Daily Tech Snippet: July 21, 2016

• Dollar Shave Club hit the jackpot when Unilever agreed to buy the online men's razor merchant for $1 billion. Other e-commerce startups such as Birchbox and Stitch Fix can't necessarily expect their own suitor to sweep in with such sweet deals. That's because the key to Dollar Shave Club's appeal is not so much its online prowess but the fact that it built a powerful brand in four years.  Dollar Shave Club upended the industry's traditional business model by offering a subscription service that sells blades for as little as $3 a month (including shipping and handling). The day Dollar Shave Club started selling subscriptions in March 2012, the company released a YouTube video starring founder Michael Dubin. He tells viewers the product is f***ing great, "so gentle a toddler could use it." The website crashed, but the blades sold out in six hours. The video has been viewed about 23 million times. The company reached $150 million-plus in sales in 2015, Unilever said in a press release announcing the deal. That despite the fact that the blades lack many of Gillette's high-tech enhancements. Few other e-commerce startups can claim to have built a brand so quickly. Unilever and P&G are masters at traditional marketing, mostly offline, but they struggle with the direct-to-consumer brand-building at which upstarts like Dollar Shave Club excel.

• Intel's slowing data center growth overshadows strong profit: Intel on Wednesday reported slower revenue growth at its data center business, which makes semiconductors used in high-end servers, overshadowing a better-than-expected quarterly profit. Shares of the world's largest chipmaker fell 3 percent in after-hours trading. Hurt by weak demand from enterprises, revenue at the highly-profitable unit rose 5 percent to $4 billion, but lagged the previous quarter's 9 percent increase and remained below Intel's annual target of low double-digit growth.Net revenue rose 2.6 percent to $13.53 billion, narrowly missing the average analyst estimate of $13.54 billion.Intel reported a better-than-expected profit as its cost-cutting begin to pay off. In April it announced plans to slash 12,000 jobs, or 11 percent of its global workforce, of which it said about half was already complete. Intel's forecast for $14.9 billion in current-quarter revenue topped the average analyst expectation of $14.63 billion. Net income fell to $1.33 billion, or 27 cents per share, in the second quarter, from $2.71 billion, or 55 cents per share, a year earlier

• Uber Investors Said to Push for Didi Truce in Costly China Fight: Uber Technologies Inc. investors have a message for management: It’s time to wrap up the costly fight in China. Several institutional investors are pushing the ride-hailing company to ink a partnership agreement with China’s market leader Didi Chuxing, according to people familiar with the matter, stemming the billions of dollars Uber is spending to expand in the region.Uber and Didi are bleeding cash in China as they fight for dominance in the world’s most populous country. Uber has said that it is spending at least $1 billion a year to expand its business in the country. Both are giving out incentives for drivers and free rides to compete for market share.Benchmark’s Bill Gurley -- an Uber investor and board member -- spoke briefly with Didi President Jean Liu at the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, a few months ago, according to a person familiar with the matter. Didi is in the lead on its home turf, with 14 million drivers signed up in 400 Chinese cities. Uber has set a target of operating in 100 cities this year. Uber set up a separate corporate entity to insulate its Chinese business, which has gathered local Chinese investors. Still, the parent company has also invested its own money, keeping the units financially intertwined. Among private technology companies, the rivals are giants. Uber, which was last valued at nearly $68 billion, says it has access to more than $11 billion in cash and equity. Didi, which was last valued at $28 billion, says it has more than $10 billion at its disposal in cash and equity.

• Strong demand from China buoys Qualcomm forecast: Qualcomm Inc forecast current-quarter profit largely above market estimates as it sees strong demand for its mobile chips in China and expects to sign more licensing deals. Shares of the company, which also posted a better-than-expected third-quarter profit, rose about 7 percent in extended trading on Wednesday.The company, whose chips are used in Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd smartphones, is focusing on its flagship mobile processors to regain the market share. Qualcomm expects to launch Snapdragon 821, an advanced and a faster version of Snapdragon 820, which powers Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge smartphones."I think it is pretty straightforward...Samsung is back as their customer and...more people in China are ready to pay to license their technology...so it looks like the company is well positioned for the coming quarters," said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy.Revenue rose to $6.04 billion quarter ended June 26 from $5.83 billion a year earlier. Net Income attributable to Qualcomm rose to $1.44 billion, or 97 cents per share, from $1.18 billion, or 73 cents per share.

• EBay beats revenue estimate, bumps up forecasts: Online retailer eBay Inc reported better-than-expected quarterly revenue and raised its sales forecast for the year as efforts to revamp its online marketplace start to pay off. EBay shares were up 8 percent after the bell on Wednesday after the company's board also authorized an additional $2.5 billion stock buyback program. The company, which spun off PayPal last July, has tackled slowing growth by focusing on small business sellers, while offering a bigger selection of products. Gross merchandise volume, or the total value of all goods sold on its sites, was up 4 percent at $20.9 billion in the second quarter ended June 30, helped by strength in its U.S. business. The number of active buyers rose 4 percent to 164 million. The company's revenue also got a boost from robust sales at Stubhub, which won a 6.5 year revenue-sharing deal to resell tickets for the New York Yankees last month.The company's net income rose to $435 million, or 38 cents per share, in the latest quarter from $83 million, or 7 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 5.7 percent to $2.23 billion, ahead of analysts' average estimate of $2.17 billion. Up to Wednesday's close, shares of the San Jose, California-based company had fallen 5.6 percent in the past 12 months.

Daily Tech Snippet: Friday, 17 July

• Uber Rival’s $28 Billion Valuation Shows Size of China’s Ride-Sharing Market: The Chinese car-hailing app Didi Chuxing said on Thursday that it had brought in $7.3 billion in its latest round of fund-raising, which included Apple, Alibaba, and SoftBank as investors. The new funds give the company a total of $10.5 billion in disposable funds, and put its valuation at $28 billion, according to a person familiar with the fund-raising. That Didi’s valuation is now almost half that of the $62.5 billion valuation of its main rival in China, Uber, shows how much potential investors see in China. Yet the size of the cash infusions also underscores the market’s difficulties. In part because of China’s widespread blocking of foreign websites, the competition between Uber and Didi marks the first time in recent history a major foreign tech company has vied so intensely with a local Chinese business. In other markets the contest over ride-sharing has focused on regulation and technology, but in China it has been much more about cash, with the two companies spending billions. The most recent round has also pulled in Apple, pitting America’s biggest tech company against America’s best-known start-up, Uber, in a tricky Chinese market. Both see China as critical to growth. The fund-raising comes as executives from Didi and Uber have signaled that they are focusing on profitability in China. Since then both companies have been locked in a spending war. Though it has primarily taken the form of subsidies, both companies have also tried to develop technology specific to China, and have actively wooed both local and national government officials. Didi has focused on technology that better predicts car arrival times, given China’s unruly traffic, while Uber has developed a commute function that links drivers with riders based on where they live and work.

• Why back-up cameras haven’t stopped drivers from backing into stuff: With or without eyes in the back of their heads, drivers keep hitting things. Despite the growing prevalence of back-up cameras, federal data shows that this technology hasn't significantly cut down on cars backing into people and causing them harm. That research on so-called "back-over incidents" comes as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration moves to make back-up cameras standard and presses automakers to add a bevy of new technologies -- from automatic braking to lane collision warnings -- to even entry-level cars to reduce accidents on the road.As car companies and even regulators increasingly lean on technology to make roads safer, the tepid success of the back-up camera is a red flag. Sure, drivers can see more of what's behind them -- the cameras reduce blind zones while in reverse by 90 percent, according to a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety -- but they keep hitting things.Even with back-up cameras, drivers still don’t look around their vehicles enough when in reverse and sometimes get distracted by any number of things as their cars roll backward. Back-up cameras also often beam images to display screens in the front of the car, and drivers can become too reliant on them. Instead of looking backward and through their rearview window or checking mirrors, their eyes are glued to a screen.

• LG Electronics sells mosquito-repelling TV in India: The Indian arm of South Korea's LG Electronics Inc has begun selling a TV with a feature that it says repels mosquitoes, which can spread diseases such as malaria, Zika and dengue. The TV's "Mosquito Away Technology" uses ultrasonic waves that are inaudible to humans but cause mosquitoes to fly away, according to the company. It was released in the country on Thursday, LG said. The same technology, which was certified as effective by an independent laboratory near Chennai, India, has been used by LG in air conditioners and washing machines, the company said. The technology, which also functions when the TV is switched off, is available in two models, priced at 26,500 rupees and 47,500 rupees ($394 and $706). The TV is targeted at lower-income consumers living in conditions that would make them vulnerable to mosquitoes. It will go on sale next month in the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Kim Sang-yeol, an LG Electronics official, said there are no plans for now to market it elsewhere.

• Oracle's cloud strength boosts quarterly revenue: Business software maker Oracle Corp reported a higher-than-expected quarterly revenue as sales in its cloud business surged due to more customers. Shares of the Redwood City, California-based company rose as much as 3.8 percent to $40.10 in extended trading on Thursday. Like its rivals such as SAP SE, IBM Corp and Microsoft Corp, Oracle has focused on moving its business toward the cloud-computing model, essentially providing services remotely via data centers rather than selling installed software. Total revenue from the company's cloud-computing software and platform service rose 49.1 percent to $859 million in the fourth quarter ended May 31. It contributed 8 percent of Oracle's total revenue during thequarter. The company's total revenue fell 1 percent to $10.59 billion, beating analysts' average estimate of $10.47 billion. Oracle's net income rose to $2.81 billion, or 66 cents per share, in the quarter ended May 31, from $2.76 billion, or 62 cents per share, a year earlier. Excluding items, it earned 81 cents per share, meeting average analysts' estimate. Up to Thursday's close, Oracle's stock had risen 5.8 percent this year.

• Salesforce also made a bid for LinkedIn, CEO Benioff confirms: Salesforce was also a serious bidder for LinkedIn, the business networking site that sold to Microsoft for $26 billion this week, said CEO Marc Benioff. While he would not give details of the effort, sources said Salesforce was primarily interested in LinkedIn's recruiting business, which makes up the bulk of its revenue. Sources said LinkedIn was already deep into negotiations with Microsoft when Salesforce made its approach, which would have required both debt and stock financing. Microsoft was able to buy LinkedIn in cash and also promised to let it operate independently. Interestingly, sources confirmed numerous reports that Microsoft had tried to buy Salesforce earlier this year, and both price and the way it would be operated within the company were among the issues that resulted in it not happening. Indeed. Salesforce recently bought Demandware for $2.8 billion.

• InMobi Technologies to discontinue use of mascot function on Miip platform:  InMobi on Thursday said it has shuttered the animated-discovery commerce part of Miip for now, a product it launched amid much fanfare in July last year. Instead, the firm will look to help e-commerce companies reach inactive customers using more traditional ad formats, using the underlying technology it built for the platform. In July, InMobi launched a beta version of Miip, which took the form of an animated monkey, that tracked users’ browsing habits across various mobile apps and showed ads in the forms of bubbles and animations instead of traditional display ads. It allowed consumers to interact with the mascot and tell it what they liked, and how they felt about the products and ads they saw. The promise of such a technology was that first, it enabled personalised discovery of products, and second, the completion of purchases within the ad itself as InMobi had tied up with payments providers like Stripe, AliPay and Paytm. This hasn’t worked out. “The larger vision behind Miip is to enable consumers to buy products and complete transactions through ads. The mascot was conceptualized simply as a ‘face’ to the Miip platform. Over the course of testing, users responded better to an advertiser’s brand as against the Miip branding on an ad unit,” said Arun Pattabhiraman, vice president and global head of marketing, InMobi

Daily Tech Snippet: Monday, May 16

• Why a staggering number of Americans have stopped using the Internet the way they used to: Nearly one in two Internet users say privacy and security concerns have now stopped them from doing basic things online — such as posting to social networks, expressing opinions in forums or even buying things from websites, according to a new government survey released Friday. This chilling effect, pulled out of a survey of 41,000 U.S. households who use the Internet, show the insecurity of the Web is beginning to have consequences that stretch beyond the direct fall-out of an individual losing personal data in breach. The research suggests some consumers are reaching a tipping point where they feel they can no longer trust using the Internet for everyday activities. The survey showed that nearly 20 percent of the survey's respondents had personally experienced some form of identity theft, an online security breach, or another similar problem over the year before the survey was taken last July. Overall, 45 percent said their concerns about online privacy and security stopped them from using the Web in very practical ways. The NTIA survey also showed that the more connected devices people owned, the more they experienced a breach of data. For those with only one laptop or computer or smartphone, 9 percent reported a security incident. That number more than tripled for those with at least five devices.

• Uber China Rival Didi to Consider U.S. IPO as Soon as 2017: Apple may not need to wait that long before it reaps the benefits of investing $1 billion in Chinese car-hailing service Didi Chuxing. Didi is targeting an initial public offering in New York next year, according to people familiar with the matter. The timing will depend on how its battle with Uber Technologies Inc. in China plays out, said the people, who requested not to be named because the matter is private. Such a move may put the Chinese app ahead of its U.S. rival in going public, with Uber having said it wants to hold off as long as possible. China’s biggest ride-hailing app is in the process of raising about $3 billion of funding, including Apple’s $1 billion contribution, which has swelled the company’s valuation to about $26 billion, people familiar have said. Didi, already backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd., has reached break even in about half of the 400 Chinese cities it operates in as Uber spends heavily to win both drivers and riders. At Didi’s current valuation, a U.S. IPO could be the biggest by a Chinese company since Alibaba’s record offering in 2014. The company is among a list of ride-sharing apps including Uber and Lyft Inc. that could conduct a public offering. Didi hasn’t decided on which exchange and which banks to hire yet, the people said. Didi was created last year when separate apps backed by Tencent and Alibaba merged after brutal competition drove up losses. The company now has 14 million registered drivers in China, delivering more than 11 million rides a day, and last month said it’s on track to turn an operating profit “soon.”

• Exclusive: Warren Buffett, Quicken Loans founder in Yahoo bid - sources: Berkshire Hathaway Inc Chairman Warren Buffett is backing a consortium vying for Yahoo Inc's internet assets that includes Quicken Loans Inc founder Dan Gilbert, people familiar with the matter said on Friday. While there is no certainty that the consortium will prevail in the auction, the interest of Buffett and Gilbert is a boost for the Sunnyvale, California-based company, which has been surpassed in recent years by rivals such as Alphabet Inc in the race for internet users and advertising dollars. The consortium's participation in the sale process also represents a challenge to U.S. telecommunications carrier Verizon Communications Inc, whose deal to acquire AOL last year for $4.4 billion has made it a favorite to prevail in its bid for Yahoo's assets among industry analysts.

• Amazon is going to sell its own lines of food, detergent and diapers, and it's going to be a really big deal: Amazon is going to start selling its own brands of snacks, diapers, detergent — a move lots of traditional retailers have already made. But Amazon isn't a traditional retailer, so this move could be very meaningful for Amazon, and its competitors. The e-commerce powerhouse will soon begin selling its own packaged goods, exclusively to Amazon Prime members under brands like Happy Belly and Mama Bear, the Wall Street Journal reports. While some people will point out that so-called "private-labeling" is nothing new -- grocery stores and big-box retailers have been increasingly pushing their in-house brands -- this is a much bigger deal. That's because the growth in retail is all going to be online, and Amazon owns online. It already accounts for half of all sales growth in U.S. e-commerce. So Amazon's move into consumer packaged goods gives it even more opportunity to flex its muscle with suppliers. That means giving its own products better placement on its site, and undercutting competitors on pricing. The move also offers Amazon the chance to pad its bottom line -- something Jeff Bezos hasn't traditionally been willing or able to do. Private-label brands typically carry higher profit margins , in part because the companies selling them don't put big marketing campaigns behind them. Think of the damage Amazon already does its to competitors as a low-margin business. Now imagine what happens when if it starts generating real profits on stuff like cereal and soap. The move is also a way to increase the power of Amazon Prime, the $99-a-year unlimited shipping program that fuels Amazon's retail growth. Prime customers spend more on Amazon than non-members and are more loyal, too. By adding another perk, Amazon can make its best customers even even more loyal. There's risk here, of course. Some Amazon-branded products have already flopped, including its Amazon Element diapers, which were pulled for design flaws shortly after launch.

Daily Tech Snippet: Thursday, February 25

• Airbnb Admits It Removed 1,500 Listings in New York Before Releasing Data to Regulators: Before Airbnb Inc. shared data on its business in New York City, the home-rental website removed about 1,500 listings controlled by full-time landlords. The company disclosed the removals in a letter to New York state legislators on Wednesday as it faces criticism over becoming a platform for unregulated hotels.  Airbnb said it kicked off 622 hosts as part of the effort in November. The cuts helped portray a rosier picture of its New York City operations in the data released in December. The company had not outlined the extent of its removals when it initially presented the data publicly. The deleted listings accounted for about 4 percent of those offered in the city. Josh Meltzer, the company's head of public policy in New York, wrote in the letter to legislators that the listings "did not reflect Airbnb's vision for our community." Airbnb has faced questions from city officials who have said real-estate developers are using Airbnb to rent out homes instead of selling them to permanent residents. The practice risks driving up housing prices. Airbnb defeated a proposal in San Francisco last year that would have restricted the company's business in its hometown. Airbnb spent $8 million to fight the effort. "In New York City, where housing prices and availability are a critical issue, we want to work with our community and policymakers to help prevent short-term rentals from impacting the availability and cost of permanent housing for city residents," Meltzer wrote in the letter. "While home sharing has been around for centuries, our people-to-people home sharing platform is new. And Airbnb is a young company. We have learned that a one-size fits all approach to cities will not work." Along with the letter to New York lawmakers, Airbnb released updated data on its operations in the city. Of hosts renting their entire homes in New York City, 38 percent of revenue came from those listing two or more homes on the website. Hosts with six or more homes on Airbnb generated 6 percent of revenue.

• Salesforce quarterly revenue beats Wall St expectations: Salesforce.com Inc reported higher-than-expected quarterly revenue and raised its full-year revenue forecast, saying customers were stepping up purchases of its web-based sales and marketing software despite economic uncertainty.Shares of the world's largest maker of online sales software rose 7.2 percent to $67 in after-hours trading.The company raised its full-year revenue forecast to $8.08 billion-$8.12 billion, from $8.0 billon-$8.1 billion, and said forecast adjusted profit of 99 cents to $1.01 per share. Revenue rose 25.3 percent to $1.81 billion, above analysts' estimate of $1.79 billion. In the fourth quarter ended Jan. 31, revenue from sales cloud - a suite of software that allows companies to track leads, forecast and collaborate around sales opportunities - rose 12.3 percent to $708.9 million. The net loss narrowed to $25.5 million, or 4 cents per share, from $65.8 million, or 10 cents per share, a year earlier.

• HP Inc says to accelerate job cuts by 2016: HP Inc said it was accelerating its restructuring program and now expects about 3,000 people will exit by the end of fiscal 2016 instead of over three years as it announced in September. Then, Hewlett-Packard Co had said it expected to cut about 33,300 jobs over three years, of which up to 3,300 were to be cut in HP Inc. It said then that 1,200 people would leave the company by the end of 2016. The restructuring will result in charges and associated cash payments of about $300 million in the current year, the company said. "This move is basically HP Inc embracing the tough pricing environment and shifting their focus to building their portfolio," says Shannon Cross, an analyst for Cross Research. HP Inc (HPQ.N), which houses former Hewlett-Packard Co's legacy hardware business, reported a near 12 percent drop in quarterly revenue, as it struggles with weak demand for PCs and printers. Revenue in the company's personal systems business fell 13 percent in the first quarter ended Jan. 31, while it declined 17 percent in its printing division from a year earlier. PC sales have been falling sharply worldwide, and the launch of Windows 10 has so far failed to rekindle demand. Printer demand has been hurt as corporate customers cut printing costs and consumers shift to mobile devices.

• Google Fiber Is Finally Coming to San Francisco: Google Fiber is coming to its own backyard. Well, in moderation. On Wednesday, the high-speed broadband and cable business, announced that it will start servicing “some” apartments, condos and affordable housing units in San Francisco, the urban hub north of its Silicon Valley headquarters. It’s not saying how many connections, when they’ll come or how much they’ll cost.But it is definitely coming, unlike other cities where Fiber has said that it is “exploring” an arrival. That makes San Francisco among the largest metropolitan areas for Fiber, which has, so far, kept to smaller cities clamoring for its service (and where it can more quickly gain broadband market share).It’s a symbolic entry — landing near Silicon Valley — as well as a commercial one: The city is full of tech companies and techies that have also clamored for super fast Internet.Comcast* and AT&T, two of Fiber’s chief competitors, have both announced intentions to bring gigabit Internet to the city. While Fiber has primarily focused on residential lines, it could expand into enterprise services, something Comcast has made a push for.Google is accelerating its enterprise business, which includes a team dedicated to getting startups on Google services. It’s not clear if that includes Fiber, which is housed under the Access subsidiary of Google’s Alphabet. 

• Wow! Facebook’s New Reactions Are Here, but Still No Dislike Button. Facebook has been testing alternatives to the company’s now-famous “Like” button for a few months, and it’s ready to bring those alternatives to the masses. The company is rolling out new reactions like “wow,” “sad” and “haha” to U.S. users beginning Wednesday and the rest of the world shortly after, according to Tom Alison, engineering director for News Feed. It started testing these responses in countries like Spain and Ireland last fall, and while the company said at the time that it was open to adding more emotions it looks like it stuck with the same six it started with. Getting to those six was actually a lengthy process, said Alison. The company has been working on reactions for a year, and crafted the new options based on data about which stickers and user comments were most popular on Facebook. You’ll quickly notice what’s not included in the new list of reactions: A dislike button. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg initially said Facebook was building one, but it turns out that wasn’t actually the case. (Angry!) “I think … ‘anger’ and ‘sad’ actually covered a lot of what we saw people trying to convey,” Alison explained. Why change the “Like” feature at all? Engagement. You may not feel comfortable “Liking” a sad update in your feed, so Facebook wants to give you other options. Alison said it’s “a little early” to tell if engagement increased in countries where Facebook has been testing the new reactions, which probably means it hasn’t. (Facebook would likely broadcast it if engagement were up.) The new feature will be available on iOS and Android phones beginning Wednesday as part of a free app update.

• Uber China Rival Didi Kuaidi Raising $1 Billion at Valuation of More Than $20 Billion: Didi Kuaidi, the biggest ride-hailing company in China, has received at least $1 billion in commitments for a new fundraising round, according to a person familiar with the matter. Once the financing closes, it would value the Uber rival at more than $20 billion, said the person, who asked not to be named because the terms aren't final. The round is oversubscribed, and the company is still negotiating terms with investors, the person said. Didi Kuaidi declined to comment. Didi Kuaidi is spending heavily on adding new drivers and offering competitive fare prices as it aims to stay ahead of Uber Technologies Inc. in China. Uber spent more than $1 billion in the country last year and plans to spend a comparable amount in 2016. In the first three quarters of 2015, Uber lost $1.7 billion, much of that going toward expansion in Asia, Bloomberg Businessweek reported in January. Uber Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick said last week that the company is profitable in the U.S., according to Canadian technology blog BetaKit. It's unclear how the metric was calculated. Didi Kuaidi raised $3 billion last year at a $16.5 billion valuation. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the Chinese company's latest fundraising round. To take on Uber, Didi Kuaidi has formed an international coalition with the likes of Lyft Inc. in the U.S. and Ola in India. Uber was last valued by investors at $62.5 billion, and the company has raised more than $10 billion in the five years since it started picking up passengers.

Daily Tech Snippet: Friday, December 4

• Uber Valuation Put at $62.5 Billion After a New Investment Round - Tiger Global, Investor in Uber's Rivals, Joins In: Uber’s fund-raising efforts are showing no signs of slowing down. The company, based in San Francisco, is close to completing the raising of a $2.1 billion round of venture capital, according to people briefed on the company’s plans, the company’s single largest round to date. Once completed, the investment will value the company at $62.5 billion, according to three people briefed on the plans, securing Uber’s place as the world’s most valuable private start-up. Tiger Global Management participated in the newest round, led by its partner Lee Fixel, as did T. Rowe Price, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the terms are still private. Talks of the funding plans were previously reported by The New York Times in October. On Thursday, Bloomberg News reported the $62.5 billion valuation. Competition is intensifying in the global ride-hailing market, as rivals like Lyft, Didi Kuaidi and other companies raise billions of dollars in to expand as quickly as possible. Lyft, another ride-hailing start-up, is in talks to raise a further $500 million in funding, according to four people briefed on the round, which could value the company at roughly $4 billion. Didi Kuaidi, to date, has raised more than $4 billion in private investment. The participation of Tiger Global, however, is particularly interesting. Tiger Global is an investor in Ola and GrabTaxi, two of Uber’s largest competitors in India and Southeast Asia. It is perhaps the first time a major institutional investor participated in the rounds of both Uber and its major competitors. And on Thursday, Ola and GrabTaxi announced a strategic partnership with Lyft, which is also based in San Francisco and is Uber’s major competitor in the United States.

• Why would anyone want to buy Yahoo? Now, that question may be the key to understanding the parlor game of rumor and conjecture currently swirling around the company. Depending on which speculating analyst you talk to, Verizon, Microsoft, Time Inc., Comcast, AT&T, and even IAC — the company that owns Tinder, OkCupid and Match.com — could all jump in as potential buyers.To be specific, what we're talking about is a possible sale of Yahoo's "core business," but even that term belies the dizzying range of things that Yahoo actually does. Is it a search company? A media company? An advertising company?In truth, it is all of those things, which is one reason we've seen so many names come out of the corporate woodwork. But it turns out there's one metric that makes Yahoo really attractive here: The number of eyeballs that Yahoo commands on a monthly basis.This might seem obvious in an era where clickbait and traffic seem to rule with an iron grip. But if you take Yahoo apart piece by piece, you start to understand why snapping up the company would benefit some firms more than others.Take Microsoft, for instance. It actually tried to buy Yahoo before, in 2008.Microsoft was worried about Google dominating a new market, search. Microsoft tried to build its own competitor, Bing (then known as Windows Live Search), but it didn't take off with users. So Microsoft figured it would buy the No. 2 player, Yahoo, and combine its search and search ad business with Microsoft's.Fast-forward to today, and Bing is no longer lagging behind Yahoo. In fact, what you have is a market where Bing actually covers more than 20 percent of search, compared to Yahoo's 13 percent. Both have been helped, no doubt, by a joint partnership on search.Combining the two might get Microsoft a bit closer to Google (which commands 64 percent of the market), but it still wouldn't be within striking distance. And Microsoft would also be inheriting all of Yahoo's other Internet businesses, potentially slowing the company down as it tries to execute a shift toward offering more cloud services, especially for corporate clients.But let's shift to some of the other names that have been floated. Three are providers of fixed or mobile Internet — four, if you count Softbank, the Japanese parent company of Sprint. That isn't a coincidence; Internet providers increasingly view original online content as the way to turn their networks into cash cows. Carrying data over simple pipes is no longer as lucrative as before.

• Lyft Joins With Asian Rivals to Compete With Uber: The anti-Uber global alliance of ride-hailing companies has now officially taken shape. On Thursday, Lyft, a ride-hailing start-up based in the United States, announced a coalition with GrabTaxi, Ola and Didi Kuaidi, three of the largest ride-hailing companies in Asia. Under a partnership, the companies can operate in one another’s home countries, forging new pathways for each in markets they have yet to tap into. Many of Uber’s competitors are far smaller and operate in just one or two markets. Lyft, which is currently seeking $500 million in funding at a valuation of $4 billion, operates in more than 60 cities in the United States, for instance. By banding together, the companies aim to achieve more scale and more service adoption in relatively short amounts of time. Partnerships are less expensive than having to spend to establish operations in multiple markets. The companies declined to reveal financial details of their partnership. The alliance has been forming over the last few months. In September, Lyft teamed with Didi, the Chinese ride-hailing behemoth, to provide service to Chinese Didi Kuaidi app users who enter the United States. The move also lets Lyft users find rides in China using the Lyft app; the requests are fulfilled by Didi Kuaidi drivers. Ola is a ride-hailing company in India, and GrabTaxi operates in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia. Under the partnership, Lyft users traveling to India will be able to open the Lyft app there and have local rides supplied by Ola. In Southeast Asian countries, Lyft will have a similar arrangement with GrabTaxi.

Daily Tech Snippet: Wednesday, November 4

• Gmail’s Inbox app will now write (some of) your e-mails for you: Google just gave a little bit of help to anyone tired of typing out the same reply to e-mails over and over again. Now, software will do some of the work for you. An updated version of Inbox, one of Google's mail apps, will "read" your e-mails and offer up suggested replies. In a company blog post, Gmail software engineer Bálint Miklós said Tuesday that the feature "uses machine learning to recognize emails that need responses and to generate the natural language responses on the fly." The goal is to have options good enough that a user will send short messages in just two taps. And the suggestions are designed to get better as you use the feature more often, and Inbox learns your personal quirks.

• Tesla’s autopilot will soon become an ‘in-app purchase,’ Elon Musk says: Tesla owners will soon be able to add autopilot functionality to their vehicles if they weren't able to sign up for it earlier, company chief executive Elon Musk said Tuesday. Drivers will be allowed to unlock Tesla's autopilot with a $3,000 payment, Musk told investors. That's about $500 more than what early adopters paid for autopilot's most powerful capabilities. "That's something we'll be allowing people to do at some point in the coming months," said Musk. "Sort of like an in-app purchase, I guess." All Tesla vehicles already benefit from some autopilot safety features, thanks to a recent software update. Automatic emergency braking, collision avoidance and collision warning have now rolled out across the fleet, Musk said. But only about 40,000 Teslas have autopilot enabled, he added. Those vehicles are collectively logging a million miles of driverless driving a day, giving Tesla valuable usage data. The decision by Tesla to allow "in-app purchases" of a sort highlights the company's growing habit of using software to upgrade its vehicles, equipping them with new powers on a rapid update cycle.

• Uber's China Rival Says Cash Burn Has Slowed With Lower Payouts: Didi Kuaidi, the ride-hailing service competing in China with Uber Technologies Inc., said it has slashed the subsidies it pays out to drivers and riders since the middle of this year, reducing its cash burn as the rising number of orders reduce the need for enticements. The level of financial incentives last month were about a third of the level in June and July, Stephen Zhu, vice president of strategy and head of taxi services at Didi Kuaidi, said in an interview in Beijing on Tuesday. Some of its services like taxi-hailing are close to breaking even, he said. The decline in subsidies comes as the transport ministry released draft guidelines that prohibit Internet ride-booking companies to offer their services below cost in order to gain market share, describing such tactics as disruptive to “normal market order.” The proposed regulations also codify requirements that vehicles used in hailing services must be registered for commercial use and that drivers have to obtain qualifications before being allowed to ferry fares.

• Amazon Opens Its First-Ever Physical Store, Selling Books on Paper, With a Side of Irony: Amazon, bookstore slayer, meet Amazon, bookstore owner. The e-commerce giant known in many circles as the archenemy of brick-and-mortar stores — and bookstores, specifically — plans to open its first physical storefront in its history on Tuesday. The store’s name? Amazon Books. Yes, Amazon is opening a bookstore in its hometown of Seattle. In an interview with the Seattle Times, Amazon said that the physical store would use online customer reviews and other digital data to inform some of its inventory decisions. Amazon will display a review or rating for each of the 5,000 or so books on display. Prices will match those on Amazon.com.

Daily Tech Snippet: Thursday September 17

• Oracle earnings disappoint: Revenue falls 1.7%, Stock down 2.8%: Oracle Corp's sales fell more than expected in the first quarter, hurt by a strong dollar and a continued drop in licensed software sales and the company warned revenue could fall in the current quarter even on a constant currency basis. Oracle's revenue declined 1.7 percent to $8.45 billion in the quarter ended Aug. 31, missing analysts estimates for the third quarter in a row. The company said sales increased 7 percent on a constant currency basis. However, it forecast revenue to range between a fall of 2 percent to growth of 1 percent in the current quarter. Oracle's shares fell as much as 2.8 percent in extended trading on Wednesday. Sales of Oracle's cloud-computing software and platform service rose 34 percent to $451 million. Sales of traditional software licenses fell 16 percent to $1.51 billion. Like its rivals such as SAP, IBM and Microsoft, Oracle is striving to boost Internet-based software sales to head off fast-growing competitors such as Salesforce.com. But, analysts have said Oracle's cloud software business has not been growing fast enough to make up for declines in the 38-year-old company's licensed software business due to reasons ranging from slow customer adoption to tough competition.

• Lyft Announces Deal With Didi Kuaidi, the Chinese Ride-Hailing Company: The pink mustache is coming to China. And it will receive a warm welcome — not a snub — from its new hosts. Lyft, the San Francisco-based ride-hailing start-up that has its drivers affix a striking pink mustache logo to their cars, announced a partnership with Didi Kuaidi, China’s pre-eminent ride-hailing company, that will allow the American company to operate in China for the first time. The cross-border deal will also let Didi Kuaidi operate in the United States. Lyft’s partnership with Didi Kuaidi offers a somewhat novel approach to international expansion. Didi Kuaidi, which comprises China’s two largest ride-hailing start-ups, will let Lyft users from the United States find rides in China using the Lyft app. Didi Kuaidi will fulfill those ride requests using its drivers, while Lyft users will not have to leave the app to download or sign up for any new services. Didi Kuaidi will have much the same agreement with Lyft for its users. Chinese users entering the United States can find a ride using the Didi Kuaidi app, with those rides being fulfilled by Lyft. The partnership between the two companies is perhaps the clearest sign yet of the race to conquer different parts of the world in the global ride-hailing industry. The handful of major companies in the business of providing car rides have raised giant sums of money — some into the billions of dollars — and are using the money to open in new markets and release new product offerings. Nearly all of these companies have their eye on Uber, the huge on-demand ride company that has raised more than $7 billion in venture capital and is valued at more than $50 billion. Over the last five years, Uber has exploded in growth to more than 300 cities across 60 countries. China, in particular, has recently been a hotbed of contention and competition for ride-hailing start-ups. Uber has earmarked more than $1 billion for its aggressive push into Asia — and particularly China — and is spending millions in subsidies to attract drivers and riders to its service with lucrative promotions. Still, Uber’s presence in China is dwarfed by that of Didi Kuaidi, which controls 80 percent of the overall ride-hailing market in China. 

• Apple Acquires Mapsense, a Mapping Visualization Startup: Apple’s steady stealth campaign to rival Google in maps continues apace. This month, the company acquired Mapsense, a San Francisco startup that builds tools for analyzing and visualizing location data, according to multiple sources. Apple paid somewhere between $25 million and $30 million for the Mapsense 12-person team, which will now join the Cupertino company, according to two sources. “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” the company said in a statement. Mapsense was formed in 2013 by Erez Cohen, a former engineer for the data science company Palantir Technologies. The company’s offering lets users slice and dice graphical models of maps that hold huge sums of data. It’s cloud-based, naturally. The company launched its developer platform in May, noting that it was welcoming customers from the financial sector, advertising, government and Fortune 500 firms. That same month, Mapsense raised $2.5 million in a seed round led by General Catalyst with other backers including Amplify.LA and Redpoint Ventures. Over the years, Apple has quietly scooped up several location-services companies, including HopStop, a crowd-sourced maps tool, in 2013 and Coherent Navigation, a GPS company, this past May.

• BlaBlaCar, a French Ride-Sharing Start-Up, Is Valued at $1.6 Billion: BlaBlaCar, the French ride-hailing start-up, announced on Wednesday that it had raised $200 million, primarily from United States investors, which valued the company at $1.6 billion. The funding comes as the Paris-based company, which was founded in 2006 and aims to connect people who want to split the cost of long-distance journeys, has expanded beyond its European roots into a growing number of emerging markets like Turkey, India and Russia. With roughly 20 million users spread across three continents, BlaBlaCar is hoping to follow in the footsteps of other on-demand services like Uber, the ride-booking company, and Airbnb, the vacation rental website, to expand its international operations. BlaBlaCar has so far mostly skirted controversy, unlike companies like Uber, which has faced protests from many regulators and taxi associations. That is because BlaBlaCar does not allow drivers to profit from the ride-sharing service. People can only split the cost of long-distance travel, say between Paris and Marseilles or Moscow and St. Petersburg. The French start-up says the average ride in Europe costs roughly $25 per person, significantly less than the region’s costly high-speed trains. The funding comes as the Paris-based company, which was founded in 2006 and aims to connect people who want to split the cost of long-distance journeys, has expanded beyond its European roots into a growing number of emerging markets like Turkey, India and Russia.