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Monday, 3 February 2014

The chipmaker plans to shut down its AppUp store, a remnant of the short-lived Netbook era.

Intel AppUp logo.

(Credit: Intel)

Intel plans to close its app store designed originally for Netbooks and later for other devices such as ultrabooks.

The Intel AppUp Center will close March 11,according to a note posted on the site.

The site provides little further clarification as to why the store is closing, beyond saying that "by closing Intel AppUp center, Intel will be able to focus more than ever on developing the next generation of platform innovation."

An FAQ states that "some applications do require communication with the AppUp client and may not work after May 15th, 2015."

An Intel spokesperson, however, did expand a bit on the reasons for the shutdown in a brief phone interview with CNET. "The market is changing...consumer needs are changing, so we are trying to realign and focus on cloud-based services."

"Our focus [is on] APIs through Mashery and Aepona, acquisitions we made last year," said the spokesperson, referring to application programming interfaces.

Intel launched the AppUp center in January 2010 and later announced a $100 million AppUp fund for companies developing applications.

Originally, Intel said the store was aimed at Netbooks (now a defunct product category in the U.S.), but the company expected the store to migrate to PCs, smartphones, TVs, and other devices.

Facebook shares soar on solid 2013 financial results

Facebook has hit a new high on Thursday after posting better-than-expected results during the fourth quarter of 2013.

In early trading on Thursday, Facebook shares jumped to $62.28, a new 52-week high for the company's shares. As of this writing, Facebook's stock has cooled off a bit to $61.19 -- a 14 percent gain.

The strong showing this morning is largely the result of Facebook's strong performance last year. Facebook said Wednesday that it generated $7.9 billion revenue last year, up from the $5.1 billion the company tallied in 2012. Facebook also grew its profits from $53 million to $1.5 billion.

The soaring shares have, of course, helped the company's value jump significantly. As of this writing, Facebook is valued at $150 billion.

US carrier mergers would face tough time getting DOJ approval

T-Mobile CEO John Legere.

(Credit: Lori Grunin/CNET)

US wireless carriers who have the urge to merge will meet resistance in the form of the Justice Department.

In an interview with The New York Times published Thursday, William Baer, assistant attorney general in the antitrust division, said that any merger proposals on the part of the major US carriers would encounter intense scrutiny. Baer cited "much more favorable competitive conditions" in the mobile landscape since the DOJ filed a lawsuit to block the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile in 2011. AT&T eventually withdrew its offer.

Behind Google profits, massive spending on computing gear

Google's capital expenditures, which mostly go toward computing and networking equipment, have risen dramatically over the last year.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

You think it's easy printing money at Google? Think again.

The company on Thursday reported enviable financial results for the fourth quarter of 2013, with revenue of $16.86 billion, up 17 percent, and net income of $3.38 billion. It's just another three months of success for Google's money machine, but to make it work Google has to spend a gargantuan amount on its own infrastructure -- chiefly servers, networking equipment, and the data centers that house them.

In the fourth quarter, Google spent $2.26 billion on that infrastructure -- a few pennies short of its all-time capital-expenditures high of $2.29 billion in the third quarter but more than double what it paid in the year-earlier quarter.

For comparison, General Motors spent $1.9 billion on capital expenditures in the third quarter of 2013.

The computing industry has done well in the last couple decades finding businesses where top-line revenues can drop to bottom-line profits without too many capital expenses getting in the way. Microsoft profited by creating software, an intangible but useful product that, once written, could be sold over and over again. Today, startups rely on Amazon Web Services to avoid big up-front payments on the hardware that provides the services people reach through mobile apps and Web browsers.

But in the big leagues where Google plays, with a broad array of online services available across most of the planet, capex is big and getting bigger.

"We expect to continue to make significant capital expenditures," Google has drily noted in every financial earnings press release for at least the last three years. Boy, is that an understatement.

All that computing gear is what lets Google not only retrieve 765 links for a search on something as obscure as "amblongus pie"within 0.38 seconds but also to predict partway through typing "amblongus" that the second word likely will be "pie." That infrastructure also houses photos on Google+, runs instant auctions to place advertisements next to search results, delivers Android apps through Google Play, and lets people edit documents edited at Google Apps.

Of course, Google has plenty of other expenses -- for example, paying 48,000 employees to maintain the infrastructure, create the next-generation services, fight the patent lawsuits, and vacuum the carpets.

But make no mistake: underpinning all that Google profit is an awful lot of hardware.

Lenovo-Motorola deal likely to win US regulatory approval but...

The Motorola Moto G

(Credit: Andrew Hoyle/CNET)

Lenovo's purchase of Motorola Mobility should get a green light from US regulators. But the company will have to agree to certain concessions in the name of US national security.

On Wednesday, the Chinese computer maker announced its $2.91 billion purchase of Google's Motorola mobile phone business and around 2,000 related patents. But like any major acquisition, this one has to go through the regulatory ropes before it's a done deal.

Lenovo's $2.3 billion purchase of IBM's Intel server lineup, announced earlier this month, faces the same scrutiny.The purchase faces a review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a federal agency that looks out for potential US national security issues, Reuters reported Friday. As such, Lenovo will likely be asked to set up certain measures to make sure it can't be influenced by the Chinese government in ways that would harm US security, a security expert told Reuters. The CFIUS may also require that certain products be handled only by US citizens or be located only in the United States.

Despite the need for certain concessions, Lenovo does have a distinct advantage, Reuters noted. It's been through this process before.

The company was up against similar roadblocks when it acquired IBM's PC business in 2005. Lenovo also dealt with the CFIUS in 2012 when it purchased US software maker Stoneware and launched a partnership with EMC. Each of those deals won regulatory approval.

"If there was a Chinese company that was well-positioned to see this deal come off, it's Lenovo," Jim Lewis, a security expert with the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Reuters. "They've done the dance before and they know what the steps are."

Apple said to be studying solar, motion charging for iWatch

iWatch concept.

(Credit: Todd Hamilton)

A New York Times report is providing more fodder for iWatch speculation, including the purported use of solar power.

Apple has been testing both solar and wireless charging for the rumored iWatch, according to astory in Sunday's New York Times.

The wireless charging method would involve magnetic induction, according to the report.

Ministry slaps ban on export of precious stones

Pakistan is one of the leading exporters of precious and semi-precious stones – except for diamond – to the world market. PHOTO: FILE

ISLAMABAD:

The federal government has slapped a ban on export of all kinds of precious and semi-precious stones, says Atif Rashid Khawaja, Chairman Action Committee of the Peshawar-based All Pakistan Commercial Exporters Association, terming it unfair.

“The ban was imposed by the Ministry of Commerce on January 23 through an unfair decision without taking the exporters into confidence,” he told The Express Tribune.

photo Commerceministryofficial_zpsd0108106.jpg

Though the restriction has blocked shipments of exporters from the entire country, a majority of them are from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa as Peshawar serves as the hub.

According to Khawaja, over 3,000 exporters have lost their business that they have been running for the last 60 years.

A large quantity of precious stones such as Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire, Lapis, Quartz, Tourmaline, Aquamarine and Peridot has been seized and kept by the Pakistan Customs at the Peshawar airport after the imposition of the ban.

Pakistan is one of the leading exporters of precious and semi-precious stones – except for diamond – to the world market, especially to the United States, Thailand and the entire Europe.

The ban came into force after the government issued an SRO in a bid to discourage smuggling of gold to India.

Khawaja said the government’s move was aimed at restricting the export of gold jewellery, which had nothing to do with the export of precious stones. But, he said, the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) had also applied the SRO to the export of precious stones.

Commerce ministry officials, while rejecting the claims of the association, said the SRO also covered the export of precious stones.

Talking to The Express Tribune, an official of the Ministry of Commerce insisted that they had asked the exporters of precious stones to get themselves registered with the TDAP after depositing Rs30,000 as registration fee.

“Exports will not be allowed without registration, which will be renewable after every three years,” the official declared.

However, the exporters were not willing to accept the condition, believing that the fee would pave the way for the levy of general sales tax (GST) on the export of precious stones, which Khawaja called unlawful.

He said the country had earned millions of dollars annually with the export of precious stones. “Now, the country will lose this foreign exchange due to the curb on export. It will also encourage smuggling of precious stones through Afghanistan,” he added.

Khawaja warned of a strong protest against the ban in a bid to force the ministry to lift all restrictions. “Exporters at a recent meeting in Peshawar have expressed strong resentment and decided to stage a sit-in in front of provincial assemblies and the national parliament,” he said.

Citing the example of India, he said its exporters of precious stones were earning billions of dollars as Delhi had offered them a host of facilities, but in Pakistan the industry was being discouraged which would have a negative impact on its export earnings.