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| China central bank orders halt to online payments using QR codes Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 08:41 PM PDT  HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) - China's central bank has ordered online payment units of dotcom giants Alibaba and Tencent to stop processing online payments using QR codes, the two companies said on Friday. Alipay is the online payment unit of Alibaba Small and Micro Financial Services Group, an affiliate of Alibaba Group Ltd. The online payment unit of Tencent Holdings Ltd is called Caifutong. Alipay and Caifutong confirmed to Reuters that they had received such notice from the central bank. The central bank did not immediately respond to requests for comment. ... Full Story | Top |
| Toshiba, SanDisk sue Hynix over suspected flash memory technology leak Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 07:40 PM PDT  By Chang-Ran Kim and Miyoung Kim TOKYO (Reuters) - Partners Toshiba Corp of Japan and SanDisk Corp of the United States separately filed civil lawsuits against South Korea's SK Hynix Inc, seeking damages over the suspected theft of data related to their flagship flash memory chip technology used in smartphones and tablet computers. SK Hynix said on Friday it had not yet received the litigation and had no comment to make. Hynix competes with both Toshiba and SanDisk, partners in flash memory technology for nearly 15 years, in supplying chips to device makers. The moves follow the arrest by Tokyo police on Thursday of a former SanDisk engineer suspected of improperly providing technical data to Hynix, where he later worked. Full Story | Top |
| Exclusive: Charterhouse in the lead to buy Skillsoft - sources Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 04:35 PM PDT By Soyoung Kim, Greg Roumeliotis and Nadia Damouni NEW YORK (Reuters) - European buyout firm Charterhouse Capital Partners LLP is nearing a deal to acquire education software provider Skillsoft Ltd for more than $2 billion, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday. The deal, which is expected to be announced in the coming days, will likely value Skillsoft at around $2.3 billion, including debt, one of the people said. This would mean that Skillsoft's current private equity owners - Berkshire Partners LLC, Advent International Corp and Bain Capital LLC - stand to make around three times their money on the sale of the company, that person added. Charterhouse emerged as the lead contender for Skillsoft following an auction that also drew a binding bid from Providence Equity Partners LLC, the people said, asking not to be identified because the negotiations are private. Full Story | Top |
| Amazon plans Prime fee hike by $20, risks consumer wrath Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 04:20 PM PDT  Amazon.com Inc plans to hike the annual fee for its popular Prime service by 25 percent to $99 starting next week, a move announced on Thursday that risks losing customers for a feature that has helped drive its business. The increase comes about six weeks after Amazon warned that it may raise prices by as much as $40 to offset rising fuel and shipping costs. Later on Thursday, Amazon rival ShopRunner offered a free one-year membership to its own $79-a-year service to disgruntled Prime users who have not renewed their subscription at the higher rate. But it may temper Amazon's ability to attract new customers to Prime, seen as instrumental to boosting purchases of goods and digital media. Full Story | Top |
| Mexico likely to present telecoms reform fine print Friday: lawmaker Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 03:38 PM PDT  Mexico's government may send to the Senate as soon as Friday so-called secondary laws that lay out the fine print of a reform aimed at boosting competition in the telecommunications sector, a top lawmaker said on Thursday. The secondary laws will flesh out a constitutional overhaul approved last year to open up the country's phone and TV industries, which are dominated by billionaire Carlos Slim's America Movil and the country's No. 1 broadcaster, Televisa. "It's very likely tomorrow the telecommunications secondary laws reach the Senate," Emilio Gamboa, Senate leader for the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party told local radio. Full Story | Top |
| Facebook CEO Zuckerberg phoned Obama to complain about spying Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 02:23 PM PDT  By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg blasted the U.S. government's electronic surveillance practices on Thursday, saying he'd personally called President Barack Obama to voice his displeasure. "When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're protecting you against criminals, not our own government," Zuckerberg said in a post on his personal Facebook page. "I've called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future. Unfortunately, it seems like it will take a very long time for true full reform," the 29-year-old Zuckerberg continued. Full Story | Top |
| Target declined to act on early alert of cyber breach Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 02:19 PM PDT  By Jim Finkle and Susan Heavey BOSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Target Corp's security software detected potentially malicious activity during last year's massive data breach but its staff decided not to take immediate action, the No. 3. "With the benefit of hindsight, we are investigating whether if different judgments had been made the outcome may have been different," company spokeswoman Molly Snyder said in a statement. The disclosure came after Bloomberg Businessweek reported on Thursday that Target's security team in Bangalore had received alerts from a FireEye Inc security system on November 30 after the attack was launched and sent them to Target headquarters in Minneapolis. The FireEye reports indicated malicious software had appeared in the system and that attackers were planning to send stolen data to servers outside of Target's network, according to a person whom Bloomberg Businessweek had consulted on Target's investigation but was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. mobile data revenue surpasses voice call revenue: analyst Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 01:47 PM PDT  By Marina Lopes NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mobile data brought U.S. wireless carriers more revenue than voice calls did for the first time last quarter, a milestone for the industry as faster network speeds are prompting Americans to consume, and pay for, more data than ever. Mobile data service revenue reached $90 billion last year and accounted for more than 50 percent of revenues for wireless companies in the final quarter of 2013, according to research published by Chetan Sharma Consulting late Wednesday. "It is a milestone in the evolution of the industry," Chetan Sharma, president of the Seattle firm, said in a phone interview. This year, Sharma predicts that the United States will become the first country to bring in $100 billion in mobile data revenue, a steep rise from the $1 billion the sector drew in 2002. Full Story | Top |
| Facebook rolls out video ads, aims to capture part of TV-marketing budgets Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 12:48 PM PDT  Facebook Inc will allow more marketers to run video advertisements on its website, provided the world's No.1 social network deem them to be of high-enough quality. Facebook and social media rivals like Twitter are increasingly trying to grab a slice of lucrative TV-marketing budgets as they try to sustain rapid growth. That market is considered crucial to supporting Facebook's growing market valuation and poses a potential long-term threat to traditional TV networks. Facebook has moved cautiously to avoid annoying users. Full Story | Top |
| Microsoft poised to fight back as iPad generation shuns Office Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 12:39 PM PDT  By Gerry Shih and Bill Rigby SAN FRANCISCO/SEATTLE (Reuters) - It may be one of Microsoft Corp's biggest squandered opportunities. Take Artivest Holdings Inc, a New York-based financial services startup that sells alternative investment products. "There are no more Microsoft Word documents being circulated. "If I'm walking to and from home, or going to an appointment, I can review or edit on my iPad. Full Story | Top |
| Online retailer NoMoreRack.com probes likely card breach-report Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 11:44 AM PDT (Reuters) - Online retailer NoMoreRack.com is going through its second forensic audit in seven months to investigate a potential breach of customer card data, computer and cyber security blog KrebsOnSecurity reported on Wednesday. Credit card company Discover Card notified NoMoreRack.com last month about frauds tied to cards that were used at the company's online store between November and mid-January, former Washington Post reporter Brian Krebs wrote on the blog. The e-retailer had commissioned a forensic audit by Trustwave after Discover Card, owned by Discover Financial Services, first alerted the company last August that it was a likely point of compromise. Full Story | Top |
| EBay CEO sees Icahn getting louder, tells employees not to listen Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 11:16 AM PDT  Carl Icahn's campaign to convince eBay Inc to spin off its PayPal payments service will intensify in the run-up to eBay's shareholders' meeting in May, eBay's chief executive said on Thursday, warning employees to ignore the "noise." EBay CEO John Donahoe and directors of the Internet retailer have traded barbs with Icahn on a near-daily basis since the activist investor first expressed his view that spinning off PayPal would create shareholder value. EBay has said that the fast-growing payments service works best when integrated with the company's core retail business. "It's easy to say when you're sitting on the outside, 'Oh, simplistically separate, and we'll do some short-term financial maneuvering to drive the share price up.'" Icahn, who owns just over 2 percent of eBay, has sparred with eBay management via open letters and press releases since January, when the pugnacious billionaire made an unsolicited proposal for eBay to spin off PayPal. Full Story | Top |
| Exchange CEOs say they are on high alert over cyber security Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 11:07 AM PDT  By John McCrank BOCA RATON, Florida (Reuters) - Cyber security is emerging as one of the biggest threats for exchange operators as hackers become more sophisticated in their efforts to disrupt the global financial system, a group of exchange leaders told an industry conference. More than half of the world's exchanges were hit by cyber attacks in 2012, according to a paper released last year by the World Federation of Exchanges Office and the research department of the International Organization of Securities Commissions. "We are worried a lot and we are far more worried now than we were just a couple of years ago," Magnus Bocker, chief executive of Singapore Exchange Ltd, said during a panel discussion at the Futures Industry Association conference in Boca Raton, Florida on Wednesday. Bocker said spending on cyber security is on the rise, but said exchanges need to do a better job of sharing information with each other on effective ways of combating cyber criminals. Full Story | Top |
| Ocado sees opportunities from Amazon move into groceries Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 07:28 AM PDT  By Emma Thomasson LONDON (Reuters) - British online grocer Ocado sees Amazon's push to sell more groceries as more of an opportunity than a threat, believing it will encourage big international retailers to look for partners to help them get set up in e-commerce. "What Amazon is clearly doing is awakening the global grocers to the online challenge they are going to face and they are accelerating the opportunities for us as a platform partner provider," Ocado Chief Executive Tim Steiner said on Thursday. Amazon plans to expand its "Fresh" grocery business within the United States this year and is reported to be considering launching in Germany, its second biggest market, prompting big retailers in the country to seek to set up online operations. Ocado expects to strike partnerships with retailers outside its home market Britain like its 200 million pounds deal with Morrisons, Britain's No. 4 supermarket group, to provide its online grocery operation. Full Story | Top |
| 3D printer maker SLM hires banks for potential IPO: sources Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 05:16 AM PDT German 3D printer maker SLM Solutions has hired Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse to prepare a potential stock market listing, hoping to benefit from a sector boom, two sources familiar with the matter said. 3D printing technology, used to create solid objects from a digital model by laying down successive thin layers of material, has been around for more than 25 years but has only recently caught the imagination of investors and customers. Shares of 3D printer makers like 3D Systems, Stratasys, ExOne or U.S.-listed German peer Voxeljet have soared as the companies adapt to the consumer market a technology used by manufacturers for decades. It has clients in the automotive, aviation, construction and consumer electronics industries, but also among medical engineering companies that use the technology to produce titanium alloy implants. Full Story | Top |
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