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| Alibaba buys ChinaVision stake for $804 million; gains TV, movie content Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 07:56 PM PDT  China's largest e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding has agreed to buy a controlling stake in ChinaVision Media Group Ltd for $804 million, giving it access to TV and movie content as competition in the world's biggest Internet market becomes increasingly cutthroat. The pact, which sent ChinaVision's stock surging, comes amid a flurry of deals as Alibaba, social media giant Tencent Holdings Ltd and search engine Baidu Inc seek to expand into each other's turf. This week Tencent said it was taking a stake in China's No. 2 online retailer JD.com, with the new partnership gunning for Alibaba's Achilles heel - its weakness in mobile. ChinaVision and Alibaba said they will establish a strategic committee to explore future opportunities in online entertainment and media-related areas. Full Story | Top |
| SoftBank CEO says Sprint could shake up U.S. 'oligopoly' Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 07:38 PM PDT  By Alina Selyukh WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chief executive officer of Japan's SoftBank Corp on Tuesday called the U.S. wireless market an oligopoly plagued by slow speeds and high prices and said his company's Sprint Corp could shake up the competition, but it would require a scale that Sprint cannot reach alone. Masayoshi Son, the billionaire CEO of SoftBank, in his first public speech to a U.S. audience since his company gained control of Sprint last year, lambasted the U.S. wireless market as offering "pseudo-competition." Son did not directly speak about his efforts to engineer a merger of Sprint and T-Mobile US Inc, the No. 3 and No. 4 U.S. wireless carriers, but told reporters he hoped to meet again sometime with U.S. regulators, who so far have given a cold shoulder to such a deal. Full Story | Top |
| Hong Kong's ChinaVision stock set to soar after Alibaba buys control Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 06:31 PM PDT HONG KONG (Reuters) - Shares of ChinaVision Media Group Ltd are set to open up 290 percent after China's largest e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding agreed to buy a controlling stake in the Hong Kong-listed television program services supplier. Shares of ChinaVision, which were suspended on February 25 and resumed trading on Wednesday, are set to open at HK$2.50 per share, compared with its previous close of HK$0.64 per share. That compares with 1.1 percent fall indicated for the benchmark Hang Seng Index. A unit of Alibaba has agreed to buy 12. ... Full Story | Top |
| Microsoft appoints activist investor Mason Morfit to board Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 04:32 PM PDT  SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said on Tuesday it appointed Mason Morfit, president of activist investor ValueAct Capital, as a board member. The world's largest software company offered Morfit a board seat in August, following months of lobbying by ValueAct for a say on how Microsoft is run. Under the agreement struck last summer, Morfit had the option of joining the board at the first quarterly board meeting after November's annual shareholder meeting. ValueAct bought a $2 billion stake in Microsoft last April and immediately began agitating for change. ... Full Story | Top |
| U.S. swaps watchdog says considering bitcoin regulation Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 03:26 PM PDT  Boca Raton, Florida (Reuters) - The U.S. derivatives regulator is studying whether it should regulate electronic currencies such as bitcoin, its chief said on Tuesday, as regulators across the globe start taking the emerging technology more seriously. "We are looking into that," Mark Wetjen, acting chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, told journalists after giving a speech at an industry conference. "It's been initiated, there's been an internal discussion at the staff level." Bitcoin, the best-known virtual currency, has been promoted by many enthusiasts because of the way it operates outside government control. Full Story | Top |
| Activision CEO Kotick gets $7.9 million cash bonus for 2013 Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 02:46 PM PDT  Activision Blizzard Inc's chief executive, Robert Kotick, was awarded a cash bonus of $7.9 million for 2013 as part of the videogame publisher's incentive plan, according to a regulatory filing on Tuesday. Kotick, 50, is one of the top-paid CEOs in the United States. Kotick has been a director and CEO of Activision since February 1991, and in July 2008 he became CEO of Activision Blizzard following the merger of Activision with Vivendi Games. Kotick, also a board member of Coca-Cola Co, was paid $8.33 million in 2011 by Santa Monica, California-based Activision. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. judge freezes assets of Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange boss Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 02:19 PM PDT  By Tom Hals (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge on Tuesday temporarily froze the U.S. assets of Mt. Gox chief Mark Karpeles and allowed alleged victims of the shuttered bitcoin exchange to demand evidence of what they claim is a massive fraud. The market for the digital currency was rocked last month when Mt. Gox, once the world's largest bitcoin exchange, ceased operations, and soon after filed for bankruptcy. Mt. Gox said it may have lost 750,000 bitcoins, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, in a hacking attack. ... Full Story | Top |
| Texas regulator orders oil company to stop accepting bitcoins Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 02:02 PM PDT A state securities regulator has ordered an exploration and production company to stop accepting bitcoins as payment for investments in its Texas oil wells. Texas Securities Commissioner John Morgan entered an emergency order on Monday against tiny Balanced Energy LLC, which claimed it was the first energy company to accept the virtual currency, according to the regulator. "The price of digital currency is subject to extreme swings, which could affect the amount of money available for business operations," the regulator said in a statement. Bitcoin is a digital currency that, unlike conventional money, is bought and sold on a peer-to-peer network that lacks central control. Full Story | Top |
| Beware Bitcoin: U.S. brokerage regulator Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 02:02 PM PDT  Bitcoin can expose people to significant losses, fraud and theft, and the lure of a potential quick profit should not blind investors to the virtual currency's significant risks, a brokerage industry watchdog warned on Tuesday. In an investor alert titled "Bitcoin: More than a Bit Risky," the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) said recent events such as the bankruptcy of Bitcoin exchange operator Mt. Gox have spotlighted some of the currency's risks. "Speculators drawn to bitcoin trading should understand that bitcoin prices have fluctuated widely, and wildly," said Gerri Walsh, FINRA's vice president for investor education. The market for the currency was rocked last month when Mt. Gox, once the world's largest bitcoin exchange, ceased operations, and soon after filed for bankruptcy in Japan and the United States. Full Story | Top |
| Twitter crashes second time in nine days, blames software glitch Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 01:59 PM PDT  By Jim Finkle and Gerry Shih BOSTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Twitter Inc crashed on Tuesday for the second time in nine days when a software glitch stalled the popular messaging service for about one hour. The company apologized to its 250 million users in a status blog, saying it had encountered "unexpected complications" during "a planned deploy in one of our core services." The outage began around 11 a.m. Pacific time and service had "fully recovered" by 11:47 a.m., the San Francisco-based company said. The stock rose as much as 3.7 percent before Twitter confirmed the glitch, but gave up most of the gains to end 0.25 percent higher. The outage occurred just as Twitter co-founder Biz Stone took the stage in Austin, Texas, to speak at the South by Southwest Interactive festival, the annual gathering of tech enthusiasts that helped propel Twitter to national fame in 2007. Full Story | Top |
| Obama's NSA nominee aims to build trust in beleaguered spy agency Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 12:44 PM PDT  By Patricia Zengerle and Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's pick to lead the National Security Agency pledged on Tuesday to look for ways to build confidence in the beleaguered spy agency and, in a possible shift, stopped short of calling former contractor Edward Snowden a traitor. Vice Admiral Michael Rogers, now the Navy's top cyber warrior, was cautious during often terse exchanges at a Senate hearing on his confirmation to also lead the U.S. Cyber Command that saw critics and supporters prod him about the NSA's bulk collection of phone records, a program exposed by Snowden. Rogers spoke about the need for NSA transparency and accountability. But he did not signal a departure from the kinds of reforms already announced by President Barack Obama, including moving storage of telephone metadata - records of U.S. phone calls, their length and time - out of government hands. Full Story | Top |
| NSA nominee backs protection for companies in any cyber law Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 11:10 AM PDT  President Barack Obama's nominee to head the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command said on Tuesday liability protection for corporations that share information with intelligence agencies is crucial in any new U.S. cybersecurity legislation. "My sense is it's a critical element in any legislation," the nominee, Vice Admiral Michael Rogers, said at his confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee. "I believe to be successful, we ultimately have to provide the corporate partners that we would share information with some level of liability protection," he said. Rogers said companies would be "much less inclined" to share information with the intelligence community without blanket liability protection. Full Story | Top |
| Social media tools maker Jive trying to sell itself: tech blog Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 10:34 AM PDT (Reuters) - Shares in Jive Software Inc, a maker of social media tools for companies, rose 7 percent after a technology blog reported that the company has been seeking a buyer for months. Jive has hired Qatalyst Partners, the investment bank led by Silicon Valley dealmaker Frank Quattrone, to find a buyer, the blog Re/Code reported, citing sources. Full Story | Top |
| Startups jostle for funding, attention at South by Southwest Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 09:33 AM PDT  By Sarah McBride AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Entrepreneur P.K. Fields was delighted when she won a contest and a chance to pitch her Los Angeles-based startup to a venture capitalist. So delighted, she dropped everything and flew 1,400 miles on her own dime to the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas, for just 20 minutes alone with angel investor Dave McClure as he was driven around town in a tiny red-and-black electric BMW i3. Fields is emblematic of the thousands of entrepreneurs who converge on Austin each year, hoping to rub shoulders with venture capitalists and win funding for their companies amid the current startup boom. But that convenience comes with a price: The growing volume of startups today at South by Southwest, or SXSW as many call it, engulfs both the startups and their audience. Full Story | Top |
| Israel's LabStyle launches mobile phone blood sugar monitor Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 09:15 AM PDT JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli start-up LabStyle Innovations Corp on Tuesday launched a mobile-phone glucose meter for diabetics to monitor their blood sugar levels. Called Dario, the meter plugs directly into a smartphone and has a software application that gives real time recording and analysis of blood sugar readings. The product is initially being launched in New Zealand, Italy, Australia and the United Kingdom. It will at first be available for Apple's iOS and later for Google's Android platform. ... Full Story | Top |
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