Google: the bear case takes hold
Et tu, Goldman?
One by one, the Wall Street analysts who follow Google have been taking down their estimates this week. Read more
AMD launches Shanghai, expects profitability
Despite the ringing of a major-warning bell by its stronger microprocessor rival Intel, Advanced Micro Devices is maintaining its commitment to returning to profitability in 2009.
AMD, which reported its eighth consecutive quarterly loss last month and softening sales, says it is cutting costs and focusing on core products to lower its break-even point. Read more
Women targeted in new Wii workouts
Console game publishers are working up a sweat in their efforts to win over a casual gaming audience.
Peter Moore, once a PE teacher but now head of EA Sports, says he has given himself some tough workouts testing its new Active personalised fitness product for the Nintendo Wii, but sees women as the natural target audience. Read more
Sezmi service is signal success in Seattle
Sezmi, a start-up seeking to be at the heart of the convergence of the internet and broadcast television, has announced the completion of the first successful technical trials of its “TV 2.0″ service.
The Silicon Valley company has been using Seattle as a testbed for its hybrid system, which combines digital terrestrial TV signals with broadband connections to offer both regular TV channels and programming on demand. Read more
Put that champagne away – the “Death of Spam” has been greatly exaggerated
For a brief moment this week, it looked like spam had been vanquished.
No kidding. The Washington Post claimed to have slain the beast. Late on Tuesday afternoon, after an investigation by the newspaper, a hosting centre called McColo Corp, which had acted as something of a spam hub, was shut down. Read more
We all know that Google collects a phenomenal amount of personal data – a perennial question is whether it’s healthy for one company to know so much about us all.
But what if all that collective data could be used to spot disease epidemics before they take hold? Good thing or bad thing? I’d say good. Read more
IT spending on the wane? You ain’t seen nothing yet
That was the sobering message from Charlie Giancarlo (left), formerly of Cisco and now chief executive of Avaya, when I saw him earlier today.
There have already been signs that corporate spending – the main engine that still drives the tech industry, even if the rise of the consumer has been the story of the last five years – has been weakening. Cisco, whose quarter ends a month later than most others, said last week that customer orders in October dropped by 9 per cent compared with a year before. Read more
HomeAway makes $250m VC round splash
Credit crunch, what credit crunch? HomeAway, an online vacation rental marketplace, has just raised a quarter of a billion dollars in a VC funding round, the biggest of its kind for an internet company in eight years.
With a financial crisis, VC money getting scarce and start-ups cutting jobs and costs, the funding is not only enormous, but counter-cyclical as well. Read more
Should Presidents micro-target?
There’s something that’s been bothering me about all the speculation over how a President Obama will use the Web.
There’s an assumption that the online techniques mastered during the campaign (from social networking to search-engine advertising) will in future be deployed to advance the issues promoted by the White House. Read more
Gore sets Obama a JFK challenge on energy
Barack Obama may have immediate economic problems to solve but former presidential candidate Al Gore urged him on Friday to make a priority of adopting a long-term plan to tackle climate change.
“I think that the president-elect should announce in January…a national goal of getting 100 percent of America’s electricity from renewable and non-carbon sources within 10 years,” he told the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
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