What to look for in Apple’s results
Some analysts are calling Apple’s first-quarter results, coming after the market closes on Wednesday, the iPhone maker’s most important in years.
The company’s stock price has tumbled by a quarter since September’s peak and October’s warning that profit margins would come under pressure from the near-simultaneous launch of the iPhone 5, iPad mini and other upgrades last autumn. Read more
When Steve Jobs unveiled the original iPhone six years ago this week, he did it not alongside the rest of the gadget world in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show, but at the Macworld event in San Francisco.
By 2013, Microsoft, Amazon and Google have all joined Apple in shunning CES. Yet even without the market’s leaders, mobile technology dominated CES 2013.
Meet Donghoon Chang: the Jony Ive of Samsung
Samsung has been at the International Consumer Electronics Show in force this week, but despite its massive booth, 64th-floor parties and flashy press conference, perhaps its most interesting event happened on the sidelines.
Two dozen reporters crammed in to a small meeting room on Tuesday afternoon to quiz a panel of Samsung’s top designers from Seoul.
Their appearance at CES follows Samsung’s $1bn defeat in patent litigation against Apple last summer, where a jury found nearly all of the accused Samsung smartphones to have infringed Apple’s iPhone designs.
This was never addressed directly; instead, the event was focused on Samsung’s new “design identity 3.0”, which aims to “make it meaningful” – and on driving home the Korean giant’s designer credentials. Read more
CES 2013 – Kickstarter’s $10m Pebble smart watch will finally ship this month
The Pebble smart watch, which raised a record $10m on Kickstarter last spring, will finally start shipping later this month after months of delays – albeit with a few missing features.
The device is one of several smart watches on display at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, including the voice-controlled Martian Watch, another Kickstarter project. Read more
CES 2013 – Ballmer and Big Bird bolster Qualcomm’s coming-out party
Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer made a surprise appearance at Qualcomm’s opening keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Monday night alongside Qualcomm’s Paul Jacobs.
With Microsoft a CES keynote staple for many years, the moment was choreographed as a symbolic passing of the torch to Qualcomm which – as the two chiefs chimed in unison – was “born mobile”. Read more
CES 2013 – Samsung’s TV-tablet continuum
Samsung’s big CES launch brought a new tablet-inspired user interface to its smart TVs, upgradable telly brains, a new 4G tablet, improvements to its connected camera line, HD laptops and a really big fridge.
After queues around the Mandalay Bay conference centre beforehand that matched Apple for hype and desperation, Samsung wants us to “discover the world of possibilities” and came with a generous helping of what it keeps calling “the wow”.
Here’s the blow-by-blow, as it happened: Read more
CESsentials 2013 – HAPIfork’s “smart” cutlery
We pick our highlights of the product unveilings, bringing you the essential news from the 2013 International CES in Las Vegas (January 6 -11).
What it is: HAPIlabs’ HAPIfork.
Key features: French outfit HAPIlabs has been showing off its “smart fork” at CES, in what appears to be the first example of connected cutlery. Read more
Taxi apps ready for New Year’s Eve surge
Taxi and ride-sharing apps such as Uber, Lyft and Sidecar are gearing up for one of the busiest nights of the year on Monday, hoping to raise prices, boost drivers’ income – and head off criticism from passengers and lawmakers for doing so.
Uber was given a rough ride by some customers after last New Year’s Eve, when they awoke not only with sore heads but lighter (digital) wallets due to the limo- and taxi-hire service’s “surge pricing”.
At times of peak demand, Uber pushes through price rises of up to four times as much as its regular fares, which are automatically charged to a credit card at the end of the journey.
Although it flagged the increases last year, some passengers – perhaps after a few drinks – failed to notice the warnings and ended up paying over $100 for short rides. Read more
The “Lovefilm mafia” goes global
The so-called PayPal mafia is a force to be reckoned with in Silicon Valley: Max Levchin joining the Yahoo board is just the latest example of a network that spans Facebook, YouTube, Yammer, LinkedIn, Square and – with Elon Musk’s SpaceX – the edge of the earth’s atmosphere.
In the British start-up world, the closest analogy is Lovefilm. The DVDs-by-post turned video-on-demand service was acquired by Amazon in January 2011, but even before that, had started the careers of many London tech-scene notables.
Now, Adam Valkin – a co-founder and sometime chief executive of Lovefilm, who went on to join TV producer Endemol and, three years ago, Accel Partners’ London office – is helping to take the Lovefilm mafia abroad. 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.
Older entries