Monthly Archives: March 2014

San Francisco bar: Free drinks to Google Glass wearers

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“Not everyone hates Google Glass wearers.  A San Francisco hotel busy remaking itself as a tech haven is offering a cocktail on the house to anyone who bellies up to the bar wearing Google Glass.  They’re the spectacle-mounted wearable computers that have causes a furor because they can be used to surreptitiously photograph and video whoever the wearer is looking at.  At least one website, Glasshole Free, is tracking bars, restaurants and coffee shops that ban visitors wearing the trendy tracking devices. It’s up to 13 in San Francisco and a handful in Seattle and Oakland.  But on San Francisco’s Nob Hill, the Stanford Court hotel is going the other way.”

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/03/20/san-francisco-bar-free-drinks-google-glass/6628655/

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Inventor still battling U.S. over patents from ’70s

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“Gilbert Hyatt said the more he fought and appealed other patents, the longer officials dragged out his applications.  R. Polk Wagner, a patent law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said some patent applications can be slowed during a review of how an invention affects national security.  But he acknowledged that 40 years was an unusually long review period on any case.  ‘In my experience, the Patent and Trademark Office has every incentive to process applications quickly,’ Wagner said. ‘The trick for the PTO is to process them as quickly as they can while being accurate. There is certainly no incentive for this significant kind of delay.'”

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/03/23/inventor-battling-us-over-patents-sought-in-1970s/6792451/

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Smart Light Bulb Doubles as Bluetooth Speaker

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“The range of new products promising to transform your humble abode into a ‘smart home’ has exploded in recent months, but not all so-called ‘Internet of things’ devices are created equal.  Bucking the trend toward everyday items that include obscure embedded features, France-based AwoX has come up with a simple smart-home solution that seamlessly merges utility with entertainment in its StriimLIGHT device. The LED light bulb doubles as a Bluetooth speaker that you can control using the AwoX Smart Control app on your smartphone, or from your desktop. The app allows you to brighten or dim the light, apply an alarm timer to its functions and control the speaker’s volume.”

http://mashable.com/2014/03/19/smart-light-bulb-bluetooth-speaker/

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Facebook Buys Oculus VR, 3D Headset Maker, For Around $2B

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“Facebook has announced plans to purchase Oculus VR, the company behind the Rift headset, for around $2 billion in cash and stock. This includes $400 million, and 23.1 million Facebook shares. An additional $300 million earnout will be paid in cash and stock if Oculus hits certain unspecified milestones.  The company has received a total of $93.4 million in funding so far from Spark, Matrix, Founders Fund, Formation 8, BIG Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. Oculus got a big boost in legitimacy recently when one of the founding fathers of 3D gaming, John Carmack, left id Software to become its CTO.”

http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/25/facebook-to-buy-oculus-vr-maker-of-the-rift-headset-for-around-2b-in-cash-and-stock/

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California’s anti-game senator Leland Yee arrested for corruption

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“In a bid to become Secretary of State, Yee apparently ‘solicited money from undercover FBI agents’ and engaged in ‘a discussion with the undercover agents about an illegal gun-trafficking deal.’   Yee represents District 8, which includes video game development hotbeds like San Francisco and San Mateo County. Gamers know him as the man who put forth the much-publicized violent game law that the United States Supreme Court struck down in 2011.  ‘Gamers have got to just quiet down,’ Yee said at the time. ‘Gamers have no credibility in this argument. This is all about their lust for violence and the industry’s lust for money. This is a billion-dollar industry. This is about their self-interest.'”

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/report-california-s-anti-game-senator-leland-yee-arrested-on-corruption-bribery-charges/1100-6418563/

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Candy Crush mania coming to Wall Street

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“Investors are hungry for initial public offerings, and there’s something sweet in the pipeline.  King Digital Entertainment, which makes the popular Candy Crush Saga online game, is one of 14 companies set to go public this week.  King’s stock may be ‘fairly valued,’ said Tim Keating, chief executive of Keating Capital. Zynga is worth about $4 billion while Activision has a market value of around $15 billion. Keating said some investors are concerned that King’s profits are too closely tied to the success of one game. But he added that King’s profit margins are strong and its revenue growth over the past year has been an ‘eye popping’ 1000%.”

http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/23/investing/king-candy-crush-ipo/index.html

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Yellen Surprise Suggests Investors Should Go On Defense

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“Comments this week from Janet Yellen, who just took over as Fed chair, caught many in the market off guard when she suggested the central bank may be in a position to raise its key interest rate as soon as six months after ending its massive bond-buying stimulus. That could put the first rate hike on the table by the spring of 2015 compared with previous expectations for no sooner than the second half of the year. Indeed, rate futures markets now assign a 52 percent probability to the Fed’s April 2015 meeting for the first rate hike versus just a 33 percent chance a month ago.  Stocks such as utilities could be an option to steer clear of some of the hotter stocks and sectors of 2013 that are now richly valued.”

http://wealthmanagement.com/investment/yellen-surprise-suggests-investors-should-go-defense

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Fund Manager Jeremy Grantham Blasts the Fed

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“The Fed can manipulate stock prices. That’s perhaps the only thing they can do. But why would you want to get an advantage from the wealth effect when you know you are going to have to give it all back when the Fed reverses course. At the same time, the Fed encourages steady increasing leverage and more asset bubbles. It’s clear to most investing professionals that they can benefit from an asymmetric bet here. The Fed gives them very cheap leverage on the upside, and then bails them out on the downside. And you should have more confidence of that now. The only ones who have really benefited from QE are hedge fund managers.”

http://www.thedailybell.com/news-analysis/35154/Fund-Manager-Blasts-the-Fed/

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Wal-Mart sues Visa for $5 billion over card swipe fees

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“Wal-Mart Stores Inc this week sued Visa Inc for $5 billion, accusing the credit and debit card network of excessively high card swipe fees, several months after the retailer opted out of a class action settlement between merchants and Visa and MasterCard Inc.  In December, a federal judge in Brooklyn, N.Y., approved a $5.7 billion class action settlement between merchants and Visa and MasterCard despite the objections of thousands of retailers that complained it was inadequate.  Wal-Mart, Amazon.com Inc, and Target Corp were among those opting out of the monetary components of the settlement to have the freedom to seek damages on their own.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/27/us-walmart-visa-lawsuit-idUSBREA2Q2BJ20140327

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As Bitcoin Companies Mature, More Take Talent from the Mainstream

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“Andy Goldstein worked at Visa for 16 years before taking a job at BitPay, a Bitcoin merchant services startup.  At Visa, Goldstein was most recently senior business development leader in the merchant sales and solutions group. He is now a regional sales manager at Atlanta-based BitPay, focused on integrating large enterprise merchants in the eastern U.S. and eastern Canada.  Goldstein resigned from Visa but left the company on good terms. ‘Some of my fellow co-workers were excited that I was pursuing my passion as I did not keep it a secret that I was very into Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies,’ he says.”

http://www.paymentssource.com/news/as-bitcoin-companies-mature-more-take-talent-from-the-mainstream-3017408-1.html

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