Dropbox CEO Touts 150,000 Business Customers, Goes After Box
by Dina B & Brian W
Dropbox Inc. said it has 150,000 total business customers, in a bid to promote its position in an area where rivals are cutting into the cloud-storage provider’s lead.
The company added 50,000 paying business customers -- including News Corp. and Expedia Inc. -- in the past 10 months, Chief Executive Officer Drew Houston said at an event in San Francisco on Wednesday. He also announced a new product, called Dropbox Enterprise, targeted at large customers. Rival Box Inc., which held an initial public offering in January, has promoted itself as the top choice for large businesses.
Houston is bolstering efforts to woo more users amid growing competition in a crowded market that’s projected to reach almost $2 billion this year, according to IDC. Dropbox was No. 1 with a 24 percent share in 2014, followed by Microsoft Corp.’s 19 percent, the researcher said. Box Inc., Apple Inc. and Google rounded out the top five. Among business users, Dropbox has a slimmer lead with 22.7 percent, compared with Box’s 21.3 percent and Microsoft’s 21.1 percent, according to IDC
Houston took a jab at Box without naming the company, talking about how it has had to hire staff to sell to corporate customers, while Dropbox has been able to rely on its consumer users taking the product into their workplaces.
"One thing that always cracks me up is -- it’s kind of funny when people are like oh... Dropbox isn’t serious about business or we’re only about consumers when it’s really all the consumers that have brought us into all those businesses," Houston said.
- He also said Box has a total of 50,000 business customers, the same amount Dropbox added in 10 months. Box issued a statement before the Dropbox-hosted event to promote its own corporate bona fides, saying that it has 52 percent of the Fortune 500 as customers.
- "Dropbox has tried to play catch up to our enterprise product strategy for years, but serving millions of free consumer users is profoundly different from powering the world’s largest enterprises," Box said in the e-mailed statement.
- Dropbox Enterprise will have simplified tools for rolling the product out to thousands of users and will include collaboration features. Dropbox also said it will offer new mobile software for enterprise management in the first quarter.
- Dropbox’s paid business version lets users distinguish between personal and business documents and gives IT staff more control over the latter. The company was valued at $10 billion when it last raised venture funding.
support by ZATco & 20News
NO TEXT
Metrojet Plunged at 300 Miles Per Hour, Latest Data Shows
The Metrojet Airbus Group SE A321 carrying 224 people fell from 31,000 feet to 26,000 feet in the final 26 seconds, according to the final transmissions from its radio transponder reporting information to the ground.
by Alan L
- The Metrojet Airbus Group SE A321 carrying 224 people fell from 31,000 feet to 26,000 feet in the final 26 seconds, according to the final transmissions from its radio transponder reporting information to the ground.
- The new data is consistent with reports from Egyptian and Russian officials, who said that the plane came apart as it was flying at cruising altitude from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg. It also indicates that the plane’s direction of travel was wobbling from side to side, which would occur if it was coming apart.
- “The FightRadar24 information is better, but it is not yet anything that we can draw any conclusions from,” said John Cox, chief executive officer of Washington-based Safety Operating Systems, an aviation consultant.
- Several possible scenarios for the plane’s breakup remain, including a bomb or a structural failure, Cox said. At least partial answers should come soon, as officials in Egypt review the plane’s two crash-proof recording devices and teams have a chance to inspect the wreckage, he said.
Slowed Flight
- The plane dropped gradually at first and then more rapidly as its forward speed slowed, according to the new data. By the last transmission, it was moving forward at only 54 miles (87 kilometers) an hour, far below a normal flying speed.
- Raw data from the plane reported initially by FlightRadar24 suggested the aircraft was bucking up and down in its final seconds. The flight tracking firm says that altitude information appears to be unreliable.
- The newer information released Tuesday is based on global-positioning satellite data that the plane also transmitted, which the firm believes is more accurate, according to a posting on its website.
by Alan L
- Whatever happened aboard the Russian aircraft appeared to begin at 6:13 a.m. local time when what had been a steady climb switched suddenly to a descent, according to the data.
Data Change
“We see a change in the data” at that moment, Ian Petchenik, a spokesman for FlightRadar24, said in an interview. “But we have no information about the cause of that change.”
- In the seconds after that, readings from the plane generated by air pressure begin to become suspicious, according to the company. The plane appears to also change its heading, turning more than 20 degrees to the right, and then back onto its original northwesterly heading, if the data can be believed.
- Senator Dianne Feinstein, the vice chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said it’s possible that terrorism was involved in the crash.
“I’m one who believes you cannot rule it out,” Feinstein, a California Democrat, said in an interview in the U.S. Capitol. “We know we have a bomb that goes through magnetometers and can explode an airplane. So its a possibility.”
“Until you do the scientific testing on the skin of the plane and the interior plane, I think you don’t really know,” Feinstein said. “You can’t rule it out.”
Spy Chief
- On Monday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said there’s no immediate indication that the crash was the result of terrorism.
- John Goglia, a former airline mechanic who served on the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, said investigators may be taking a look at a 2001 repair to the Russian jet prompted by an accidental scraping of its tail during landing.
- Failures of those repairs are one of the few things known to cause the type of sudden midair breakup that occurred Saturday, he said.
support by ZATco & 20News
Chinese Film Studio to Invest $235 Million in Fox's Movie Slate
A major Chinese film studio has struck a deal that will funnel $235 million into a slate of six tentpole Twentieth Century Fox movies including this summer’s “The Martian,” as the Asian country’s burgeoning entertainment industry deepens its courtship of Hollywood.
by Edwin C & Anousha S
- The Bona Film Group Ltd., backed by billionaire Guo Guangchang, is one of China’s largest producers and distributors of film. It agreed to invest the sum in partnership with TSG Entertainment Finance, which picked out the movies, Peng Li, a Bona investor relations executive, said from Beijing on Thursday. TSG, headed by former Dune Capital executive Chip Seelig, has a longstanding film financing deal with Twentieth Century Fox, the film division of 21st Century Fox Inc.
- Chinese companies have in the past year begun investing in highly visible Hollywood productions to deepen their understanding of movie-making for a worldwide audience.
by Edwin C & Anousha S
- More than a half-dozen deals have been struck. A unit of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. backed the latest installment of Paramount Pictures’ “Mission Impossible” starring Tom Cruise. A Dalian Wanda Group Co. subsidiary footed the costs for “Southpaw,” headlined by Jake Gyllenhaal. And Huayi Brothers Media Corp. has a financing deal in place with startup studio STX Entertainment, which debuted with “The Gift.”
- The courtship extends both ways. Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. struck a deal with China Media Capital to begin producing films locally.
- Hollywood studios are seeking to expand in a country that is expected to become the world’s biggest market for film entertainment even as its economy slows. Bona Film Chief Executive Yu Dong said this month he expected China to become the world’s largest film market by 2018. Last year, box office receipts surged 34 percent to $4.8 billion, while the U.S.-Canada total shrank 5 percent to $10.4 billion.
- Bona Film’s investment was first reported by Variety. Fox’s “The Martian” has been number one at the North American box office for four of the last five weeks and has grossed $435 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.
support by ZATco & 20News
Amazon Building New Data Centers in South Korea for Cloud Unit
Amazon.com Inc. in 2016 will open a new cluster of data centers in South Korea, as the Web retailer pushes deeper into Asia to compete with other cloud-computing providers such as Microsoft Corp. and Google.
by Spencer S & Jack C
- The facilities are for the machines that power Amazon Web Services, the business that rents data storage and computing power to other companies, rather than its online retail operations. They are being built in response to requests from customers, including Samsung Electronics Co. and various gaming companies, Seattle-based Amazon announced Wednesday. The data centers will also let Amazon serve new clients, including government agencies and large enterprises that need to keep data exclusively in South Korea.
- Some nations mandate that certain data, such as health records, can’t leave their country of origin, prohibiting cloud providers without data centers located in those countries from certain kinds of business. Proximity to customers also decreases response times for those running Internet-based cloud applications.
- Amazon’s cloud-computing division serves customers such as Pinterest Inc. and Netflix Inc. South Korea will be the fifth AWS region in Asia, and Amazon has committed to building a second cluster of data centers in China and is also planning one in India. The company will have 12 data regions worldwide when South Korea is built in early 2016.
Amazon didn’t disclose the size of its investment.
NO TEXT
Bomb-Plot Suspicion Becomes Top Theory in Crash of Egypt Jet
U.S. and U.K. officials are now increasingly focused on the idea that a bomb brought down the Russian jetliner that crashed in Egypt, possibly with the help of an insider who was paid off.
“We have concluded there is a significant possibility that the crash was caused by an explosive device on board the aircraft,” U.K. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Wednesday after Prime Minister David Cameron concluded a meeting of his government’s emergency committee.
by Robert H, Alan L & Chris S
- Three U.S. officials speaking on condition of anonymity said terrorism was now the leading theory in the case. Preliminary evidence suggested Islamic State involvement and investigators were examining the prospect that someone -- perhaps a baggage handler or airline official -- was bribed to get a bomb onto the Metrojet airliner, two of the officials said. Other possibilities haven’t been ruled out, the officials said.
- The emerging focus on a bomb followed claims by people purporting to represent the Islamic State militants Russia is fighting in Syria who said the jet was downed in retaliation. The U.K. issued an advisory against all but essential travel to or from Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh airport, where the doomed plane took off Saturday, and Irish regulators ordered Ireland-based airlines not to fly to the Red Sea resort or the the Sinai Peninsula until further notice.
- United Continental Holdings Inc. said it’s rerouting flights away from Sinai, going beyond an existing advisory from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration for carriers not to fly below 26,000 feet (7,900 meters) in that part of the Middle East due to security concerns. None of the U.S.-based international airlines serves Egyptian markets.
- Other governments -- including Russia’s -- warned that any conclusions are premature and that a structural failure or other cause could explain how the Airbus Group SE A321 broke into pieces and fell to the desert, killing all 224 aboard for the flight to St. Petersburg, Russia. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry called the U.K. government statement “premature and unwarranted,” according to the BBC.
“Only investigators can have theories,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said by text message. “Everyone has guesses and speculation.”
- While the State Department warned employees to avoid the Sinai peninsula, spokesman John Kirby said it was too soon to conclude terrorists destroyed the Metrojet aircraft. “We’re not in a position to make a call right now,” he said. “We don’t know what brought this plane down.”
by Robert H, Alan L & Chris S
Downed Aircraft
- Confirmation of a bombing would add the jet to a roster of aircraft from multiple countries to have been blown up in flight. The most recent incidents came in 2004, when two Russian passenger aircraft were destroyed in explosions linked to Chechen rebels, according to Richard Bloom, director of terrorism, intelligence and security at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona.
“I’ve been worrying about this,” said Hans Weber, an aviation-security specialist and president of consultant Tecop International.
- Airport X-ray systems can differentiate between metal and organic material, but inspectors must still hunt for other tell-tale clues such as detonators, wires and batteries, Weber said.
Non-Metal Devices
- Michael McCaul, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, said the Khorasan group, made up of al-Qaeda members operating in Syria, has been developing non-metallic improvised explosive devices that can avoid screening technology.
“One of my concerns about the Russian plane, given the Russian activity now in Syria, is that it possibly could have been one of these non-metallic IEDs,” McCaul said in an interview. “You can’t rule that out at this point in time.”
- Recent terrorist efforts to destroy aircraft were notable for their failures. In 2006, U.K. police said they foiled a plot to knock down trans-Atlantic jetliners with liquid explosives, and in 2009 passengers on a Delta jet stopped the so-called underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, from destroying a plane en route to Detroit.
- Less than a year later, authorities intercepted two packages containing the explosive PETN that were sent from Yemen to synagogues in Chicago via airfreight.
Tightened Security
- Anthony Skinner, an analyst with U.K.-based forecasting company Verisk Maplecroft, said evidence of Islamic State involvement in the crash would result in stepped-up efforts to fight Islamist groups and further tighten airport security.
“If we are not talking a surface-to-air missile attack, then an onboard aircraft bombing would represent a really serious breach of airport security,” Skinner said. “Heads would roll.”
- Revised data covering the Metrojet’s final moments show that it slowed suddenly and then plunged to the Earth at 300 miles (483 kilometers) per hour, according to flight-tracking website FlightRadar24. The plane fell from 31,000 feet to 26,000 feet in the final 26 seconds, according to the final transmissions from its radio transponder.
support by ZATco & 20News
Qualcomm Forecasts Show Struggle for License Deals in China
Qualcomm Inc.’s forecast for quarterly sales and profit fell short of some analysts’ estimates, underscoring the chipmaker’s struggle to collect technology-licensing fees for smartphones sold in China.
The company said it’s facing tough negotiating tactics at phone makers in the world’s most populous nation, as some companies there withhold payments and stop reporting shipments in an attempt to secure better terms. That led to the weaker outlook for the company’s licensing business, its most profitable, sending shares down as much as 6.7 percent in extended trading.
by Ian K
- While the chipmaker said it’s seeing better-than-expected demand from one of its largest customers for parts used in cheaper handsets, Qualcomm gets about 60 percent of its operating income from licensing its mobile technology. That high-margin business fuels research and development in chips and enables the company to outpace most rivals in bringing new features to phones. The fallout from an antitrust investigation by Chinese regulators, settled earlier this year, is still hampering Qualcomm’s efforts to collect patent royalties and fully benefit from growth in the world’s largest mobile-phone market.
“You should read this as just a delay in signing up people, not a change to the overall capability of us to go after that market,” Chief Executive Officer Steve Mollenkopf said. “The fourth quarter came in at the high end of expectations, driven by higher demand for chipsets than we had thought.”
China Settlement
- In February, China’s National Development and Reform Commission, which had been investigating Qualcomm for antitrust violations, announced a settlement under which Qualcomm paid a fine and agreed to reduced royalty rates for phones sold for use in China. That freed Qualcomm to sign new accords in country and and pursue handset makers that had been underpaying for licenses or holding out on fees entirely.
- Qualcomm is preparing to step up its efforts -- including possible legal action -- against some of the Chinese holdouts and expects to get paid in full eventually, President Derek Aberle said.
- Net income in the period that ends in December will be 80 cents to 90 cents a share on revenue of $5.2 billion to $6 billion, Qualcomm said Wednesday in a statement. On average, analysts had projected earnings of 86 cents on sales of $5.76 billion.
- Qualcomm shares have dropped 19 percent this year, compared with a 1.9 percent decline in the benchmark Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index. They slipped as low as $56.25 in late trading following the earnings report, after earlier closing down 1 percent at $60.26 in New York trading.
Growth in Check
- In the fiscal fourth quarter, which ended Sept. 27, Qualcomm’s net income fell to $1.1 billion, or 67 cents a share. Sales slid 18 percent to $5.46 billion. Analysts on average predicted earnings of 62 cents on revenue of $5.21 billion.
- Qualcomm’s rise up the ranks of semiconductor makers -- its revenue has more than doubled since 2010 -- has been checked by moves by the biggest handset makers to lessen their reliance on its products. The company’s annual sales fell in fiscal 2015 for the first time since 2009, after averaging more than 20 percent growth since 2010.
by Ian K
- The company’s chip business has been squeezed by a slowdown in the broader smartphone market, where the top two providers -- Apple and Samsung Electronics Co. -- are increasingly using their own components rather than buying from Qualcomm. As Apple and Samsung post sales gains with new phones that don’t use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors, smaller providers that use the chip are shipping fewer phones.
“Once Apple went to the larger screen, they’ve started to dominate the high end of the market, and Samsung’s been quite aggressive and has a better phone than last year,” said Mike Walkley, an analyst at Canaccord Genuity Inc. “The other camp, which happens to be Qualcomm’s core Snapdragon customers, is sick to dying.”
- Apple’s iPhone, which gained a couple of points of market share in the third quarter, uses a Qualcomm radio chip but not its more expensive Snapdragon processor. Samsung, still the leading phone maker worldwide, has also been increasingly using its own silicon in its Galaxy line of devices.
- A new chip, the Snapdragon 820, will help make Qualcomm’s products more competitive and start to improve its share of the phone-chip market in the second half of calendar 2016, Mollenkopf said. He said his company’s relationship with Samsung is getting better, not worse.
Smartphone Growth
- Samsung and Apple had a combined 37 percent of the market for smartphones worldwide in the calendar third quarter, according to IDC. Smartphone shipments overall rose 6.8 percent, less than the researcher had forecast. That’s about half the rate of the preceding three-month period, and compares with a 28 percent surge in 2014.
- San Diego, California-based Qualcomm is also facing challenges from regulators around the world to its licensing business, which pulls in profit by charging phone makers for use of patents on cellular technology -- regardless of whether they use Qualcomm chips. The European Union and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission are investigating the company following the antitrust ruling against Qualcomm in China.
Chip Shipments
- Underlying the difficulties its chip division is facing, chip shipments totaled 203 million in the recent quarter, down 14 percent from a year earlier, Qualcomm said. Still, that exceeded the company’s projections as a large customer ordered more parts for middle-market and low-end handsets, Mollenkopf said.
- Qualcomm remains positive about broader smartphone demand and expects growth to be at a percentage in the double digits for calendar 2016, Aberle said.
- Investors are still waiting for Qualcomm management’s full response to its change in fortunes. In July, the company unveiled plans to cut its workforce by 15 percent, shook up its board membership and is said it was reviewing strategic alternatives, including a breakup. The moves, including planned cost reductions of $1.4 billion, came under pressure from activist hedge fund Jana Partners LLC.
support by ZATco & 20News
VW CEO Vows Thorough Investigation of Emissions Crisis
Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Officer Matthias Mueller last week declared it was time to make the company “more fun to work for,” then on Saturday he headed to the Leipzig Opera Ball -- where he was photographed smiling in a tuxedo, with a bottle of champagne on the table and his arm around a former tennis star.
That evening, the automaker said some gasoline cars and more diesels beyond the ones already under scrutiny had worse-than-reported emissions of carbon dioxide. The revelation, which came six weeks into the crisis, sent its stock down 9.5 percent Wednesday. VW’s supervisory board issued a sharply worded statement saying it was “deeply concerned” and would meet soon to consult on “further measures and consequences.”
by Christoph R
- Because CO2 can’t be filtered out like diesel emissions, “in a way it’s a bigger issue,” Philippe Houchois, an analyst with UBS Group AG, said on Bloomberg TV. “It seems like the board itself is getting into a higher level of emergency.”
- Volkswagen said an internal probe showed 800,000 cars had “unexplained inconsistencies” in their CO2 output, a key measure of fuel efficiency and the basis for taxation and emissions regulation in Europe. That adds to the 11 million diesel cars the company had earlier said would be recalled to fix emissions systems. VW estimated the new finding means it will need to add 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) to the 6.7 billion euros already set aside to repair dirty diesels.
‘Stop at Nothing’
- The latest revelations step up the pressure on Mueller, who was appointed just five weeks ago to steer the company through widening investigations into its cheating on emissions testing. The revelations came a day after VW rejected claims by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that it had also cheated on emissions in vehicles made by Porsche -- the brand Mueller headed before taking over the top job.
“From the very start I have pushed hard for the relentless and comprehensive clarification of events,” Mueller said in an e-mailed statement late Tuesday. “We will stop at nothing and nobody.”
- Fraser Hill, an analyst at Merrill Lynch in London, cut his price estimate for VW shares, saying the widening scandal risked further tarnishing the company’s image with consumers.Alexander Haissl, an analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG in London, said the latest revelations -- just a week after VW released earnings that appeared to show it had the crisis under control -- raised concerns about whether management really knows what’s going on deep in the company.
“The key question remains if there are any further disclosures to be made,” Haissl said in a note to investors. “We see Volkswagen’s credibility further deteriorating.’’
Share Drop
- VW’s shares dropped to 100.45 euros, 38 percent below their pre-crisis level. The company has lost 24 billion euros in value since the scandal became public on Sept. 18. Its bonds also fell on Wednesday, while credit-default swaps insuring Volkswagen’s debt jumped, Bloomberg data show.
by Christoph R
- The latest issues affect Volkswagen’s Polo, Golf and Passat models, Audi’s subcompact A1 and A3 hatchback, the Skoda Octavia, and the Seat Ibiza and Leon, with most in Europe. While smaller diesel motors account for the vast majority of affected cars, a specific type of 1.4-liter gasoline engine is also involved, the company said. Germany’s Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt said that 98,000 gasoline cars are affected.
- The 3.0-liter diesel motors targeted on Monday by the EPA probe aren’t part of the latest company finding. Volkswagen rebuffed allegations that its cheating on diesel-emissions tests included the Porsche Cayenne and VW Touareg sport utility vehicles and as well as larger sedans and the Q5 SUV from Audi, setting up a showdown with U.S. officials.
“You’re fighting against the biggest regulator in the world,” Arndt Ellinghorst, an analyst with Evercore ISI in London, said on Bloomberg TV. “This can get pretty ugly.” The Porsche, VW and Audi brands have voluntarily stopped the sale of the targeted vehicles in the U.S.
‘Painful Process’
- Mueller, who was dancing in Leipzig with former professional tennis player Barbara Rittner, has vowed to carry out a comprehensive investigation and pledged to overhaul the company’s autocratic culture. He says must become more transparent to ensure the similar mistakes don’t happen again.
“This is a painful process, but it is our only alternative,” Mueller said. “For us, the only thing that counts is the truth.”
support by ZATco & 20News
Steve Jobs Considered Building an Apple Car in 2008
Count Steve Jobs among those curious about what an Apple car would look like. In 2008, not too long after the Apple co-founder introduced the iPhone, Jobs was considering the possibilities of a much bigger gadget. Tony Fadell, then a senior vice president at Apple, remembers talking with Jobs about the potential for an iCar.
Jobs and Fadell, who had collaborated on the iPod and iPhone, swapped ideas about car designs on multiple occasions. "We had a couple of walks," Fadell said in an interview with Bloomberg's Emily Chang. The pair posed hypothetical questions to each other, such as: "If we were to build a car, what would we build? What would a dashboard be? And what would this be? What would seats be? How would you fuel it or power it?"
by Adam S
- Jobs decided not to move forward at the time. The discussions took place when the American auto industry was on the verge of collapse, and Apple was busy trying to establish the iPhone as a mainstream product. "The Detroit auto industry was almost dead," Fadell made the comments on Bloomberg TV's Studio 1.0, which premieres Wednesday night at 9 p.m. in New York. "It was fun to kick those ideas around."
- Since Jobs's death in 2011, Detroit has rebounded, and Apple—not unlike Silicon Valley compatriots Uber and Google parent company Alphabet—has pushed closer than ever to releasing a vehicle. The company has been building a team of hundreds, including engineers and experts in battery and robotics technology, to design a car that could go into production by 2020, people with knowledge of the matter said in February. With more than $200 billion in cash and investments on its balance sheet, Apple certainly has the resources to build a car (and a spaceship).
- As Fadell points out, phones and cars aren't that different. "A car has batteries; it has a computer; it has a motor; and it has mechanical structure. If you look at an iPhone, it has all the same things. It even has a motor in it," said Fadell, who's now the chief executive officer of Alphabet's Nest home appliances company. "But the hard stuff is really on the connectivity and how cars could be self-driving."
by Adam S
- The idea for a car had been bouncing around Apple even before 2008. Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of marketing, said in 2012 court testimony that executives discussed building a car even before it released the iPhone in 2007. Mickey Drexler, a former Apple board member and head of J.Crew Group, also said in 2012 that Jobs had wanted to build a car.
- Jobs, who drove a Mercedes, said "no" to a lot of projects, according to Fadell, who said he doesn't have firsthand knowledge of Apple's car plans. Cameras and televisions were other products the company had considered but ultimately avoided in favor of the iPhone, he said. "At the end of the day, what was the biggest one that had the biggest dramatic impact on the world?" Fadell said. "We said, 'OK, we're going to focus our energy on that. Forget all this other stuff.'"
- Years later, the auto industry is still ripe for a tech overhaul. Fadell said it's "early days" in the evolution of the car, especially for mass adoption of electric vehicles. He said Silicon Valley views software as its biggest advantage in a bid to upend the auto industry. "I think you're going to see some dramatic changes in the way we think about these cars and the accessibility in terms of the price points," Fadell said. "But we're still seven to 10 years away from a mass switch-over." When you consider that the iPhone came out eight years ago, a lot can happen in that time.
support by ZATco & 20News
Jet.com to Raise Funds Valuing the Amazon Rival at $1.5 Billion
Jet.com, the much-hyped Amazon.com competitor, is close to raising $500 million to $550 million in a funding round led by Fidelity Investments, according to a person familiar with the plans. The investment would give the year-old online shopping startup a valuation of at least $1.5 billion, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the deal isn't finalized.
by Eric N & Spencer S
- Founded by a former Amazon executive, Jet is aggressively trying to undercut its chief rival’s prices and attract customers quickly. To achieve that goal, it had raised $220 million before selling a single product and abandoned its subscription membership fee a few months after opening its doors in July.
- Jet is attracting a loyal following by offering customers unique ways to save on orders, including discounts for paying with a debit card or waiving their right to return products they buy, said Scot Wingo, chairman of ChannelAdvisor. Customers can also amass savings by loading up their carts with more items, which minimizes the number of shipments.
"They are growing very rapidly," said Wingo, whose firm helps stores sell online. "Some consumers want more control. They are willing to give something to get something."
- Fidelity is expected to invest $100 million in the latest round, which values the company at $1 billion before the cash infusion, the person familiar with the plans said. Jet spokeswoman Meghan Chisholm and Fidelity spokesman Charles Keller declined to comment.
- Fortune reported the fundraising talks earlier on Wednesday. The Wall Street Journal, which also covered the investment, had reported in July that Jet was in discussions to raise money at a $3 billion valuation.
- Jet faces a big test as the company enters its first holiday shopping season. U.S. e-commerce sales in November and December are expected to reach $79.4 billion, up 13.9 percent from last year, according to eMarketer.
support by ZATco & 20News
NO TEXT
Toyota Motor to Buy Back Shares as Quarterly Profit Rises 13%
Toyota Motor Corp. reported profit rose 13 percent in the second quarter and announced a share buyback, as a weaker yen added to earnings momentum ahead of an overhaul of its product lineup starting with the new Prius hybrid.
by Craig T & Yuki H
- Net income in the three months through September climbed to 611.7 billion yen ($5 billion), in line with the 611.1 billion yen average of nine analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Toyota maintained its full-year profit forecast at a record 2.25 trillion yen. The company will buy back up to 0.72 percent of shares for as much as 150 billion yen, according to a statement.
- Japan’s dominant automaker overcame weak domestic demand to reclaim its position as the world’s top-selling carmaker. As Volkswagen AG stumbled and faces a global emissions scandal, President Akio Toyoda is embarking on a revamp of Toyota’s lineup. The new Prius hybrid will start a shift for half of Toyota’s models to cheaper platforms that share more common parts by the end of the decade.
“The Prius can move the needle for Toyota,” Steve Man, an auto-industry analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence in Hong Kong, said before the earnings announcement. “Everybody’s bringing hybrids, electric vehicles or a combination of those, so they need to be at the forefront.”
Toyota cut its global sales target to 10 million units from 10.15 million units.
support by ZATco & 20News
NO TEXT
There's a Hole in the Sun That's Going to Make the Skies Dazzle
The sun’s about to spit charged particles our way. And that solar wind of protons and electrons will interact with the Earth’s magnetic field to light up the skies with a dazzling display of color through Wednesday.
Get ready for a light show.
- The solar wind coming out of a hole on the sun will almost certainly spark an aurora that may be seen by millions of people. The hole contains less material than other parts of the sun, allowing the wind to flow outward much faster than normal -- “more than two and a half times” faster, according to Robert Rutledge, a forecaster at the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.
- People across large parts of Asia, Europe and North America should be able to catch the aurora. Those as far south as Illinois in the U.S. may count themselves lucky.
- A satellite on the far side of the sun recorded a wind speed of about 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) per second from this hole, and it’s possible that may be what the Earth gets, Rutledge said.
Get ready for a light show.
Third Time
- This is the third time this particular hole has faced the Earth. It isn’t clear exactly when the wind will produce its greatest impact, but the center issued an advisory for a G-3 storm Monday and another one for Tuesday. The Met Office, the U.K.’s national weather service, issued a similar forecast.
- G-3 is the mid-point on a five-step scale of geomagnetic storms. It’s considered “strong” and may cause problems with satellite navigation, create drag on low-Earth orbiting space crafts and force utilities to make voltage corrections. There are also solar radiation and radio blackout scales, neither of which apply in this case.
- The storm coming our way isn’t forecast to cause major problems. The hole and the stronger solar wind is not a coronal-mass ejection: an explosion of magnetic fields and plasma from the sun’s atmosphere that can have severe consequences for utilities, air traffic and astronauts.
400 Kilometers
“It is a far cry from the big, big erupted events,” Rutledge said. “But it is interesting nonetheless.”
- There is always a solar wind blowing at about 400 kilometers per second from the sun, he added. It causes comet tails to point away from our nearest star as they enter into the inner solar system.
- Exactly how long this latest light show will last is hard to to pin down, as the hole was late in returning and appears to be smaller than it was the last time it faced the Earth. The smaller size is probably an indication that it’s closing up.
So get away from the bright lights of a city and enjoy the show while you still can.
support by ZATco & 20News
