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| Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola in China's largest tech deal Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 07:32 PM PST  By Nadia Damouni, Nicola Leske and Gerry Shih NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Lenovo Group said on Wednesday it agreed to buy Google Inc's Motorola handset division for $2.91 billion, in what is China's largest-ever tech deal as Lenovo buys its way into a heavily competitive U.S. handset market dominated by Apple Inc. It is Lenovo's second major deal on U.S. soil in a week as the Chinese electronics company angles to get a foothold in major global computing markets. Lenovo last week said it would buy IBM's low-end server business for $2.3 billion. The deal ends Google's short-lived foray into making consumer mobile devices and marks a pullback from its largest-ever acquisition. Google paid $12.5 billion for Motorola in 2012. Full Story | Top |
| Lenovo CFO: no need to go back to debt markets for Google deal Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 07:32 PM PST Lenovo Group Ltd has no urgent need to go back to the debt markets to raise cash for its acquisition of Google Inc's Motorola handset division, the Chinese company's chief financial officer said on Thursday. Wong Waiming also told a media briefing that the company had $3 billion cash on hand last year and the total capital outlay for the Motorola deal and Lenovo's acquisition of IBM's low-end server business, announced last week, was about $2.8 billion. The Motorola acquisition is China's largest-ever tech deal as Lenovo buys its way into a heavily competitive U.S. handset market dominated by Apple Inc. (Reporting by Matthew Miller; Full Story | Top |
| Pentagon, GSA map out acquisition cybersecurity; tester finds issues remain Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 07:31 PM PST By Andrea Shalal-Esa WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department and General Services Administration on Wednesday mapped out six broad reforms to improve the cybersecurity of more than $500 billion in goods and services acquired by the U.S. federal government each year. The guidelines come as the Pentagon's chief weapons tester warned that military missions remained at "moderate to high risk" since local network operators were not always able to defend networks against determined cyberattacks. A report released by the tester on Wednesday said scans of the networks used by weapons still showed missing software "patches" and vulnerabilities that allowed teams of government "hackers" to penetrate and exploit networks. In their guidelines, the Pentagon and GSA underscored the importance of beefing up cybersecurity and cited escalating cyber threats from U.S. adversaries, hackers and criminals, as well as unintentional vulnerabilities and counterfeit parts. Full Story | Top |
| Mobile ad revenue lifts Facebook past Wall Street targets Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 06:52 PM PST  By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc delivered its strongest revenue growth in two years, beating Wall Street targets as the Internet company's mobile ad sales continued to accelerate. Shares of Facebook surged 12 percent to $59.98 in after-hours trading on Wednesday. The world's largest social networking company said that revenue from mobile ads represented 53 percent of its total advertising revenue in the last three months of the year, or $1.24 billion, versus the 49 percent proportion that mobile ads represented in the third quarter. Facebook said it now has 1.23 billion monthly users, with 945 million accessing the service on a smartphone or tablet. Full Story | Top |
| Nintendo to stick with hardware platform strategy: CEO Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 06:42 PM PST  Nintendo Co Ltd President Satoru Iwata said on Thursday the company was sticking to its strategy centered on a combined hardware and software platform, which has come under criticism after the flagship Wii U console posted poor sales. Iwata said he remained committed to video game consoles, a day after the Japanese company posted dull quarterly earnings and announced a share buyback to soothe market worries about its strategic direction. "But our approach is not to put our games on smartphones." Nintendo's shares fell after Iwata's remarks, adding to the heavy pressure the stock has come under since the company announced earlier this month that it would post its third annual operating loss in a row. Kyoto-based Nintendo posted lackluster results for its traditionally strongest third quarter on Wednesday after disappointing sales for its flagship Wii U console forced it to slash its annual forecasts earlier this month. Full Story | Top |
| Oracle's Ellison plays down threat of NSA database snooping Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 06:40 PM PST  By Noel Randewich SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Oracle CEO Larry Ellison played down concerns on Wednesday about possible government snooping in his business customers' private data. At an industry conference in San Francisco, an audience member asked the Oracle cofounder what to tell potential Oracle cloud-computing clients who worry that the National Security Agency could access their information. "To the best of our knowledge, an Oracle database hasn't been broken into for a couple of decades by anybody," Ellison replied. Oracle, Salesforce.com and other major Silicon Valley companies are increasingly offering Internet-based business services, like human resources, accounting and sales management, in a trend known as cloud computing. Full Story | Top |
| Target says criminals attacked with stolen vendor credentials Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 04:58 PM PST  By Jim Finkle and Mark Hosenball BOSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Target Corp said on Wednesday that the theft of a vendor's credentials helped cyber criminals pull off a massive theft of customer data during the holiday shopping season in late 2013. "The ongoing forensic investigation has indicated that the intruder stole a vendor's credentials, which were used to access our system," Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder said in a statement. She declined to elaborate on what type of credentials were taken, who the vendor was, or to provide other details. The company's shares have been hurt since the data breach was announced on December 19, and the incident has drawn scrutiny from lawmakers as well as federal law enforcement and consumer protection agencies. Full Story | Top |
| Nintendo climbs 7 percent after share buyback announcement Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 04:20 PM PST  Shares in Nintendo Co Ltd climbed more than 7 percent to a one-week high of 13,850 yen in early trade on Thursday after the video games maker said it would buy back 125 billion yen ($1.22 billion)of its outstanding shares. "While the market may react positively, we are more cautious," Goldman Sachs said in a note. "The buyback will boost net profits per share by 8.2 percent, but reduce cash and marketable securities per share by 5.8 percent." Goldman Sachs maintained its 'sell' rating on Nintendo. On Wednesday, Nintendo posted lackluster results for its traditionally strongest third quarter after disappointing sales for its flagship Wii U console forced it to slash its annual forecast earlier this month. Full Story | Top |
| Qualcomm says year on track, focuses on China Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 04:06 PM PST  By Noel Randewich SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Leading mobile chipmaker Qualcomm Inc posted higher fiscal first-quarter revenue that slightly missed estimates as smartphone growth shifted to China, but it bumped up its full-year earnings outlook and said 2014 was playing out as expected. With growth in the smartphone industry moving away from wealthy markets such as the United States and toward China and other emerging economies, where consumers favor less expensive devices, Qualcomm has been focusing on costs to preserve its profitability. It expects demand for its chips to grow later this year as leading mobile carrier China Mobile rolls out cellphone services using the advanced LTE technology Qualcomm dominates. Wednesday's was the first quarterly report since Qualcomm announced in December that Chief Operating Officer Steve Mollenkopf would take over from Paul Jacobs as CEO starting in March. Full Story | Top |
| Qualcomm posts higher first-quarter revenue, says year on track Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 03:41 PM PST By Noel Randewich SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Leading mobile chipmaker Qualcomm Inc posted higher fiscal first-quarter revenue that slightly missed expectations as smartphone growth shifted to China but it bumped up its full-year earnings outlook on the strong start to 2014. With growth in the smartphone industry moving away from wealthy markets such as the United States and toward China and other emerging economies, where consumers favor less expensive devices, Qualcomm has been focusing on costs to preserve its profit margins. Qualcomm slightly raised its full-year forecast for earnings per share to a range of $5.00 to $5.20, from $4.95 to $5.15, essentially adjusting for first-quarter earnings that came in above the company's own previous estimate. We see the rest of the year playing out pretty much in line with our original expectations," Chief Financial Officer George Davis said in an interview. Full Story | Top |
| Weak PC shipments hit Symantec revenue Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 02:59 PM PST Symantec Corp reported a 5 percent fall in quarterly revenue as a decline in sales of personal computers hurt demand for its security software. "We are pleased with the quarter, but we're not happy until we're back into positive revenue growth," Chief Executive Steve Bennett told Reuters on Wednesday. (http://link.reuters.com/hap46v) Symantec's revenue fell to $1.71 billion in the third quarter from $1.79 billion a year earlier. Symantec has been reorganizing its sales force to create specialists for each product group instead of having everyone sell everything, leading to a temporary shortfall in revenue. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. spy chiefs call for action on data breach disclosure Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 02:59 PM PST By Lawrence Hurley and Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. spy agency chiefs on Wednesday called on Congress to draft stricter requirements for how retailers and other private businesses should inform government agencies and customers about big breaches of personal and financial data. The intervention by intelligence chiefs came as Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed that the Justice Department was investigating the massive hacking of consumer data from No. 3 U.S. retailer Target Corp during the holiday shopping season late last year. Also on Wednesday, several congressional committees signaled growing interest in recent data breaches, with the powerful House Oversight Committee scheduling a telephone briefing on Thursday with Target representatives. Separately, at Wednesday's threat hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, where the National Security Agency is headquartered, asked intelligence chiefs if media leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden had affected U.S. cybersecurity efforts. Full Story | Top |
| Target says criminals attacked with credentials stolen from vendor Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 02:55 PM PST  Target Corp said on Wednesday that the cyber criminals who breached its system used credentials they stole from one of the retailer's vendors. "The ongoing forensic investigation has indicated that the intruder stole a vendor's credentials, which were used to access our system," Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder said in a statement. She declined to elaborate on what type of credentials were taken from the vendor. Full Story | Top |
| Wyoming among states eyeing laws to ban Google Glass while driving Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 02:39 PM PST  Sparsely populated Wyoming, whose natural beauty draws tourists from around the globe, is among a small number of U.S. states eyeing a ban on the use of wearable computers while driving, a move that appears to target Google Glass. Wyoming state Senator Floyd Esquibel, a Democrat who crafted the bill to ban such devices behind the wheel, said he wanted to ensure safeguards are in place before the technology premiered by Google - a tiny computer mounted to an eyeglass frame - is widely available. Wyoming is among at least seven U.S. states eyeing restrictions on the technology over concerns that drivers wearing Google Glass may pay more attention to their email or other online endeavors than the road. Other states considering measures that would ban use of wearable computers while driving are Delaware, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New York and West Virginia, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Full Story | Top |
| Baidu scrambles to monetize its mobile real estate Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 01:07 PM PST  By Paul Carsten BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Baidu Inc knows where you are, where you're going and when you want dumplings, guiding you from web page to restaurant when you use its search engine. Now the biggest Chinese technology company traded in the United States needs to figure out how to make money when you use its mobile Internet services, a game it admits it came too late. Baidu's tactics to catch up to rivals include buying other businesses like the $1.9 billion purchase of 91 Wireless app store and the group-buying site Nuomi - think GroupOn Inc - which Baidu fully acquired last week after securing a 59 percent stake last August. "We have tried many ways to monetise...We haven't really got the answer yet," said Wang Haifeng, chief scientist at Baidu. Full Story | Top |
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