited about the low-margin coupon business.

The company sends out daily emails to subscribers offering a chance to buy discount deals for anything from spa services to messenger bags to restaurant meals, provided enough people sign up for the deal. The company then takes a cut of what people pay and gives the rest to the merchant. Though some businesses see this as good advertising, others have complained that Groupon leaves them inundated with coupon-clasping bargain hunters who never return.

The company started in Chicago and quickly branched out across the country and, shortly thereafter, around the globe. At the end of September, Groupon operated in 175 markets in North America and 45 countries. The company had 143 million subscribers at the end of September, and sold 33 million Groupons in the July-September quarter.

Groupon faced a number of difficulties leading up to its IPO. It drew scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission, and rival companies and critics have been popping up left and right.

"This is not Facebook where they can do no wrong," said longtime IPO analyst Scott Sweet, the owner of IPO Boutique. He called Groupon an "accident waiting to happen."

Sweet pointed to problems the company has had with the SEC that have led Groupon to restate the way it accounts for revenue, cutting it in half from what it originally reported. The analyst is also one of those who question the company's business model, its high marketing expenses and frantic hiring pace that has swelled its ranks to more than 10,000 employees. That is about four times as many as Facebook.

Another worrisome sign is the amount of Groupon stock being offered to the public. The company is "floating" about 5.5 percent of available shares — 35 million — which is the well below the percentage that many prominent tech companies have offered in their IPOs, including Google, online retailer Amazon.com Inc. and, more recently, Internet radio service Pandora Media Inc. and professional networking site LinkedIn Corp. This has raised concerns that Groupon is trying to boost demand — and thus its valuation — by limiting supply.

Mutual funds, pension funds and other major money managers got the first crack at buying most of the IPO's 35 million shares late Thursday because stock in these offerings is typically sold to investment bankers' top customers. "Main Street" investors will get their first chance at Groupon on Friday.

In addition to the 35 million shares Groupon sold through its IPO, the company also granted an option to its underwriters — which include, among others, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs & Co. and Credit Suisse — to buy over the next 30 days an additional 5.25 million shares to cover over-allotments.

The sale of the 35 million shares mean Groupon's initial public offering of stock raised about $700 million, minus investment banking fees and other expenses

In filings with the SEC, Groupon said it hoped to raise $479 million, after expenses and presuming the stock priced at $17 per share, or $552 million if it also sold the 4.5 million in over-allotment shares. It did not go into details on how it plans to spend the money, though it did specify it won't need to use it to pay for its operations, including marketing expenses, during the next 12 months.

Neither CEO Mason, 31, nor executive chairman and fellow co-founder Eric Lefkofsky, 42, are selling any shares in the IPO. Mason's stake in the company is now worth about $938.7 million, given the $20 IPO share price, while the stake of Leftofsky, who is Groupon's largest investor and shareholder, is worth about $2.6 billion.

They've made out well previously from the sale of stock, though, according to SEC filings: Lefkofsky, Groupon's largest investor and shareholder, received $398 million while Mason snagged $28 million.

__

Ortutay reported from New York.

AMD to cut 1,400 workers, new CEO's first big move (AP)

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 04:24 PM PDT

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer Jordan Robertson, Ap Technology Writer – Thu Nov 3, 7:24 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is cutting some 1,400 workers as a weak computer market and manufacturing delays have hurt the world's second-biggest maker of microprocessors for PCs.

The layoffs announced Thursday amount to about 12 percent of the company's 12,000 workers and are the first big move by AMD's new CEO, Rory Read, who was hired from Lenovo Group in August. The cuts will unfold over the next five months.

AMD is struggling with an industrywide problem: PC sales growth, particularly in the U.S. and Europe, has been anemic because of the down economy and competition from smartphones and tablets.

Although PC shipments continue to grow, the pace is slowing sharply — and more than market research firms IDC and Gartner Inc. expected. That has raised concerns about the strength of the market going in to the holiday shopping season.

Most of AMD's business is in chips for PCs; it doesn't have a meaningful presence in smartphones and tablets.

Read's job in large part is to help devise a strategy for AMD to penetrate computing markets where it and rival Intel Corp. have been largely absent. The battle has taken on a new dimension as AMD's and Intel's market share in PCs has reached a steady balance for years — Intel's chips are in about 80 percent of the world's PCs, and AMD's are in essentially the rest.

Not having much presence in mobile devices has hurt AMD more than Intel because of its smaller size and it was a key reason AMD ousted Read's predecessor, Dirk Meyer, in January.

Meyer in some ways had an excuse: He was orchestrating triage as he tried to manage the company's spinoff of its manufacturing operations while fending off Intel and overseeing the launch of an important new type of chip for AMD. That chip can process sophisticated graphics and general data on the same piece of silicon, a technical achievement.

The rise of mobile devices, meanwhile, is benefiting chip makers such as Qualcomm Inc. and Texas Instruments Inc., whose processors were designed to consume less power.

A variety of financial struggles has led to several rounds of layoffs at AMD in recent years. It let about 3,300 workers go in 2008 and 2009.

Contributing to Thursday's announcement were manufacturing problems that have postponed the shipment of AMD's newest chips, which it calls "accelerated processing units."

The layoffs and other unspecified operational changes are expected to save $200 million in 2012. A company spokesman said is severance benefits will vary based on location and local laws.

AMD shares increased 5 cents, or nearly 1 percent, to $5.78 in extended trading Thursday after the cuts were announced.

LinkedIn posts 3Q loss; revenue growth accelerates (AP)

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 06:02 PM PDT

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke, Ap Technology Writer – Thu Nov 3, 9:02 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Online professional networking service LinkedIn got demoted by many investors after suffering its first quarterly loss in its brief career as a publicly traded company.

The third-quarter setback, announced late Thursday, didn't come as a surprise. LinkedIn's stock nevertheless dropped by more than 9 percent. That wiped out some of the paper gains rung up since the company stimulated more interest in Internet companies with a rousing initial public offering of stock nearly six months ago.

Even before the IPO, LinkedIn Corp. made it clear that short-term losses were possible as it ramped up investments in buying more computers and hiring more employees in trying to build a business that changes the way people find jobs and advance their careers.

The third quarter showed LinkedIn isn't backing off that promise. If anything, the company is preparing to up the ante. Toward that end, LinkedIn filed plans to sell an additional $100 million of its stock to fund its ambitions. LinkedIn ended September with nearly $388 million in cash.

The proposed stock sale also will give some LinkedIn employees a chance to cash in some of their holdings.

The company's investments so far appear to be paying off. Its revenue growth is still accelerating while its service is adds about 5 million new members every month.

But it evidently will take more than that to support a stock that has been flying high since LinkedIn's stock market debut. The company's shares shed $8.19 to $79.31 in Thursday's extended trading.

After LinkedIn shares were priced at $45 in the initial public offering, they quickly doubled. Investors' rabid response sparked a debate about whether another investment bubble is forming around disruptive Internet companies, similar to the late 1990s dot-com boom that set the stage for a costly meltdown.

The fervor has subsided amid mounting worries about a fragile economy, although things could be about to heat up again. Online coupon distributor Groupon Inc. is expected to make its stock market debut Friday after pricing its IPO late Thursday. Zynga Inc., the maker of popular Web games such as CityVille, may go public later this month.

LinkedIn's third-quarter results provided a reminder of the growing pains that usually accompany hard-charging businesses.

The company lost $1.6 million, or 2 cents per share, in the July-September as it invested more money to expand. That contrasted with earnings of $4 million, or 2 cents per share, at the same time last year.

The latest quarter marked the first time that LinkedIn has recorded a loss since the final three months of 2009, according to documents filed in preparation for its IPO.

If not for items unrelated to its ongoing business, LinkedIn said it would have earned 6 cents per share. On that basis, analysts polled by FactSet had expected LinkedIn to break even.

Revenue more than doubled from last year to $139 million — about $11 million higher than analysts forecast. The company expects to generate as much as $158 million in revenue in the current quarter ending in December, up from nearly $82 million at the same time last year.

Besides impressive revenue growth, LinkedIn added 15.4 million more accounts in the quarter to end September with 131.2 million members. That may have been a slight letdown for investors, though, because LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner had said in early August that the company was adding an average of two members per second. That pace would have translated into LinkedIn having about 132 million members at the end of the quarter.

Since September, LinkedIn's membership has climbed to 135 million, Weiner said during a Thursday conference call. He said the LinkedIn is still adding an average of two members per second.

The company, which is based in Mountain View, remains relatively small compared with Facebook, a website where about 800 million people worldwide go to have fun. Facebook is expected to file its IPO plans next year.

LinkedIn doesn't charge people to post their resumes, but attracting more members is important because a bigger audience makes the service more compelling to employment recruiters and advertisers.

The company gets more than two-thirds of its revenue from fees it charges companies, recruiting services and other people who want broader access to the profiles and other data on the company's website. The rest comes from advertising.

LinkedIn added 282 employees during the quarter to end September with nearly 1,800.

Scientists begin tracking the mysterious narwhal through the Arctic (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 06:32 PM PDT

Astronauts ready to end 520-day fake mission to Mars (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 06:23 PM PDT

Will 3D Televisions Actually Hurt the TV Business? (Mashable)

Posted: 02 Nov 2011 04:35 PM PDT

Zachary Sniderman Zachary Sniderman – Wed Nov 2, 7:35 pm ET

It's strange to think fancy new advances in TV technology may actually end up hurting the television business in general. That conclusion is not so far-fetched for Retrevo.com and its latest study, which shows interest in 3D television technology continuing to wane. Retrevo, a consumer electronics and shopping site, surveyed more than 1,000 people from diverse backgrounds. Of those surveyed, one third said they were planning to buy an HDTV in the coming year. While that number is encouragingly high, only 22% of that fraction said they'd buy a 3D television and another 23% of that fraction said they'd consider it if the price point was similar.

[More from Mashable: Former Engadget Editor Launches New Tech Site]

The industry has been trying to figure out why 3D movies do so well and yet 3D home theaters have not kept up in popularity. One factor is the downgrade in size -- televisions are necessarily smaller than movie screens. Other factors include the lack of 3D programming and the need for expensive peripherals. The Retrevo study shows 40% of potential buyers said there wasn't enough 3D programming to watch while 30% of potential TV buyers said 3D glasses were still a problem.

On top of that are internal debates about what kind of 3D technology is best. There are two predominant systems: Passive and Active. Passive 3D is built into the set and doesn't require battery-powered glasses. Active 3D is powered by special glasses which alternate shutting off the images between the two lenses in rapid succession.

[More from Mashable: Twitter Now Lets "X Factor" Viewers Vote via DMs]

These tech differences -- and the debate over which is better -- combined with some of the pricing and programming concerns mean that buyers are shying away from 3D technology. This is a problem for companies such as Sony and Panasonic that have sunk large amounts of money and resources into their next wave of 3D technology.

Of course, one study of a little more than 1,000 respondents is far from a damning piece of evidence against the future of 3D. It does, however, provide a glimpse into the public's hesitancy to jump on board. And, there are other companies saying 3D isn't doing too well, either, including game creator Electronic Arts, saying last summer that 3D games are failing. Analysts aren't impressed, either, with Richard Greenfield of Wall Street's BTIG saying U.S. customers in movie theaters "are increasingly rejecting 3D movies."

What is needed to make 3D television more popular? Should the sets be cheaper? Should the programming be better? Let us know what needs to happen for you to consider getting a 3D TV.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Lee Stranahan

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Groupon raises $700 million in biggest Internet IPO since Google (Reuters)

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 08:20 PM PDT

By Alistair Barr and Clare Baldwin Alistair Barr And Clare Baldwin – 1 hr 37 mins ago

(Reuters) – Groupon Inc raised $700 million after increasing the size of its initial public offering, becoming the largest IPO by an Internet company since Google Inc raised $1.7 billion in 2004.

The global leader in "daily deals" is now valued at almost $13 billion after saying it increased the offering by 5 million shares to 35 million in total and pricing them at $20 each, above an initial range of $16 to $18.

The debut of the three-year-old company, which sells Internet coupons for everything from spa treatments to nose jobs, is one of this year's most closely watched. Its tiny float represents just above 5 percent of the company and helped drive up demand and price.

That constraint -- one of the smallest floats of the past decade -- should support Groupon's share price when it begins trading on the Nasdaq on Friday under the ticker GRPN, analysts say.

But in the longer run, they cited concerns about competition from the deep-pocketed likes of Google and Amazon.com Inc; the need to spend continuously to drive user growth; and questions about accounting after the company altered its IPO filings twice to change the way it accounted for revenue.

"Groupon is expensive. The $12.8 billion valuation is only achievable because of the low float," said Rob Romero, head of technology-focused hedge fund firm Connective Capital Management.

"Today's reaction to LinkedIn floating additional share supply is an indication of how tight supply-demand of shares can distort valuation for a new IPO."

LinkedIn, which remains well above its $45 IPO price, plummeted 9 percent after-hours after unveiling a proposal to sell up to $500 million in stock. It had floated 8.3 percent of its shares during the IPO.

Pandora Media, a music streaming service and another recent dotcom debutante, sold 9.2 percent of the company.

At $12.8 billion, Groupon commands a price tag more than twice what Google offered to buy the company last year.

WIDESPREAD CRITICISM

Beyond Friday, Groupon shares may prove volatile on concern about the company's ability to generate long-term profit and revenue growth, plus the likelihood that existing investors will sell some of their holdings at some point.

Quirky music major and CEO Andrew Mason and his executive team spent almost two weeks on the road pitching to investors and addressing widespread criticism about Groupon's replicable business model, slowing growth and accounting concerns.

"The post-IPO investor will be taking a risk on this deal," said Josef Schuster, founder of IPO research and investment house IPOX Schuster. "It's maybe a good trade for a day trader, in and out in a single day, but I don't want to be in it for the long run."

To pull the deal off, the company cut its valuation by about half. Existing shareholders aren't selling. And it skipped meetings with potential investors in Europe and Asia.

If underwriters, led by Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse, exercise their right to buy just over 5 million more Groupon shares in the IPO, known as the greenshoe, Groupon will raise more than $800 million, before fees.

Wall Street will scrutinize Groupon's Friday showing for clues as to how other highly anticipated dotcom IPOs -- from the likes of Facebook or Zynga -- may fare.

LinkedIn surged on the first day of trading in May and remains far above its $45 IPO price. Pandora's shares surged initially, then slumped. Its shares traded below the $16 IPO price on Thursday at just over $15.

Groupon "is a company with permission to market to 150 million consumers daily. No other company in the world has ever had that type of reach," said Boyan Josic, chief executive atDailyDealMedia, which tracks the industry.

"Investors who truly understand this business model and the position that Groupon has in this market are buying."

(Editing by Edwin Chan, Tiffany Wu and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Top U.S. companies urge new Internet trade rules (Reuters)

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 04:00 PM PDT

By Doug Palmer Doug Palmer – Thu Nov 3, 7:00 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Google, Microsoft, Citigroup, IBM, GE and other top-tier American companies on Thursday urged the United States to fight for trade rules that protect the free flow of information over the Internet.

The unveiling of principles hashed out by the companies over the last nine months comes at a crucial moment, Rick Johnston, senior vice president for international government affairs at Citigroup, told reporters.

Past trade agreements have largely focused on eliminating tariffs on manufactured and agricultural goods. But "we're now in an era where the economy is literally driven by the Internet. It's a digital economy," Johnston said.

The group's report says future U.S. trade pacts must "reflect the new realities of the global economy: specifically, the contribution of the Internet toward economic growth, toward job creation and exports," said Bob Boorstin, director of public policy for Google, which has battled Internet restrictions in China and other countries.

One dangerous trend is a requirement by an increasing number of governments for companies to locate data centers within a country's borders in order to provide services, Boorstin said.

Such laws are discriminatory and contrary to the notion of cross-border trade, the coalition said in its paper, which also criticized actions "governments around the world" have taken to block access to information services such as Facebook, Twitter, WordPress and YouTube.

DIGITAL PROTECTIONISM

The office of U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said the group's recommendations match key elements of a joint position the United States and European Union have already introduced at the World Trade Organization.

"Eliminating barriers to cross-border data flows and other restrictions that are hindering the growth of the Internet and trade in information technology goods and services is a priority issue in the administration's twenty-first century trade agenda," USTR said.

Even when Internet curbs are intended to support legitimate public interests such as national security or law enforcement, businesses can suffer when those rules are unclear, arbitrary, unevenly applied or more trade restrictive than they need to be to achieve their objectives, the group's paper said.

In many cases Internet restrictions are simply "digital protectionism" to shield domestic companies from foreign competition, the paper said.

The companies said they hope their ideas will be reflected in the proposed Transpacific Partnership, a free trade agreement that the United States is negotiating with eight countries in the region.

That would put pressure on China to adopt similar policies even though it is not currently a member of the TPP talks, said Bill Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which helped lead the effort to work out the group's ideas.

MasterCard, Visa, Oracle, and GoDaddy.com also attached their name to the paper, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Software Alliance, the Coalition of Services Industries and other groups.

USTR said it was already pushing many of the group's concerns in the TPP talks and in the broader Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group, which is holding its annual summit meeting this month in Hawaii.

The United States is strongly urging APEC members to minimize the trade-distorting impact of information and communication technology policies, including those related to data privacy and security, USTR said.

When appropriate, the United States should also bring cases at the WTO to enforce existing trade rules that cover cross-border data flows, the business coalition said.

"We want the free flow of data just like we want the free flow of goods and services," said Nuala O'Connor Kelly, chief privacy leader at General Electric. "In the information age, data is our widget."

(Reporting by Doug Palmer; Editing by Xavier Briand)

Android hardware failure rate higher than iPhone and Blackberry (Digital Trends)

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 04:59 PM PDT

Mike Dunn Mike Dunn – Thu Nov 3, 7:59 pm ET

Decayed AndroidNot all smartphones are created equal, and now WDS has proven that not all Android phones are created equal. During a year-long study of customer service support calls it was discovered that more Android phones suffered from hardware failures than iOS, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone 7. Android phones also cost carriers $2 billion dollars a year in replacement costs.

Tim Deluca-Smith, WDS VP of marketing, points out that it is now an issue with the Android OS, but instead it is an issue with the physical devices. The problem seems to be the fact that so many companies are coming out with low cost Android devices, and it is these low cost devices not the best ones that are increasing the total failure rate. Deluca-Smith says that Android's, "openness has enabled the ecosystem to grow to a phenomenal size, at a phenomenal rate, and it's this success that is proving challenging."

The study lasted 12 months, and tracked 600,000 tech support calls handled by WDS. Of all the technical support calls for Android phones 14 percent of the calls were due to hardware failure. In a close second is Windows Phone with 11 percent of calls, Apple's iOS had seven percent, and RIM's BlackBerry had the least with only six percent. It should be noted that the operating systems with the highest failure rate are also the ones that do not make hardware.

Android is the most popular OS of the four compared, so it is no surprise that it cost the carrier the highest total amount due to hardware issues. The study did not provide any numbers for the cost of repairing or refunding any other devices.  As a consumer do not take this as a warning against buying Android phones, but it should make you think about the quality of the phone you are buying before you enter into a two year contract.

 Image courtesy of Gizmodo.

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

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GO Locker tops Android Apps of the Week (Appolicious)

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 02:30 PM PDT

Twitter tests 'Top News' and 'Top People' search function (Digital Trends)

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 09:26 PM PDT

Mike Flacy Mike Flacy – 32 mins ago

top-news-twitter

Without much fanfare, Twitter is quietly testing a new feature that will highlight the most likely choice for news or a specific person after a user uses the internal Twitter search engine according to a report from GigaOm. For instance, a search for "Ashton Kutcher" will highlight the official account for Ashton Kutcher at the top of the page above the rest of the search results in the left column. In the right column, the same results will appear in the "People results for" section of the page as well as alternative choices. Searching for information about a recent news story acts in the same fashion, but the content chosen for the user likely relies on an algorithm that's dependent on a variety of Twitter metrics such as popularity of the original person that shared the story or the amount retweets that the story received.

twitterIdeal to major Web publishers and popular bloggers, this alteration in the search results could drive more traffic back to the publisher site. In the current state, the Twitter search function mixes in publisher stories with witty or inane comments from other Twitter users about the same topic. However, Twitter hasn't announced any criteria on how it selects sources for news stories and it's possible that publishers may find themselves off Twitter's radar. For instance, the employees inside Twitter curating the list may also stick to a small subset of major news sources rather than expanding out to a massive variety of publishers across the Web.

Twitter also recently launched Twitter Stories, a collection of emotional or interesting stories that feature both celebrities and regular Twitter users. The stories are minimal in length, similar to a 140-character tweet. Twitter is also encouraging users to submit personal stories to @twitterstories with corresponding video or a link to the tale on a Web page. 

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

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Motorola To Debut Xoom 2 In U.K. (NewsFactor)

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 03:45 PM PDT

Adam Dickter, newsfactor.com Adam Dickter, newsfactor.com – Thu Nov 3, 6:45 pm ET

Motorola's Xoom tablet is up for an update, and the mobility giant has one in the form of a slimmer, lighter and faster model of its Android slab.

But don't go shopping for the premium Android-based tablet's sequel just yet. It's going to debut only in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Faster, Lighter, Slimmer

Motorola, soon to become a subsidiary of Android-developer Google if regulators give their blessing, says the Xoom 2 is 10 percent lighter and 30 percent thinner with an improved, high-definition 10.1-inch screen, powered by a 1.2 gigahertz dual-core processor that's 20 percent faster. The Xoom 2 also allows users to stream files to their PCs via the MotoCast app.

Want a smaller version? Moto has the Xoom Media Edition, with an 8.2-inch screen. Both pack Android 3.2 with similar specs, though the bigger sibling promises more battery life, 10 hours as opposed to six. American customers can register now for information about availability. Prices have not yet been announced.

The current, 4G LTE-capable Xoom sells for $499 with a two-year data contract, and $669 a la carte.

First released in February of this year, just ahead of the iPad 2, the Xoom has struggled to gain a foothold in a tablet market that has been dominated by Apple's market-building tablet, with Samsung's Android-based Galaxy Tab also gaining some market share.

"The Xoom was prematurely released in that much of what it had that was better than the iPad wasn't working at launch," said Rob Enderle, principal technology analyst at The Enderle Group. "Flash support wasn't done -- it's a big differentiator -- many of the apps like Netflix weren't available yet, and Honeycomb was largely unfinished at launch. This was fixed over time and Best Buy told me it became their second-highest selling Android tablet."

Enderle noted, though, that this wasn't saying much since no Android tablets were selling close to the iPad, which sold 11 million in the third quarter alone.

Business Not Xooming

Motorola said it sold 440,000 Xooms in the second quarter, and worse in the third.

"In its most recent financial quarter, Motorola Mobility announced it had shipped only 100,000 additional Xoom tablets," said analyst Jeff Orr of ABI Research. "While widely viewed as selling poorly, this decrease in product volume could be attributed to phasing out the original product in advance of the second-generation Xoom 2."

Enderle said the update seems promising.

"The ARM [processor] technology in the first generation of tablets was underpowered. This generation is much closer to what people expect in a tablet and now the product feels far more complete," he said. "It is approaching its potential as one of the better iPad alternatives this round and a far better choice than the first edition was."

Enderle said the decision to launch in the U.K. is strategic.

"Apple is weaker in Europe, which is leading a number of vendors to release there first and then come to the U.S. rather than the other way around," he said. "That way they are more likely to have stronger initial success."

Dungeon Defenders: Second Wave tops iPhone Games of the Week (Appolicious)

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 03:00 PM PDT

Customer Analytics Come To Real Stores (NewsFactor)

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 02:13 PM PDT

Barry Levine, newsfactor.com Barry Levine, newsfactor.com – Thu Nov 3, 5:13 pm ET

If you run a physical store -- remember them? -- you may have looked longingly at the kinds of analytics that your Web site, or your online competitors, may have enjoyed for years. Now, a new company is making a data analytics platform available for the real world, taking advantage of the fact that most store visitors carry a mobile phone with Wi-Fi enabled.

On Thursday, Palo Alto, Calif.-based Euclid Elements announced its new platform, emerging from a stealth development period funded by venture capital. "To put it simply," said co-founder and CEO Will Smith in a statement, "we're Google Analytics for the physical world."

Wi-Fi Within 60 Yards

The Euclid platform uses sensors to map shopper traffic patterns in retail spaces, by tracking the position of customers' smartphones.

The data includes numbers of unique visitors over given time periods, numbers of people walking by when the store is closed, new vs. repeat visitors, customer loyalty and frequency, the effectiveness of promotions in creating loyal customers, metrics between stores, average dwell time, and window conversion rates -- how many walked by vs. how many walked in.

The sensors pick up Wi-Fi signals within 60 yards, and use that information as markers for the customers. The service runs about $200 monthly. The data can be used to help determine merchandising displays, the effectiveness of in-store specials, store layout and traffic flows, staffing and other aspects.

The company said that the installation is quick and easy. Installation of sensors, it said, takes a couple of minutes, and then stores just need to log into their Web dashboard to view analytics. The company said that the data is secure, in that it is always hashed, encrypted, and sent over secure connections.

No Personal Data

Euclid said that no personal shopper data is collected, and that all data is anonymous and aggregated. The company added that no information is collected about the owner or user of the mobile device, or about any content that is transmitted or received by the device.

But all customers are automatically opted-in. Customers can opt-out and delete data from the service, and have their phone's identifier removed from the company database. However, it's not clear if the store is required or encouraged to notify customers that their phones are being tracked and an opt-out is available.

Euclid cites Philz Coffee, a chain of coffeehouses in the San Francisco area, as one of its early customers. The chain's president, Jacob Jaber, told news media that the system allows him to see, for instance, that customers spend 43 minutes on average at his Berkeley store, but only about 15 minutes at a store in San Francisco.

Armed with that information, Jaber is considering more products, such as a wider variety of food, in his Berkeley store, and perhaps creating more room for lounging in the San Francisco store.

Canon offers new camera for Hollywood filmmakers (AP)

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 07:02 PM PDT

By RYAN NAKASHIMA, AP Business Writer Ryan Nakashima, Ap Business Writer – 2 hrs 56 mins ago

LOS ANGELES – Four decades after winning Academy Awards for its cinema lenses, Canon Inc. was back in Hollywood on Thursday, unveiling a new high-end digital video camera before an audience of some of the world's most famous filmmakers.

Fujio Mitarai, chief executive of the Japanese camera and office equipment giant, took the wraps of the movie camera, called Cinema EOS, in a packed theater on the Paramount Pictures movie studio lot.

At $20,000 for the body alone, the Cinema EOS is not cheap by consumer standards but is on the low end of what professional digital film cameras cost, which can reach into the six figures. Two zoom lenses intended for movie making will go for $45,000 and $47,000.

Making such costly cameras for professional users is somewhat of a departure for Canon, which makes up more than a third of its revenue from consumer electronics, and more than half from office equipment like all-in-one printer-copier-fax machines.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Mitarai said Canon's move into expensive high-end products for professionals comes in response to the rising yen and the movement of manufacturing to cheaper-labor countries abroad.

"Anything without high added value is now being manufactured in southeast Asian countries and China. So we need to shift into an era where all our products have an added value," Mitarai said. "That is one major trend in meeting the difficulties posed by the strong yen."

The camera draws on the popularity of the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, a single-lens reflex still camera that the company introduced in 2008 and which became widely embraced by independent filmmakers because of its ability to take full high-definition video at the 1920-by-1080 pixel resolution known as 1080p.

It didn't take long for its popularity to reach Hollywood.

The Mark II was used in the final episode of the last season of Fox's television show "House M.D.," as well as in the car racing scenes of "Iron Man 2" and certain scenes in "Captain America: The First Avenger," movies that Paramount distributed.

The Cinema EOS is similar in shape to a traditional still camera but works with a variety of mounts.

Mitarai said the camera's digital images had the warmth of film and brought out skin tones well. The company showed a number of short films that used the camera to show off how it functioned in action sequences, especially in tight areas that made use of its compact size.

The camera is compatible with an array of around 60 "EF," or electronic focus, lenses that work with Canon's still cameras. The company also introduced seven new lenses that are precise enough to work with super high-definition movie cameras made by other companies using a standard known as 4K.

"This is the camera that gave us the opportunity to work with you today," Mitarai told the crowd.

Filmmakers including Jon Favreau, Ron Howard and Martin Scorcese were in attendance.

"Mr. Mitarai, welcome to Hollywood," Scorcese said.

Sporadic Siri outage leaves iPhone 4S users without their virtual assistants (Digital Trends)

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 03:29 PM PDT

Molly McHugh Molly Mchugh – Thu Nov 3, 6:29 pm ET

siri outageThe beloved and already meme-worthy iPhone 4S feature, Siri, is experiencing its first glitch. Twitter and the rest of the blogosphere are lighting up with reports that the voice control application is inaccessible, responding to requests by saying "Sorry, I am having trouble connecting to the network."

Siri works by connecting to Apple's servers to grab the information you need, and is a core feature of the iPhone 4S. In fact, the minimal refresh was nearly overshadowed by the virtual assistant technology that is integrated into the latest model alone. A Siri-less iPhone 4S is essentially an iPhone 4 with a better camera.

siri down

It's the first significant hiccup for the Siri technology, but it's come so soon after its release that users are likely anxious that they shelled out for an upgrade with core technology that has serious connectivity issues. The outages and spotty service began being reported nationwide around 11 a.m. PST this morning.

Apple has said that restarting your Wi-Fi connection and then your phone might do the trick, but hasn̢۪t promised that this isn̢۪t a network failure problem.

We experienced minor connection problems with Siri, asking the service to search the Web. The first time, we were told there were network errors. But other requests, and then a second go at Web searching were successful. That is, until we tried another iPhone 4S and were unable to connect (see screenshot at right). 

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

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HP Updates Windows Tablet PC for Professionals (NewsFactor)

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 04:19 PM PDT

Mark Long, newsfactor.com Mark Long, newsfactor.com – Thu Nov 3, 7:19 pm ET

Having recently reaffirmed its commitment to the PC side of its business, Hewlett-Packard is poised to launch an updated tablet PC running the professional edition of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system. Called the HP Slate 2, the machine will enable business professionals to maintain seamless continuity with the entire range of content residing on the machines used by their managers and fellow workers.

The decision to refresh the original Slate tablet launched by HP last year demonstrates that the company continues to see growth opportunities in the professional segment of the tablet market. About 6 percent of all tablet shipments during the second quarter of 2011 went to commercial users -- up from 3 percent in the prior two quarters of 2010, said IDC Vice President Loren Loverde in an e-mail Thursday. "Apple had about 80 percent of that in the past two quarters," she said.

HP experienced strong growth in the U.S. PC market during this year's third quarter -- when the company's PC shipments increased 15.1 percent year over year and its market leading share totaled 28.9 percent, said Mika Kitagawa, a principal analyst at Gartner.

"Moving to a Windows-based tablet is a good direction for HP," Kitagawa said in an e-mail Thursday. "But I am not sure how the product will help [boost the] overall revenues and profitability [at HP's Personal Systems Group], as the market is expected to be small at this point."

Right Mix of Features

HP's new 1.5-pound tablet will enable mobile workers to create, edit and review business documents, spreadsheets, presentations and other types of Windows-compatible files while on the go. The HP Slate 2 also ships with the requisite mSATA SSM technology for delivering faster Windows 7 boot times.

Slate 2 integrates a 1.5GHz Atom Z670 processor from Intel, 2GB of DDR2 SDRAM, a solid state drive with a maximum capacity of 64GB and an SD expansion card slot. The tablet sports an inward-facing VGA webcam and outward-facing 3-megapixel camera/camcorder.

The device's 8.9-inch capacitive multi-touch display, which ships with a new Swype-enabled keyboard, offers support for both pen and touch input. According to HP, touch-screen resolution varies between 1024x600p and 1024x768p, depending on the specific application in use.

On the wireless side, Slate 2 incorporates both Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n) and Bluetooth 4.0 radios. HP's new device offers support for optional accessories such as a 3G radio, Bluetooth-enabled keyboard and optical mouse, digital pen, magnetic stripe reader and barcode scanner.

"The HP Slate includes the right mix of rich features, support for custom-built applications, and the security and connectivity needed for today's highly mobile and rigorous day-to-day professional environment" said HP Vice President Dan Forlenza.

Security Enhancements

Under the Slate 2's hood is a TPM-embedded security chip for protecting the integrity of the e-mails, documents and other data stored on the machine's solid state drive. Also on tap is BIOS support for Computrace Pro -- an application that enables IT managers to secure lost or stolen devices by remotely deleting data at the file, directory or operating-system level.

Slate 2's optional docking station has two USB 2.0 ports and an HDMI connector. Slated to launch later this month in markets around the world, HP intends to offer the new machine at prices that start at $699.

Gartner and IDC currently do not differentiate traditional PCs from those media tablets which run the full version of Windows. So it is not currently possible to determine the extent to which Windows-powered tablets are already helping to fuel professional PC sales growth.

"If a device is equipped with Windows 7, it should be counted as a PC for now," Kitagawa said. However, she added, "we may change [this] definition going forward."

Duqu hackers shift to Belgium after India raid (Reuters)

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 10:56 AM PDT

By Jim Finkle Jim Finkle – Thu Nov 3, 1:56 pm ET

(Reuters) – Hackers used a server in Belgium to collect data stolen from machines infected with the Duqu computer virus, after authorities shut down another rogue collection system in India, according to security experts.

Governments and security experts around the globe are working to unlock the secrets of the elusive malware, which some say could be the next big cyber threat after the Stuxnet virus that was believed to have infected Iran's nuclear program.

Researchers at Symantec Corp said they had identified a sample of Duqu that was configured to communicate with a specific server at Combell Group, Belgium's largest Web-hosting company.

Hackers frequently use or lease servers at data centers to manage their malicious activities, without the knowledge of the data center operator. Symantec said in a report on its website on Tuesday that it had notified Combell that the server was being used for malicious activity.

Combell Group said it shut down that server on Thursday in response to a query about the matter from Reuters.

"We investigated the case," Combell Business Development Manager Tom Blast told Reuters. "We decided to shut down the server immediately."

News of Duqu first surfaced two weeks ago after researchers at Hungary's Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security found a computer virus that contained code similar to Stuxnet. Early analysis suggested Duqu was developed by hackers to help lay the groundwork for attacks on critical infrastructure such as power plants, oil refineries and pipelines.

Indian authorities last month seized computer equipment from a data center in Mumbai, after Symantec reported that one of its servers was communicating with computers infected with Duqu.

"LOOKS FISHY"

One of Brussels-based Combell's employees, who did not want to be identified as they were not authorized to speak for the company, said on Wednesday evening that the server had been running continuously for about a week and was leased through October 27 next year.

"It looks fishy," he said, adding that somebody controlling the machine appeared to be intentionally deleting data that would log details about its communications. "It's weird. The mail log itself has almost no entries. I think they are deleting data so they don't leave traces."

John Bumgarner, chief technology officer of the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, also said that the server looked suspicious because it was running far fewer programs than its neighbors in the Combell data center.

He said that when the hackers moved their server from India to Belgium, they also modified the original technique used to communicate with computers infected by Duqu. This shift made it harder for companies to detect infected machines based on previous communication patterns.

Researchers at Symantec have said they believe Duqu may have been developed by the same engineers who built Stuxnet because some of the source code in the software is the same.

Other researchers disagree, saying the hackers could have reverse engineered the code for Stuxnet.

Stuxnet is believed to have crippled centrifuges that Iran uses to enrich uranium for what the United States and some European nations have charged is a covert nuclear weapons program.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle. Additional reporting by Edward Krudy; Editing by Maureen Bavdek and Tim Dobbyn)
at 10:08 PM

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