Daily Tech Snippet: Thursday, April 27

• Why did ESPN let go of 100 of its writers, reporters and on-air staff today? The programmer, which has around 8,000 employees, says it’s making the moves as it adapts its mix of TV and digital programming to the Twitter/Facebook/Snapchat age. Its content costs are rising as it pays ever-increasing fees for rights to show college and pro sports. But its subscriber base is shrinking as pay TV customers cut the cord or never sign up for it in the first place. The short version of his answer: ESPN thinks it will continue to grow its subscriber revenue by charging its remaining subscribers (via pay TV distributors) more for the service, and that it can keep growing ad rates, too. But ESPN can’t simply grow its way out of this problem. It will have to cut costs, too.

• Huawei, Chinese Technology Giant, Is Focus of Widening U.S. Investigation: As one of the world’s biggest sellers of smartphones and the back-end equipment that makes cellular networks run, Huawei Technologies has become one of the major symbols of China’s global technology ambitions. But as it continues its rise, its business with some countries has fallen under growing scrutiny from investigators in the United States. American officials are widening their investigation into whether Huawei broke American trade controls on Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria, according to an administrative subpoena sent to Huawei and reviewed by The New York Times. The previously unreported subpoena was issued in December by the United States Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which oversees compliance with a number of American sanctions programs. The Treasury’s inquiry follows a subpoena sent to Huawei this summer from the United States Department of Commerce, which carries out sanctions and also oversees exports of technology that can have military as well as civilian uses.

• Twitter posts strong user growth, shares soar: Shares of Twitter Inc jumped on Wednesday after the microblogging service reported better-than-expected user growth in the first quarter, although its revenue fell for the first time. The surprising acceleration, which Twitter attributed to new features and heightened user interest in political news, followed several quarters of stalled user growth that raised questions about Chief Executive Jack Dorsey's leadership and speculation the platform may be bought by a bigger company. Twitter reported yearly growth of 6 percent in monthly active users, a key performance indicator for social networking services typically calculated by taking the number of users who have logged in and logged out during the 30-day period, to 328 million. On a quarterly basis, Twitter added 9 million monthly users.Despite the user growth, Twitter's revenue for the first quarter fell 7.8 percent to $548.3 million, its first drop since its initial public offering. Twitter's advertising revenue plunged 11 percent to $474 million in the quarter, but came in above the average analyst estimate of $442.7 million, according to market research firm FactSet StreetAccount. Just in the United States, the decline was steeper at 17 percent. Net loss narrowed to $61.6 million.

• PayPal offers positive outlook, beats expectations: PayPal Holdings raised its earnings outlook on Wednesday after reporting higher-than-expected quarterly profit resulting from an increase in payment processing volumes and user growth. The company raised its full-year profit forecast to $1.28-$1.33 per share from $1.26-$1.31, and said its board authorized a $5 billion share buyback program. Revenue rose 17 percent to $2.98 billion, beating analysts' average estimate of $2.94 billion. Chief Financial Officer John Rainey said the company was planning some staff cuts and other restructuring initiatives which will slash $75 million in annual costs. "Less than 3 percent of our global workforce will be affected and based on current plans, we do not expect a net decrease in headcount for the year," Rainey said. PayPal's shares jumped 6 percent to $47.08 in after-hours trading.

Daily Tech Snippet: Tuesday, April 25

• Ofo's Zhang Sees China Bike Bubble But Says Startup Will Survive: The co-founder of Ofo Inc., China’s biggest bike-sharing startup, sees a bubble in the industry but says his multibillion dollar business has the scale needed to survive any bust. Ofo plans to expand to 20 countries this year and 200 cities across China, Zhang Siding said Saturday in a Bloomberg Television interview in Zhengzhou, China. He said the company is valued at more than $2 billion.Ofo’s ubiquitous canary-yellow bikes are among more than 25 services now crowding China’s sidewalks. None are seen as profitable thanks to subsidies and low costs, yet together they’ve raised billions of dollars from venture capitalists hoping to cash in on the craze. China’s bike-sharing pioneers are gearing up to compete globally, with arch-rival Mobike previously telling Bloomberg News it wants to enter 100 cities with several foreign locations already in the works. But the flood of bikes has led to angst among China’s local governments and anger from residents. The services typically allow users to park the bikes wherever they like, jamming up the sidewalks. Ofo’s daily revenue is about 10 million yuan ($1.45 million) and it has raised about $650 million since its inception, co-founder Dai Wei said last week in remarks confirmed by the company. Zhang said Ofo is profitable in two cities, but added this wasn’t a major goal for the company. Instead, the priority is to improve the user experience and boost its brand. "There will be a bubble for the industry," he said. "But as long as we continue to do practical things, then there won’t be a bubble.”

• Microsoft's Nadella banks on LinkedIn data to challenge Salesforce: Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) is rolling out upgrades to its sales software that integrates data from LinkedIn, an initiative that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told Reuters was central to the company's long-term strategy for building specialized business software. The improvements to Dynamics 365, as Microsoft's sales software is called, are a challenge to market leader Salesforce.com (CRM.N) and represent the first major product initiative to spring from Microsoft's $26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn, the business-focused social network. The new features will comb through a salesperson's email, calendar and LinkedIn relationships to help gauge how warm their relationship is with a potential customer. The system will recommend ways to save an at-risk deal, like calling in a co-worker who is connected to the potential customer on LinkedIn. The enhancements, which will be available this summer, will require Microsoft Dynamics customers to also be LinkedIn customers. The artificial intelligence, or AI, capabilities of the software would be central, Nadella said. "I want to be able to democratize AI so that any customer using these products is able to, in fact, take their own data and load it into AI for themselves," he said. While Microsoft is a behemoth in the market for operating systems and productivity software like Office, it is a small player in sales software. The company ranks fourth - far behind Salesforce.com and other rivals Oracle Corp (ORCL.N) and SAP (SAPG.DE) - with just 4.3 percent of the market in 2015, the most recent year for which figures are available, according to research firm Gartner.Nadella is under pressure to show that the pricey LinkedIn acquisition in mid-2016 was worthwhile. R "Ray" Wang, founder of analyst firm Constellation Research, said LinkedIn-powered features, combined with popular programs like Office and Skype, could help.

• Tesla’s big Model 3 bet rides on risky assembly line strategy: Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk took many risks with the technology in his company's cars on the way to surpassing Ford Motor Co's market value. Now Musk is pushing boundaries in the factory that makes them. Most automakers test a new model's production line by building vehicles with relatively cheap, prototype tools designed to be scrapped once they deliver doors that fit, body panels with the right shape and dashboards that don't have gaps or seams. Tesla, however, is skipping that preliminary step and ordering permanent, more expensive equipment as it races to launch its Model 3 sedan by a self-imposed volume production deadline of September, Musk told investors last month. Musk’s decision underscores his high-risk tolerance and willingness to forego long-held industry norms that has helped Tesla upend the traditional auto industry. While Tesla is not the first automaker to try to accelerate production on the factory floor, no other rival is putting this much faith in the production strategy succeeding.

Daily Tech Snippet: Monday, April 24

• Virtual Reality Companies Navigate ‘The Trough of Disillusionment’: Twelve months ago the Virtual Reality World Congress in Bristol, England, was a sell-out show, with over 750 attendees gawping over the latest VR hardware and production techniques. This year's event, which took place last week, attracted even more participants -- more than 1,200 over three days -- but the mood felt decidedly less upbeat. Virtual reality, it seems, has been mugged by reality. Sales of VR hardware have fallen 40 percent behind forecasts, CCS Insight, a technology research group, said in a February report. And the VR hardware that is selling has mostly been relatively inexpensive goggles that allow people to experience VR through their smartphones, such as Samsung's Gear VR and Google's Daydream, not higher-end, dedicated headsets such as those made by Sony Corp, Facebook Inc.'s Oculus and HTC Corp. Many working in VR have run up against the hard economic reality of trying to produce content for a technology that remains, at least for the moment, fairly niche. As disappointment is setting in for virtual reality, expectations are building around its less glamorous cousin, augmented reality, which is also sometimes called mixed reality because it places digitally-rendered elements in the real observed environment. In 2016, Pokemon Go, which is an augmented reality game played on smartphones, became a worldwide phenomenon. Microsoft launched its high-end AR headset, HoloLens, which has found customers mostly among industrial and business users -- such as aeronautical engineers and architects. Snap Inc.'s AR photo filters are one of the most popular features of its messaging service and Facebook has announced a big push into the field with its own AR camera filters.  Many now expect Apple Inc. to introduce an augmented reality product in the next year, which might help AR to leapfrog VR to achieve mass adoption. Technology company ABI Research says that virtual reality currently generates about 50 percent more revenue than augmented reality but that it relies heavily on hardware sales. Augmented reality, by contrast, relies more on software and in many cases can be experienced by users with their existing smartphones. ABI forecasts that AR revenues will surpass VR sales by 2019. Virtual reality true believers, like Taylor, are dismissive of the idea that AR might outrun VR as a blockbuster consumer technology. Augmented reality requires too much training for the average consumer to learn how to integrate the digital images into the real world, Taylor said. "Mixing the virtual world and the real world is less natural," he said. Simply popping on a headset and diving into a completely virtual environment is, somewhat counter-intuitively, easier, he said. ABI Research still forecasts that virtual reality device shipments will reach 110 million units by 2021 -- huge growth considering only about 6.3 million such devices were shipped last year, according to tech research company Super Data. 

• Uber’s C.E.O. Plays With Fire: Travis Kalanick, the chief executive of Uber, visited Apple’s headquarters in early 2015 to meet with Timothy D. Cook, who runs the iPhone maker. It was a session that Mr. Kalanick was dreading. For months, Mr. Kalanick had pulled a fast one on Apple by directing his employees to help camouflage the ride-hailing app from Apple’s engineers. The reason? So Apple would not find out that Uber had been secretly identifying and tagging iPhones even after its app had been deleted and the devices erased — a fraud detection maneuver that violated Apple’s privacy guidelines.  But Apple was onto the deception, and when Mr. Kalanick arrived at the midafternoon meeting sporting his favorite pair of bright red sneakers and hot-pink socks, Mr. Cook was prepared. “So, I’ve heard you’ve been breaking some of our rules,” Mr. Cook said in his calm, Southern tone. Stop the trickery, Mr. Cook then demanded, or Uber’s app would be kicked out of Apple’s App Store. For Mr. Kalanick, the moment was fraught with tension. If Uber’s app was yanked from the App Store, it would lose access to millions of iPhone customers — essentially destroying the ride-hailing company’s business. So Mr. Kalanick acceded. In a quest to build Uber into the world’s dominant ride-hailing entity, Mr. Kalanick has openly disregarded many rules and norms, backing down only when caught or cornered. He has flouted transportation and safety regulations, bucked against entrenched competitors and capitalized on legal loopholes and gray areas to gain a business advantage. In the process, Mr. Kalanick has helped create a new transportation industry, with Uber spreading to more than 70 countries and gaining a valuation of nearly $70 billion, and its business continues to grow. But the previously unreported encounter with Mr. Cook showed how Mr. Kalanick was also responsible for risk-taking that pushed Uber beyond the pale, sometimes to the very brink of implosion. Crossing that line was not a one-off for Mr. Kalanick. According to interviews with more than 50 current and former Uber employees, investors and others with whom the executive had personal relationships, Mr. Kalanick, 40, is driven to the point that he must win at whatever he puts his mind to and at whatever cost — a trait that has now plunged Uber into its most sustained set of crises since its founding in 2009.

Daily Tech Snippet: Friday, April 21

• China's LeEco plans sale of $420 million Beijing real estate: Chinese tech conglomerate LeEco is in talks to sell a prized property asset in the heart of Beijing it acquired in a $420 million deal last year, the latest effort by the electric car-to-smartphone behemoth to raise funds amid a severe cash crunch. The company plans to sell either all or a majority of its Shimao Gongsan retail property in a popular area on the east side of Beijing by divesting from two firms it owns, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said. LeEco has been in talks with potential investors for some months now, the first person said. LeEco, centered around a Netflix-like video platform operated by its listed unit, has been one of China's boldest tech firms, ambitiously pushing into the U.S. market and looking to take on Elon Musk's Tesla Motors (TSLA.O) in high-end electric vehicles. The firm's wide spread, however, led its billionaire founder and Chief Executive Jia Yueting to admit in November that it was facing "big company disease" and battling a cash crunch after expanding too fast. The firm is now reining in its spending, looking to sell property in the United States and scrapping this month a $2 billion deal to acquire U.S. TV maker Vizio. 

• Watch this all-electric ‘flying car’ take its first test flight in Germany: Flying cars, that perennial dream for futurists that always seem to be at least five years away, may be a little closer to reality than we realize. A lot of prototypes have been showcased recently, and a lot of money is being tossed around. More people than ever seem to buy into the crazy notion that in the near future we’ll be buzzing between rooftops in private, autonomous drones. Today, Munich-based Lilium Aviation announced an important milestone: the first test flight of its all-electric, two-seater, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) prototype. In a video provided by the Munich-based startup, the aircraft can be seen taking off vertically like a helicopter, and then accelerating into forward flight using wing-borne lift. The craft is powered by 36 separate jet engines mounted on its 10-meter long wings via 12 movable flaps. At take-off, the flaps are pointed downwards to provide vertical lift. And once airborne, the flaps gradually tilt into a horizontal position, providing forward thrust. During the tests, the jet was piloted remotely, but its operators say their first manned flight is close-at-hand. And Lilium claims that its electric battery “consumes around 90 percent less energy than drone-style aircraft,” enabling the aircraft to achieve a range of 300 kilometers (183 miles) with a maximum cruising speed of 300 kph (183 mph).

Daily Tech Snippet: Thursday, April 20

• Bose headphones spy on listeners: lawsuit: Bose Corp spies on its wireless headphone customers by using an app that tracks the music, podcasts and other audio they listen to, and violates their privacy rights by selling the information without permission, a lawsuit charged. The complaint filed on Tuesday by Kyle Zak in federal court in Chicago seeks an injunction to stop Bose's "wholesale disregard" for the privacy of customers who download its free Bose Connect app from Apple Inc or Google Play stores to their smartphones. Zak's lawsuit was the latest to accuse companies of trying to boost profit by quietly amassing customer information, and then selling it or using it to solicit more business. After paying $350 for his QuietComfort 35 headphones, Zak said he took Bose's suggestion to "get the most out of your headphones" by downloading its app, and providing his name, email address and headphone serial number in the process. But the Illinois resident said he was surprised to learn that Bose sent "all available media information" from his smartphone to third parties such as Segment.io, whose website promises to collect customer data and "send it anywhere." Audio choices offer "an incredible amount of insight" into customers' personalities, behavior, politics and religious views, citing as an example that a person who listens to Muslim prayers might "very likely" be a Muslim, the complaint said. Dore, a partner at Edelson PC, said customers do not see the Bose app's user service and privacy agreements when signing up, and the privacy agreement says nothing about data collection. Edelson specializes in suing technology companies over alleged privacy violations.

• Silicon Valley’s $400 Juicer May Be Feeling the Squeeze: One of the most lavishly funded gadget startups in Silicon Valley last year was Juicero Inc. It makes a juice machine. The product was an unlikely pick for top technology investors, but they were drawn to the idea of an internet-connected device that transforms single-serving packets of chopped fruits and vegetables into a refreshing and healthy beverage. Doug Evans, the company’s founder, would compare himself with Steve Jobs in his pursuit of juicing perfection. He declared that his juice press wields four tons of force—“enough to lift two Teslas,” he said. Google’s venture capital arm and other backers poured about $120 million into the startup. Juicero sells the machine for $400, plus the cost of individual juice packs delivered weekly. Tech blogs have dubbed it a “Keurig for juice.”But after the product hit the market, some investors were surprised to discover a much cheaper alternative: You can squeeze the Juicero bags with your bare hands. Two backers said the final device was bulkier than what was originally pitched and that they were puzzled to find that customers could achieve similar results without it. Bloomberg performed its own press test, pitting a Juicero machine against a reporter’s grip. The experiment found that squeezing the bag yields nearly the same amount of juice just as quickly—and in some cases, faster—than using the device.

• Why Facebook Keeps Beating Every Rival: It’s the Network, of Course: Facebook barged into Snapchat’s happy Venice Beach, Calif., mansion, took a solid inventory of the goods, then lifted the crown jewels. First a version of Stories, the fun slide-show format that Snapchat created, appeared last year on Instagram, owned by Facebook. Then Snapchat’s features made their way to WhatsApp and Messenger, Facebook’s chat apps. A couple of weeks ago they got to the big leagues — Facebook’s main app — and the heist was complete. On Tuesday, the leader of the Facebook crew, Mark Zuckerberg, put on a conference to show off his loot. But he went further: He unveiled a vision of augmented reality — in which digital objects and effects are overlaid on images of the real world — which could undercut Snapchat’s mission to become the camera company for the next generation. For years now, the world has been doubting Mr. Zuckerberg. Facebook, they said, would never beat Myspace. Then Facebook was going to get a run for its money from every other social network — Twitter, Pinterest and more. Hey, could it survive Google’s onslaught? Could it survive its own initial public offering? How would Facebook adjust to mobile? What about live video? And then there was Snapchat. By turning the smartphone camera into a communications platform, Snapchat created a novel and compelling social experience. Teenagers couldn’t get enough of it. And teenagers are the future. If Facebook lost teenagers, game over. Do you know what happens when you control four of the biggest social networks in the world? You get to stop worrying about competitors beating you on features.

• EBay's second-quarter profit forecast falls short of estimates: EBay Inc (EBAY.O) on Wednesday forecast second-quarter profit that fell short of analysts' estimates, as it spends heavily on revamping and marketing its e-commerce platform amid stiff competition from much larger rival Amazon. Shares of the company fell 2.5 percent to $33 in trading after the bell. San Jose, California-based eBay has been making changes to its platform to lure more shoppers as well as better compete with Amazon.That has meant a shift away from online auctions toward fixed-price sales and product landing pages, which are easier to navigate than the dozens of listings sellers would generate for a single good. EBay has also increased its marketing spending, running a rare TV campaign ahead of last year's holiday shopping period. Sales and marketing costs climbed 4.5 percent to $562 million in the first quarter ended March 31, while product development expenses jumped 16.3 percent to $278 million. EBay said gross merchandise volume — the total value of all goods sold on its websites — rose 2.4 percent to $20.95 billion in the first quarter. The company's net income rose to $1.04 billion, revenue rose 3.7 percent to $2.22 billion. 

Daily Tech Snippet: Wednesday, April 19

• To Stay Ahead of Facebook, Snap Rolls Out 3-D Features for Messaging: To keep a step ahead of Facebook, Snap is introducing on Tuesday a new feature for its Snapchat ephemeral messaging service that will allow users to place 3-D cartoon objects into their videos and pictures. The technology is similar to the augmented reality used with Pokemon Go, a Nintendo game for mobile devices that overlays digital images on the physical world. Snap’s new technology, a 3-D lens, can also change and shift in response to physical objects. Snap said in a blog post that it launched lenses — which are images that people can superimpose on their selfies — a year and a half ago to give users more ways to express themselves. These features added whimsy and color to Snapchat’s messaging service, which has drawn an avid base of users and has helped propel new forms of digital advertising. Partly powered by Snapchat’s fan base and advertising business, Snap went public last month. But the company’s stock has fallen as Facebook and its many brands have copied the features that once made Snapchat unique. Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Facebook all now have a feature that mimics Snapchat Stories, which lets people string together their images in an ongoing story that disappears after 24 hours. Facebook recently introduced a user interface for its app that also resembles the camera-first interface pioneered by Snapchat. It also lets people send messages that disappear, another innovation popularized by Snapchat. Facebook is holding its annual developer conference this week, starting on Tuesday. Last week, Instagram said that 200 million people were using its Stories feature each day. Snap reported an average of 158 million active daily users at the end of 2016. Snap’s share price has dropped from a high of $27 to a low of about $19, and the Facebook clones are very likely to be a concern for shareholders when Snap reports its first earnings as a public company next month.

• IBM posts first revenue miss in five quarters, shares tumble: International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) reported a bigger-than-expected decline in revenue for the first time in five quarters due to weak demand in its IT services business, a sign that the company's turnaround could take longer than expected. Shares of IBM, whose revenue has now fallen for 20 quarters in a row, tumbled 4.7 percent to $162 in trading after the bell on Tuesday. At current levels, the stock is set to more than erase its roughly 2.5 percent gain this year. With demand for its legacy hardware and software businesses stagnating, IBM has been shifting towards cloud-based services, security software, data analytics and artificial intelligence such as its supercomputer Watson, which once defeated human contestants in the quiz show Jeopardy.These "strategic imperatives", spread across IBM's various businesses, continued to grow in the first quarter, but failed to offset weakness in the company's core operations, especially at the technology services and cloud platforms business. IBM could not close some large deals in that business, which is its largest, while a couple of large clients took their operations in-house, Chief Financial Officer Martin Schroeter said on a conference call. IBM's revenue of $18.16 billion in the first quarter missed analysts' estimate of $18.39 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.IBM's net income dropped 13 percent to $1.75 billion.

• PetSmart is acquiring Chewy.com for $3.35 billion in the largest e-commerce acquisition ever: PetSmart has agreed to make the biggest e-commerce acquisition in history, putting a deal in place to snatch up fast-growing pet food and product site Chewy.com for $3.35 billion, according to multiple sources familiar with the deal. The deal is a huge one by any standard — bigger than Walmart’s $3.3 billion deal for Jet.com last year— and especially for a retail company like PetSmart, which was itself valued at only $8.7 billion when private equity investors took it over in 2015. But Chewy.com has been one of the fastest-growing e-commerce sites on the planet, registering nearly $900 million in revenue last year, in what was only its fifth year in operation. The company had been a potential IPO candidate for this year or next, but was taken out by its brick-and-mortar competitor before that. It was not profitable last year. Chewy was founded in 2011 by Ryan Cohen and Michael Day, and built a cult following for its excellent customer service, large selection and fast shipping. It had quietly raised at least $236 million in venture capital from investors including Volition Capital, T. Rowe Price and BlackRock. Its under-the-radar status was probably aided by the fact that it was headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Daily Tech Snippet: Tuesday, April 18

• Netflix shares head for new high after strong subscriber outlook: Netflix Inc made a bullish forecast for subscriber additions by mid-year, a positive sign for its push to expand around the world that sent its shares toward an all-time high. The streaming video company pushed back the next season of its smash-hit "House of Cards," and other programing to the second quarter, meaning it lured in fewer new subscribers in the first quarter than expected, but will likely make it up from April through June. Subscriber rolls, the most closely watched measure of Netflix's growth, rose by just under 5 million globally in the first quarter, behind analysts' projection of 5.18 million, according to FactSet StreetAccount. However, Netflix forecast 3.2 million more in the seasonally slow second quarter, well ahead of analysts' estimate of nearly 2.4 million. Its shares dropped as much as 3 percent in after-hours trading before rebounding to gain 1.3 percent. The late rise put Netflix stock on track to open at a record high on Tuesday. In its quarterly letter to shareholders, Netflix asked investors to judge its future success by looking primarily at revenue growth and global operating margins. That would be a shift for Wall Street, which has focused on subscriber numbers, said Needham & Co analyst Laura Martin. "The minute you actually pivot (investors) to an income statement, you're talking to a completely different kind of investor," Martin said. "And that investor demands profitability. So it's a risky business." The Los Gatos, California-based company said net income rose to $178 million, or 40 cents per share, compared with $28 million, or 6 cents per share, in the year-ago period. Revenue rose 35 percent to $2.64 billion in the quarter.

• Trump will sign an executive order reviewing high-skilled H-1B immigration visas: U.S. President Donald Trump will order a full review of the country’s high-skilled immigration visa program tomorrow, part of a continued push to clamp down on companies — including, potentially, some in the tech industry — that hire foreigners instead of Americans. In a forthcoming executive order, Trump will commission the Department of Homeland Security, which issues the popular H-1B visa, to review the way they are rewarded. The agency is also instructed to suggest reforms so that visas only land in the hands of highly paid, specially skilled applicants, and not foreign workers who might be paid less than their U.S. counterparts. On its face, Trump’s new directive — a push to “buy American, hire American,” as his aides described it today — does not change the immediate day-to-day working of the H-1B system, which many companies in Silicon Valley support. Instead, at least for the moment, it only opens a formal review of the program. Still, Trump’s move may leave many wary in the tech industry, as it’s the latest in a line of restrictions and changes the administration has introduced to the high-skilled foreign worker visa in recent weeks.

• Batteries could be Tesla’s secret weapon: Markets are very optimistic about Tesla’s future — so optimistic that it would be impossible to explain if Tesla were a conventional car company. On paper, Tesla shouldn’t be worth anywhere near as much as rivals like Ford and GM. Ford sold 6.6 million cars in 2016. GM sold 10 million. Tesla sold a paltry 76,000. Ford and GM both turned healthy profits in 2016. Tesla lost money. Yet earlier this month Tesla’s market value surged past Ford and then briefly eclipsed GM as America’s most valuable carmaker. One big reason for this is that Tesla has made a risky bet on batteries that could be on the verge of a huge payoff. Because Tesla cars are purely electric, a single car needs about 1,000 times as much battery capacity as a typical smartphone. So making electric cars a mainstream technology will require producing batteries on a scale that dwarfs today’s production for smartphones and other portable gadgets. A major test of this will come in Tesla’s release of the Model 3 later this year. These cars will be powered by batteries from the Gigafactory, a huge factory Tesla has constructed in the Nevada desert. If the Model 3 is a hit, experts say, the Gigafactory will ensure Tesla has plenty of batteries to meet demand for this relatively affordable mass-market vehicle. Other car companies would have to scramble — not only to design a similar stylish vehicle, but also to find suppliers for yet more batteries. Experts say this battery advantage won’t last forever — other battery makers might be able to catch up within a year or two. But having a year or two head start could make a big difference — not only cementing Tesla’s reputation as the leading electric car brand, but positioning Tesla to make further investments that could help it stay a step ahead of rivals down the road.

• How Infosys’s $20 billion revenue target by 2020-21 is hurting the firm: Infosys Ltd, despite a relatively good performance over the past two years, is battling perceptions of under-performance because of its inability to keep pace with its ambitious target of more than doubling its revenue to $20 billion by March 2021. This target appears to have done more harm than good: analysts continue to rate the company using it as a metric; and people in the know attribute the departure of at least a few senior executives over the past few years to it. Now, an analyst at a foreign brokerage has suggested that the company is better off without the target. “Management continues to maintain ‘aspirational’ revenue and margin targets that are increasingly becoming unlikely to be achieved, in our opinion. Given Infy (Infosys) is now guiding to lower levels of both revenue growth and margins in FY18 (2017-18), we think management would be well-served to either amend or drop its aspirational targets,” Keith Bachman, an analyst with BMO Capital Markets, wrote in a note dated 16 April. Since outlining this target, Sikka steered Infosys to dollar revenue growth of 9.1% in 2015-16 and 7.4% in 2016-17; for the second consecutive year, Infosys will grow faster than its larger rival Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) and cross-town peer Wipro Ltd (Wipro). Still, Infosys continues to be evaluated on the progress it makes in becoming a $20 billion company. Worryingly for the management, a bigger fallout of the targets has been the pressure on senior leaders, making a few of them leave. Since April 2015, half-a-dozen executive vice-presidents (EVPs) and a dozen senior vice-presidents (SVPs) have quit. Not all departures are on account of the targets but two former executives admit that they left Infosys as they could not keep up with the “impossible targets.”

Daily Tech Snippet: Monday, April 17

• Uber's revenue hits $6.5 billion in 2016, still has large loss: Ride-hailing service Uber Technologies  generated $6.5 billion in revenue last year and its gross bookings doubled to $20 billion, the company said on Friday. Its adjusted net loss was $2.8 billion, excluding the operation in China it sold last year, Uber said. As a private company, now worth $68 billion, Uber does not report its financial results publicly. It confirmed the figures in an emailed statement after Bloomberg reported the results. For the final quarter of 2016, gross bookings increased 28 percent from the previous quarter, to $6.9 billion. But Uber's losses grew to $991 million in the period, as revenues grew 74 percent to $2.9 billion from the third quarter.

• Apple is finally going to test self-driving cars: After months of speculation that the company is developing automotive technology, Apple has officially leapt into the war for self-driving cars by obtaining a test permit from California regulators. The permit allows Apple to begin testing up to three 2015 Lexus SUVs similar to the type that Google uses for its autonomous cars. By obtaining clearance from California's Department of Motor Vehicles, Apple is signaling that it is serious about pushing forward with self-driving technology despite reports last fall that it was scaling back its ambitions. California's DMV disclosed the permit on its website Friday, which lists several dozen other companies that are testing self-driving technology. The group includes BMW, Ford, Honda, Nissan, Uber and others. Like those other companies, Apple's test vehicles will have human drivers behind the wheel when they go out on public roads, according to California regulations.

• Uber Wants to Rule the World. First It Must Conquer India.  After last year’s bruising retreat from China, where the company was outgunned by local incumbent Didi Chuxing, Uber is diving fully into this nation of 1.3 billion people, pouring money, engineers and logistical expertise into dominating what could one day be the world’s largest market for transportation services. Back at Uber’s headquarters in San Francisco in January, Mr. Kalanick, sitting at the head of a small conference table, offered a proud assessment of his company’s role in India. Sipping an iced tea, he said he planned to spend 20 days year in the country, more than in any other market outside of the United States. (He made headlines on a recent trip for offering to become an Indian citizen if it would help Uber’s prospects there.) When I asked if India was Uber’s second-biggest market, he rolled his eyes to the ceiling, as if accessing a spreadsheet stored behind his eyelids. “Hold, let me check, let me think,” he said, and then made a “boop boop boop” sound as the numbers came to him. “We’ll say India’s No. 2,” he declared. At other times during the 40-minute conversation, Mr. Kalanick seemed to grow agitated at questions about some of the difficulties of working in the Indian market. Indian cities do not present any problems that Uber couldn’t overcome, he said, or that it hadn’t seen anywhere else in the world. What about the traffic, the low ownership of cars, the local competitor? “I’m losing your angle,” Mr. Kalanick responded. “I feel like I’m getting asked the same question over and over again. I don’t get it.” Then he excused himself to get a second iced tea. A few minutes later, he returned and I asked again if he was sure Uber would be profitable in India. “Yeah,” he said. He didn’t elaborate, so I prodded him on how he might know that to be true. “I mean, I know all the data,” he said.

Daily Tech Snippet: Friday, April 14

• Yext finishes the day up 21% as IPO window remains wide open: Yext, the company which helps businesses power their location data, went public on the New York Stock Exchange today. After pricing shares above the expected range at $11, the price rose 21% to $13.29 by the end of the first day of trading. With a client list that includes Best Buy, McDonald’s and Marriott, Yext is responsible for the location results that appear on search engines, maps and social media. The company recognized early on that consumers would prefer to find nearby locations without visiting brand websites. In an interview with TechCrunch, CEO Howard Lerman emphasized that Yext plans to evolve beyond location data. They want Yext to be a “knowledge engine,” where they will make it easier to help customers find the best doctor, their ideal automobile, or an event to attend. The IPO raised $115.5 million for the company, and Lerman says they plan to use the capital to further invest in sales and marketing. A large part of their business is convincing large enterprises that Yext provides enough value add to pay for their services. Yext brought in $88.6 million in revenue in the nine months ending in October of last year, with losses of $28.6 million for the same time frame. Revenue is up from the $64 million they saw in the same period the year before and losses narrowed to $18.2 million. Yext previously raised more than $117 million in venture funding at more than a $500 million valuation. The stock market is valuing the company above $1 billion, a favorable sign at a time when there are “down round IPOs.”

• Google is trying to turn Image Search into a shopping tool: Google has added a new shopping feature in Image Search called “style ideas” that shows users perusing fashion merchandise what specific items look like paired with others. A preview of the feature, launching in mobile search, demonstrates a search for a purse from Zara. Below the carousel of products similar to the purse is a grid of photos of various models pairing the purse with a jean jacket, gray suede boots and a pastel pink hijab. The new feature is clearly aimed at getting people looking at products to think of Google as a place to start shopping searches — and to use it instead of shopping portals like Amazon or eBay. Despite its general preeminence in search, Google lags behind Amazon when it comes to product search, and the trend is getting worse for Google. Some 55 percent of U.S. online shoppers start their search for items on Amazon, according to a survey last year by e-commerce startup BloomReach. That’s up from 44 percent when the startup did the same survey a year prior. And in that time, the percentage of shoppers who started product searches on search engines like Google fell from 34 percent to 28 percent. (Another recent survey found similar results.) It’s not just Amazon this feature seems aimed at, but also Pinterest, which offers a tool in its Chrome extension similar to Google’s new style ideas feature. Pinterest’s Chrome extension, which lets users save images they see online to Pinterest without having to return to the site, also lets users select an item and ask Pinterest to surface similar ones based on Pinterest’s image recognition software.

• Nintendo Shares Jump After Switch Sets U.S. Sales Records: Nintendo Co. shares jumped as much as 4 percent after the company said its new Switch console is off to a record-setting pace in the U.S. since its March 3 debut. The new device sold 906,000 units in North America during March, according to industry researcher NPD Group. That means the gaming machine “sold faster in its launch month than any other video game system in Nintendo history,” according to Nintendo. The Switch has received praise for its console-tablet hybrid design that lets gamers play both in the living room and outside the house. While its limited software lineup and limited graphics ability have been criticized, demand has consistently outstripped supply during the first six weeks of sales. That’s buoyed investors who think the Switch is on track to become a bigger hit than the Wii, the company’s best-selling home console of all-time.

Daily Tech Snippet: Thursday, April 13

• Burger King debuts Whopper ad that triggers Google Home devices: Fast-food chain Burger King said on Wednesday it will start televising a commercial for its signature Whopper sandwich that is designed to activate Google voice-controlled devices, raising questions about whether marketing tactics have become too invasive. The 15-second ad starts with a Burger King employee holding up the sandwich saying, "You're watching a 15-second Burger King ad, which is unfortunately not enough time to explain all the fresh ingredients in the Whopper sandwich. But I've got an idea. OK, Google, what is the Whopper burger?" If a viewer has the Google Home assistant or an Android phone with voice search enabled within listening range of the TV, that last phrase - "Hello Google, what is the Whopper burger?" - is intended to trigger the device to search for Whopper on Google and read out the finding from Wikipedia.

• Google Home has stopped answering to that annoying Burger King ad: The internet barely had time to be annoyed for that new 15 second Burger King ad before Google shut the whole thing down. A little over two hours after the fast food giant took the wraps off of a TV spot designed to trigger smart assistants across the country, the functionality no longer works. We’ve reached out to Google for confirmation of the action, which was likely just a quick fix on the server side designed to block a specific waveform, perhaps leveraging similar functionality to block out its own ads. Meantime, we’ve tried in out on a Home unit we have around the office and can confirm that the commercial no longer has the intended effect. Interestingly, it’s not the specific function, just the voice from the ad. Asking Home what a “Whopper sandwich” is in your own voice (like a Big Mac, but smaller) will bring up the Wikipedia entry as initially intended. For Google, the fix is likely akin to patching a security flaw (though here it’s more about annoyance than any real security threat).

• BlackBerry Jumps as $814.9 Million Qualcomm Refund Bolsters Cash: BlackBerry Ltd. stock rose the most in more than two years after it was awarded $814.9 million to end a dispute with Qualcomm Inc. over royalty payments, giving it cash needed to help recast itself as a software maker. The two companies had agreed to enter binding arbitration to settle claims by BlackBerry that it was owed refunds on technology licensing fees prepaid to the chipmaker. The announcement sent BlackBerry shares up as much as 19 percent in New York, the most intraday since January 2015. The refund from Qualcomm will boost BlackBerry’s cash hoard, which stood at $1.7 billion at the end of its fiscal fourth quarter, helping Chief Executive Officer John Chen as he spends more money to shift the company’s focus to software and security-focused products. BlackBerry no longer makes the phones that used Qualcomm technology and arguedthat it was due a refund after sales collapsed.

Daily Tech Snippet: Wednesday, April 12

• Google’s AutoDraw uses machine learning to help you draw like a pro: Drawing isn’t for everyone. I, for one, am definitely not very good at it. But with AutoDraw, Google is launching a new experiment today that uses machine learning algorithms to match your doodles with professional drawings to make you look like you know what you’re doing. You can use AutoDraw on your phone or desktop and the experience is pretty straightforward. You simply start drawing your best version of a pizza, or house, or dog, or birthday cake and the algorithms try to figure out what it is that you’re trying to draw. It then tries to match your squiggles with drawings in its database, and if it finds any possible matches, it’ll show them in a list at the top of your virtual canvas. If you like one of those options, you simply click on it and AutoDraw replaces your amateurish creation with something a bit slicker.

• Amazon Said to Mull Whole Foods Bid Before Jana Stepped In: Amazon.com Inc., seen as a possible bidder for Whole Foods Market Inc., pondered a takeover of the organic-food chain last fall but didn’t pursue a deal, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. The e-commerce giant considered internally whether Whole Foods would help invigorate its nearly decadelong push into groceries, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations were private. The discussions never turned into a concrete plan, according to the person. Though Whole Foods has long been seen as a buyout target, activist investor Jana Partners LLC set off a new wave of speculation this week when it acquired a stake and urged the company to evaluate a sale. With a market valuation of $10.7 billion, the ailing organic-food retailer would be an outsized acquisition for Amazon -- dwarfing its 2009 purchase of online shoe retailer Zappos for about $1.2 billion. But the deal would turn Amazon into a grocery giant overnight and help it sideline Instacart Inc., a startup that delivers grocery orders from Whole Foods stores in more than 20 states and Washington, D.C. Shares of Whole Foods jumped as much as 5.8 percent to $35.50 in late trading after Bloomberg reported on the Amazon discussions. The stock was already up 9.1 percent this year through Tuesday’s close, with most of the rally coming after Jana announced its stake Monday.

• Qualcomm sues Apple for hobbling its iPhone chips to make Intel look better: After Apple hit Qualcomm with a barrage of lawsuits earlier this year, the chipmaker is countersuing Apple right back. Qualcomm today filed its Answers and Counterclaims to Apple’s January lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of California. The full details of the suit can be read in a 139-page document (PDF) released by Qualcomm, but the company has five key complaints — including the claim that Apple deliberately didn’t use the full potential of Qualcomm chips in iPhone 7 phones so that they wouldn’t perform better than the modems provided by Intel. Qualcomm says that Apple “chose not to utilize certain high-performance features of the Qualcomm chipsets for the iPhone 7 (preventing consumers from enjoying the full extent of Qualcomm’s innovation),” and when Qualcomm iPhones supposedly outperformed Intel iPhones, “Apple falsely claimed that there was ‘no discernible difference’ between” the two variants.The company also says that Apple prevented it from revealing to customers “the extent to which iPhones with Qualcomm’s chipsets outperformed iPhones with Intel’s chipsets.” As part of its five core arguments, Qualcomm says Apple “threatened” it to keep quiet about the differences between Intel and Qualcomm iPhones, preventing Qualcomm from “making any public comparisons about the superior performance of the Qualcomm-powered iPhones.” Other complaints in the countersuit include claims that Apple breached and mischaracterized agreements and negotiations with Qualcomm, encouraged attacks on the company in a number of markets by misrepresenting facts and making false statements, and interfered with Qualcomm’s existing agreements with other companies. Apple’s original suit against Qualcomm was filed in January this year in the United States, and claimed $1 billion from the chipmaker, arguing that it had been drastically overcharging for the use of patents. That was followed up by two additional suits — one in China and one in the United Kingdom — that also focused on patents and designs. A case filed in Beijing claimed 1 billion yuan ($145 million) for Qualcomm’s abuse of China’s monopoly laws. Tim Cook said that Apple had “no choice” but to sue Qualcomm, even after the two companies had worked together for many years, saying that he and his company “didn’t see another way forward.” According to Cook, Qualcomm was “insisting on charging royalties for technologies that they had nothing to do with,” collecting money on features like Apple’s TouchID fingerprint readers and cameras.

Daily Tech Snippet: Tuesday, April 11

• Battle of Billionaires: Son Set to Clash With Bezos in India: SoftBank Group Corp.’s Masayoshi Son and Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos are heading for a clash in India. SoftBank is closing in on an agreement to combine its e-commerce company Snapdeal with market leader Flipkart Online Services Pvt., creating a stronger domestic player to compete with the American behemoth, according to people familiar with the matter. To get the merger done, Son is willing to cut Snapdeal’s valuation 85 percent to $1 billion, said the people, asking not to be named because the talk is private. The combination of India’s two leading e-commerce players is being called an arranged marriage, said the people, with Son playing the role of matchmaker. The Japanese billionaire, who owns about a third of Snapdeal parent Jasper Infotech Pvt, plans to contribute that equity to the merged entity and to infuse another $500 million to $1 billion in Flipkart through a transaction with Flipkart backer Tiger Global Management, the people said. Flipkart is already raising cash for the battle. The Bangalore-based company said Monday it had raised $1.4 billion from Tencent Holdings Ltd., Microsoft Corp. and EBay Inc. in what it said was the largest internet investment in India. That would give Flipkart more firepower to battle Amazon in one of the world’s fastest growing online retail markets. The Seattle-based company has vowed to spend $5 billion in the country and India chief Amit Agarwal has used the money to gain customers. Flipkart said the post-transaction valuation for the company was $11.6 billion. An alliance among Flipkart, Snapdeal and EBay could give the business customers, scale and technology, though it’s not clear how easily those could be integrated.

• Why eBay’s CEO sold eBay India and poured $500 million into the country’s top Amazon rival: Can you explain how you went from investing in Snapdeal — and then selling most of your stake in them — to investing in one of its biggest competitors, Flipkart? Devin Wenig: The process started almost a year ago with us looking at the Indian market and seeing who was winning and who was losing and what the next few years were going to be like. We were evaluating both eBay India and Snapdeal. And what was the conclusion? I’ll start by saying I really do believe the market will be a strong commerce market. There are just too many positive dynamics: Too much growing wealth, too much tech adoption, too much demand for goods and supply-demand imbalance. It’s also true that the market has been overheated, not rational, and probably over-invested in too many companies. It’s been a very unhealthy e-commerce dynamic for a few years. The conclusion was, it was going to have to consolidate, that fewer parties were probably a good thing for the market. Flipkart had a very strong close to last year and they are starting to pull away. So if we are serious about the market, I want to invest in — and be partners with — those that are going to win. The conclusion was there weren’t going to be 10 winners, but maybe only one or two. And Flipkart — given all of that — was the natural party to align with. How concerned are you about how unprofitable all the companies in this market are? Consolidation in the market is healthy and we believe Flipkart will do what it takes to build a long-term business. But long term might be long term. It might take more money and more time. Am I concerned about it? Yeah, of course. But we think that these moves in the market make it much more likely that in a reasonable time frame and investment, they will get to a profitable scale.

• U.S. drone sales have more than doubled from last year: U.S. drone sales have more than doubled between February 2016 and February 2017, according to new data released today from NPD group. Customers may shy away from a high price tag. In the first two months of 2017, drones that cost over $300 accounted for less than half — 40 percent — of units sold. Still, drones costing over $300 amount to 84 percent of dollar sales in the past two months, NPD found. It’s not for unusual for high-end products to make up the bulk of dollar sales in an industry, even if cheaper products account for the majority of sales. Still, it means that most people are trying to find a cheaper drone — something China’s DJI, the biggest consumer drone maker in the world, has yet to produce. The cheapest drone DJI has on its website right now is around $500 for a new Phantom 3. Its next cheapest drone is the Mavic Pro at $1,000. When buying smaller unmanned aircraft, consumers jumped for high tech bells and whistles. In January and February 2017, drones costing between $300 and $500 sold five times faster if they came equipped with autopilot features and 19 times faster if the drones could detect and follow the person operating it, such as when riding a bike or running.

Daily Tech Snippet: Tuesday, April 11

• Battle of Billionaires: Son Set to Clash With Bezos in India: SoftBank Group Corp.’s Masayoshi Son and Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos are heading for a clash in India. SoftBank is closing in on an agreement to combine its e-commerce company Snapdeal with market leader Flipkart Online Services Pvt., creating a stronger domestic player to compete with the American behemoth, according to people familiar with the matter. To get the merger done, Son is willing to cut Snapdeal’s valuation 85 percent to $1 billion, said the people, asking not to be named because the talk is private. The combination of India’s two leading e-commerce players is being called an arranged marriage, said the people, with Son playing the role of matchmaker. The Japanese billionaire, who owns about a third of Snapdeal parent Jasper Infotech Pvt, plans to contribute that equity to the merged entity and to infuse another $500 million to $1 billion in Flipkart through a transaction with Flipkart backer Tiger Global Management, the people said. Flipkart is already raising cash for the battle. The Bangalore-based company said Monday it had raised $1.4 billion from Tencent Holdings Ltd., Microsoft Corp. and EBay Inc. in what it said was the largest internet investment in India. That would give Flipkart more firepower to battle Amazon in one of the world’s fastest growing online retail markets. The Seattle-based company has vowed to spend $5 billion in the country and India chief Amit Agarwal has used the money to gain customers. Flipkart said the post-transaction valuation for the company was $11.6 billion. An alliance among Flipkart, Snapdeal and EBay could give the business customers, scale and technology, though it’s not clear how easily those could be integrated.

• Why eBay’s CEO sold eBay India and poured $500 million into the country’s top Amazon rival: Can you explain how you went from investing in Snapdeal — and then selling most of your stake in them — to investing in one of its biggest competitors, Flipkart? Devin Wenig: The process started almost a year ago with us looking at the Indian market and seeing who was winning and who was losing and what the next few years were going to be like. We were evaluating both eBay India and Snapdeal. And what was the conclusion? I’ll start by saying I really do believe the market will be a strong commerce market. There are just too many positive dynamics: Too much growing wealth, too much tech adoption, too much demand for goods and supply-demand imbalance. It’s also true that the market has been overheated, not rational, and probably over-invested in too many companies. It’s been a very unhealthy e-commerce dynamic for a few years. The conclusion was, it was going to have to consolidate, that fewer parties were probably a good thing for the market. Flipkart had a very strong close to last year and they are starting to pull away. So if we are serious about the market, I want to invest in — and be partners with — those that are going to win. The conclusion was there weren’t going to be 10 winners, but maybe only one or two. And Flipkart — given all of that — was the natural party to align with. How concerned are you about how unprofitable all the companies in this market are? Consolidation in the market is healthy and we believe Flipkart will do what it takes to build a long-term business. But long term might be long term. It might take more money and more time. Am I concerned about it? Yeah, of course. But we think that these moves in the market make it much more likely that in a reasonable time frame and investment, they will get to a profitable scale.

• U.S. drone sales have more than doubled from last year: U.S. drone sales have more than doubled between February 2016 and February 2017, according to new data released today from NPD group. Customers may shy away from a high price tag. In the first two months of 2017, drones that cost over $300 accounted for less than half — 40 percent — of units sold. Still, drones costing over $300 amount to 84 percent of dollar sales in the past two months, NPD found. It’s not for unusual for high-end products to make up the bulk of dollar sales in an industry, even if cheaper products account for the majority of sales. Still, it means that most people are trying to find a cheaper drone — something China’s DJI, the biggest consumer drone maker in the world, has yet to produce. The cheapest drone DJI has on its website right now is around $500 for a new Phantom 3. Its next cheapest drone is the Mavic Pro at $1,000. When buying smaller unmanned aircraft, consumers jumped for high tech bells and whistles. In January and February 2017, drones costing between $300 and $500 sold five times faster if they came equipped with autopilot features and 19 times faster if the drones could detect and follow the person operating it, such as when riding a bike or running.