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  • INTERNET: ?Anonymous? hack FBI-Scotland Yard phone call

    INTERNET: ?Anonymous? hack FBI-Scotland Yard phone call
    The activist hacker group Anonymous has intercepted and published a sensitive phone call between the FBI and Scotland Yard ? discussing how to fight hacking. The FBI said it was investigating the matter.

  • ECONOMY: Debt-ridden Hungarian flag carrier grounds all flights

    ECONOMY: Debt-ridden Hungarian flag carrier grounds all flights
    Hungary?s national carrier Malev ceased operations Friday, grounding all its flights and stranding more than 7,000 passengers after some of its planes were held overseas for unpaid debts.

  • US ECONOMY: US unemployment rate at three-year low

    US ECONOMY: US unemployment rate at three-year low
    The US jobless rate dropped to a three-year low of 8.3 percent and the economy created 243,000 jobs in January, marking the fastest employment growth in nine months, the Labor Department said Friday.

  • INTERNET: Megaupload founder denied bail

    INTERNET: Megaupload founder denied bail
    A New Zealand court on Friday refused an appeal by Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom to be released on bail. He argued he had no intention to flee to his home country of Germany, where he would be safe from the US demand for his extradition.

  • BUSINESS-TECHNOLOGY: Facebook embarks on largest-ever US tech IPO

    BUSINESS-TECHNOLOGY: Facebook embarks on largest-ever US tech IPO
    Facebook filed for a public offering in the US on Wednesday. Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg will own 56.9% of the voting shares and have economic control of 28% of shares in a company expected to be worth up to 100 billion dollars.
 
 
  • GigaOM Network

  • 7 stories to read this weekend [GigaOM]

    7 stories to read this weekend [GigaOM]
    What a week! Most of the world was obsessing over the mother of all IPOs -- Facebook. So no surprise, I had to include some good writing on the subject. I have already started looking beyond the social internet and got some good pointers for that.

  • 7 stories to read this weekend [Company News]

    7 stories to read this weekend [Company News]
    What a week! Most of the world was obsessing over the mother of all IPOs -- Facebook. So no surprise, I had to include some good writing on the subject. I have already started looking beyond the social internet and got some good pointers for that.

  • Survey says: Hollywood could make more money without windows [GigaOM]

    Survey says: Hollywood could make more money without windows [GigaOM]
    A survey conducted by BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield shows that Hollywood studios would likely make more revenue with the collapse of movie windows. More importantly, those sales would come with better margins since they wouldn't be sharing with exhibitors.

  • Survey says: Hollywood could make more money without windows [Company News]

    Survey says: Hollywood could make more money without windows [Company News]
    A survey conducted by BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield shows that Hollywood studios would likely make more revenue with the collapse of movie windows. More importantly, those sales would come with better margins since they wouldn't be sharing with exhibitors.

  • Survey says: Hollywood could make more money without windows [NewTeeVee Station]

    Survey says: Hollywood could make more money without windows [NewTeeVee Station]
    A survey conducted by BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield shows that Hollywood studios would likely make more revenue with the collapse of movie windows. More importantly, those sales would come with better margins since they wouldn't be sharing with exhibitors.
  • The Economist: Business

  • Accounting in China: Seeing the forest for the trees

    Accounting in China: Seeing the forest for the trees

    Careful where you tread
    CAN you trust Chinese accounts? Many investors fear (and several short-sellers are betting) that the answer is ?no?. Sino-Forest, a big forestry firm listed in Toronto, is a case in point. Last year Muddy Waters, a short-seller, accused it of running a Ponzi scheme, which it denies. On January 31st Sino-Forest released the final report of independent investigators into the charge. Insiders crow that the gumshoes found no smoking gun. The gumshoes grumbled that, lacking access to all the evidence, they were ?not able to reach definitive conclusions?.America?s SEC is trying to force the Shanghai office of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, a big Western accountancy firm, to hand over papers related to Longtop, a Chinese software firm that was delisted by the New York Stock Exchange last year. Deloitte refuses, saying this would violate Chinese laws on ?state secrets?. Deloitte may have a point. If it co-operates, its local staff could be jailed under Chinese law.Many accountancy problems spring from reverse takeovers, when a Chinese firm buys a foreign one to...

  • Fighter jets: Bomb bays to Delhi

    Fighter jets: Bomb bays to Delhi

    ?WE?VE been waiting for this day for 30 years,? said Nicolas Sarkozy, France?s president, on the news this week that India had gone into exclusive negotiations with Dassault Aviation, a French firm, to buy 126 of its Rafale warplanes for $15 billion-20 billion. France has not sold a single Rafale overseas, and until this week the plane?s future looked iffy. Shares in Dassault Aviation soared by 18.5%.The loser, ironically, was the Rafale?s cousin, the Eurofighter Typhoon, built by a consortium led by EADS, Europe?s defence and aerospace champion, which is jointly controlled by Germany and France. EADS itself owns a 46% stake in Dassault, a legacy of earlier French government meddling, so its own shares inched up on the news.Dassault won its exclusive-bidder status by offering the lower price. Both European jets had satisfied the technical requirements of the Indian Air Force, which wants zippier planes to guard against China?s Chengdu J-10 combat aircraft and Pakistan?s ageing American F-16s. In tests over the Himalayas and the Rajasthan desert, India had eliminated the F-16 and F/A-18, the Russian MiG-35 and Swedish JAS 39 Gripen from the process during 2009-10.The capabilities of both the Rafale and the Eurofighter were on display during the Libyan war. The Typhoon is the superior air-to-air interceptor. The Rafale switches more easily into a ground-attack mode.After...

  • Health care in America: Shopping around for surgery

    Health care in America: Shopping around for surgery

    AMERICANS spent $2.6 trillion on health care in 2010, a staggering 18% of GDP. Yet few of them have the faintest idea what any treatment costs or how it compares with any other treatment. Prices vary wildly and seemingly without reason (see chart). Insurance terms require a dictionary. For most Americans, buying a procedure is akin to choosing a house blindfolded, signing a mortgage in Aramaic, then discovering the price later. Slowly, however, this is changing.
    The past decade has seen a shift in how people pay for medicine. Americans? health spending is growing at a slower pace. This is partly because of the downturn, but not entirely. The rate of growth fell every year between 2002 and 2009, note David Knott and Rodney Zemmel of McKinsey & Company, a consultancy. There are many reasons for this?for example, many costly drugs have lost their...

  • Big boats: Offshore finance

    Big boats: Offshore finance

    Nice boat, but where can I park it?
    EVEN superyacht-owners are feeling the pinch. Last year only 173 superyachts (vessels over 30 metres long) slipped into the briny, according to Superyacht Intelligence, a consultancy. That?s 27 fewer than in 2010 and far below the peak in 2008, when 260 floating pleasure palaces hit the waves. The number of vessels on order, too, slipped from 453 in 2011 to 423 this year. But cheer up: their combined length rose from 20km (12 miles) to 23km. The super-duper rich are surprisingly unimaginative when it comes to dreaming up new ways to outdo each other.The biggest yacht ever was launched in 2010. Roman Abramovich, a Russian billionaire, reputedly forked out ?500m ($660m) for the 164-metre Eclipse (pictured). It includes such essentials as a mini-submarine, a hair salon and two helipads. (Owning a yacht with only one helipad would be embarrassing?a bit like owning a football club that is only fourth in England?s Premier League.)Quite sensibly, Mr Abramovich has hung on to his other superyachts. On the brokerage market (second-hand...

  • Carlos Slim: Let Mexico?s moguls battle

    Carlos Slim: Let Mexico?s moguls battle

    IN A futuristic art gallery which Carlos Slim opened last year in Mexico City, visitors can enjoy, among other things, a hall of rare coins and share certificates. Sometimes art speaks louder than words.Mr Slim is the richest man in the world. According to Forbes, he and his family have amassed a comfortable nest egg of $63 billion. (Bill Gates would be richer had he given away less of his stash, or Mr Slim more of his.) In Mexico Mr Slim is a giant: his companies account for more than a third of the stockmarket.The Slim fortune was made in telephony. After growing moderately rich from property, mining and other businesses, Mr Slim, the son of a Lebanese immigrant named Salim, bought Telmex, Mexico?s state-run telephone monopoly, in 1990. Telmex still has 80% of Mexico?s landlines, and about 75% of its broadband connections. Telcel, its sister company, has 70% of the mobile market. Both now belong to América Móvil, a Slim venture which has spread across 18 countries in the Americas and is the biggest or second-biggest player in all but three. With nearly 250m subscribers, it is the world?s...