Daily Tech Snippet: Monday, August 1st

• A quiet news weekend, but lots of big news from Friday, which I've recapped below.

• Amazon’s Profits Grow More Than 800 Percent, Lifted by Cloud Services: For the second quarter, which ended June 30, Amazon reported net income of $857 million, or $1.78 a share, up from $92 million, or 19 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue jumped 31 percent to $30.4 billion from $23.19 billion a year ago. Amazon’s shares rose more than 2 percent in after-hours trading after the release of its results. For most of its life, Amazon sacrificed profits if it could build another few warehouses to ship orders to customers more quickly or find some other investment to fuel its growth. Now, it cannot avoid showing big profits thanks to the lucrative cloud computing business in which it has improbably become a leader. On Thursday, Amazon reported net income of $857 million in its most recent quarter, the third quarter in a row in which it has shown a record profit. Its net income for those three months was also more than nine times the amount for the same period last year. A big part of what has made Amazon’s story as a company so captivating to investors is the single-minded focus of Jeffrey P. Bezos, the company’s founder and chief executive, on making big long-term investments. Unlike Google and Facebook, which have highly profitable advertising businesses, Amazon’s retail business has operated on thin profit margins that quickly vanish when the company begins spending heavily, pushing it into the red. What is most striking about its recent habit of showing profits is that Amazon has not suddenly become stingy about making investments. In a conference call, Amazon’s chief financial officer, Brian Olsavsky, said that the company would open 18 new fulfillment centers — the warehouses from which it processes customer orders — in the third quarter of this year, three times the number it opened in the same period last year. The retail business that Amazon is best known for is growing at a torrid pace even though it is now more than two decades old. The company’s North American retail revenue jumped 28 percent as it continued to benefit from a shift in consumer spending to online from offline stores. The company’s spending on new warehouses and delivery services has played an important role in helping it gobble up a bigger portion of the money people spend on consumer goods. “They are defying the laws of gravity,” said Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray. “It shows their level of market share gains is increasing.”

• Google Silences Doubters With Blockbuster Quarter: It’s good to be Google. Sometimes it’s just plain great. Revenue regularly increases at a clip rarely achieved by firms of its size. The same goes for profits. Seven of its products have over a billion users, a scale unimaginable in the predigital era. A reorganization last year into a holding company called Alphabet, accompanied by some related high-level personnel moves, was unexpected but generally applauded. Investors and analysts see little in the short term to disrupt this happy state of affairs, which has pushed Alphabet’s value to more than $500 billion. Those sentiments were confirmed in its second-quarter earnings report, released Thursday after the market closed. It was even better than the rosy forecasts. Revenue rose to $21.5 billion, about $750 million more than analysts were predicting and a 21 percent jump from a year earlier.Celebration ensued. Alphabet’s shares, which drifted sideways during regular trading, immediately rose 4 percent after hours.

• Oracle’s $9.3 Billion Deal for NetSuite Will Bolster Its Cloud Offerings: When Evan M. Goldberg founded NetSuite in 1998, he did so with backing from his former boss, Lawrence J. Ellison, who started the software giant Oracle. On Thursday, their relationship came full circle as Oracle agreed to acquire NetSuite for $9.3 billion to beef up its cloud offerings.The NetSuite deal is Oracle’s largest acquisition since it bought PeopleSoft for $10.3 billion in 2004, according to data from Standard & Poor’s Global Market Intelligence. That deal, a hostile takeover fought out over 18 months, extended Oracle’s customer base and product offerings. It made Oracle bigger, but it did not change its business model. About 5,000 PeopleSoft employees, close to half the company, were laid off in the following months. The NetSuite purchase, on the other hand, is at the heart of Oracle’s fight to remake itself for the modern world of cloud computing, or providing accessing to vast computational resources over the internet. This transition has shaken up the software business for the last several years. Companies like Google, Microsoft and Amazon have created markets worth billions, and older companies like IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Oracle have struggled to change the way they make and sell their products.The deal also illustrates that, for all the reach and novelty of tech, Silicon Valley remains a very small place with long personal histories. Mr. Goldberg got the idea for NetSuite after conversations with Mr. Ellison about where else the internet might go. Down the hall was another rising star at Oracle, named Marc Benioff. Mr. Benioff started a company called Salesforce.com within weeks of NetSuite’s start, also with backing from Mr. Ellison. Today, Salesforce is regarded as the leading company selling only cloud software, with a market capitalization of $55.7 billion. The relationship between Oracle and Salesforce is testy, however. In 2011, Mr. Benioff was kicked out of a big Oracle conference after he lampooned Oracle’s cloud efforts. And now the NetSuite technology will help Oracle compete more directly with Salesforce for customers.

• Flipkart valuation shrinks again; firm reveals job cuts: Global asset manager T. Rowe Price Group Inc. has reduced the value of its stake in Flipkart Ltd by a fifth, its second cut in four months, reflecting continued investor concerns over the valuations of technology start-ups. The move came ahead of a statement by Flipkart on Friday that it was cutting 300 to 600 additional jobs, after already shrinking its workforce to 30,000 from 33,000 at the start of the year to reduce costs. US-based T. Rowe Price lowered the value of its holding in Flipkart to $96.29 per share, a 20% erosion, according to a filing the investment manager made to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the quarter ended June. That values Flipkart at $10.3 billion, according to T. Rowe Price. The firm had earlier cut the value of its stake in Flipkart by 15% in April.On Friday, a Flipkart spokeswoman said the company had cut 300 to 600 jobs.The Economic Times reported on Friday that Flipkart was offering employees who had failed to meet expectations the choice to either resign or be sent off with severance pay, adding that the move was expected to impact 700-1,000 staff.

Daily Tech Snippet: Monday, 4th July

• How AWS came to be: There are lots of stories about the formation of AWS, but this much we know: 10 years ago,Amazon Web Services, the cloud Infrastructure as a Service arm of Amazon.com, was launched with little fanfare as a side business for Amazon.com. Today, it’s a highly successful company in its own right, riding a remarkable $10 billion run rate. What you may not know is that the roots for the idea of AWS go back to the 2000 timeframe when Amazon was a far different company than it is today — simply an e-commerce company struggling with scale problems. Those issues forced the company to build some solid internal systems to deal with the hyper growth it was experiencing — and that laid the foundation for what would become AWS. Speaking recently at an event in Washington, DC, AWS CEO Andy Jassy, who has been there from the beginning, explained how these core systems developed out of need over a three-year period beginning in 2000, and, before they knew it, without any real planning, they had the makings of a business that would become AWS. It began way back in the 2000 timeframe when the company wanted to launch an e-commerce service called Merchant.com to help third-party merchants like Target or Marks & Spencer build online shopping sites on top of Amazon’s e-commerce engine. It turned out to be a lot harder than they thought to build an external development platform, because, like many startups, when it launched in 1994, it didn’t really plan well for future requirements. Instead of an organized development environment, they had unknowingly created a jumbled mess. That made it a huge challenge to separate the various services to make a centralized development platform that would be useful for third parties.At that point, the company took its first step toward building the AWS business by untangling that mess into a set of well-documented APIs. While it drove the smoother development of Merchant.com, it also served the internal developer audience well, too, and it set the stage for a much more organized and disciplined way of developing tools internally going forward.

• Salesforce Pushed Microsoft to Up LinkedIn Bid Before Deal: Salesforce.com Inc. battled Microsoft Corp. for LinkedIn Corp. deep into the negotiating process, forcing the world’s largest software maker to boost its offer to buy the professional-networking service just days before the $26 billion deal was announced. Three other companies were involved in the discussions, which lasted almost four months, according to a regulatory filing Friday. One of those was Facebook Inc., which passed on an acquisition, according to a person involved in the negotiations. Microsoft increased its offer to $196 a share June 11, from $182 a share earlier, after the other main bidder offered "approximately $200" a share for the company, the filing said. The board ultimately decided the Microsoft offer was stronger in part because it was an all-cash deal, while the other bidder was offering to pay with its stock and cash, the filing said.There were other companies that expressed interest in acquiring LinkedIn, or were involved in the process. Those were referred to as Parties B, C and D in the filing. Recode reported Friday that Party B was Google, the internet search business of Alphabet Inc., and Party D was Facebook, operator of the largest social network.

• Tesla crash raises concerns about autonomous vehicle regulation: The fatal crash of a Tesla Motors Inc Model S in Autopilot mode has turned up pressure on auto industry executives and regulators to ensure that automated driving technology is deployed safely. The first such known accident, which occurred in Florida in May, has highlighted tensions surrounding efforts to turn over responsibility for braking, steering and driving judgments to machines. It may delay the U.S. government's plan to outline guidelines for self-driving cars this month. The cause of the Model S crash is still under investigation by federal and Florida state authorities, which are looking into whether the driver was distracted before his 2015 Model S went under a truck trailer. Shares of Tesla and Mobileye NV, the maker of the camera vision system used in the Model S, rose on Friday as analysts said the accident was likely a short-term setback. The stocks fell in after-hours trading on Thursday after an investigation of the crash was made known.

• Why Tech Support Is (Purposely) Unbearable: “Don’t think companies haven’t studied how far they can take things in providing the minimal level of service,” Mr. Robbins said. “Some organizations have even monetized it by intentionally engineering it so you have to wait an hour at least to speak to someone in support, and while you are on hold, you’re hearing messages like, ‘If you’d like premium support, call this number and for a fee, we will get to you immediately.’” The most egregious offenders are companies like cable and mobile service providers, which typically have little competition and whose customers are bound by contracts or would be considerably inconvenienced if they canceled their service. Not surprisingly, cable and mobile service providers are consistently ranked by consumers as providing the worst customer support.Of course, companies rated best for tech support often charge more for their products or they may charge a subscription fee for enhanced customer care so the cost of helping you is baked in, as with Apple’s customer support service, AppleCare, and theAmazon Prime subscription service.

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: Thursday, June 2

• Uber Turns to Saudi Arabia for $3.5 Billion Cash Infusion: In its quest to build a global empire, Uber has turned to the Middle East for its biggest infusion of cash from a single investor. Uber said on Wednesday that it had raised $3.5 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the kingdom’s main investment fund. The money was part of the ride-hailing giant’s most recent financing round and continued to value the company at $62.5 billion. The investment does not cash out any of Uber’s existing investors.Uber, which has viewed the Middle East as an important area in its expansion, said the investment further aligned the company with Saudi Arabia as the kingdom planned to transform its economy, reducing its dependence on oil and improving employment. The investment from Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest single investments collected by the technology world’s top privately held companies. Uber, whose valuation makes it Silicon Valley’s most valuable private business, has collected billions at a rapid clip over the last three years. Uber has drawn from a wide variety of investors, including traditional venture capital firms, mutual fund giants like BlackRock and wealthy clients of firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Other sovereign wealth funds like that of Qatar have also invested. Other smaller tech companies have not fared as well in raising money over the last several months. Some so-called unicorns, the term used to refer to businesses valued at more than $1 billion, have struggled to collect new investments, and some, like Jawbone, have had to raise money at lower valuations. Uber is racing to defend its territory — which covers 460 cities in more than 69 countries — against incumbents in other regions like Southeast Asia and Europe. China, in particular, is a difficult battleground, as Uber is spending millions in a subsidy war with Didi Chuxing, the dominant ride-hailing start-up in the country. Both companies have made no indications that they will back down. Though Uber dominates the American market for ride-hailing, it has increasingly seen overseas markets as crucial to its growth. Among Uber’s increasingly important overseas markets is the Middle East, where the company has already said it plans to invest $250 million. The service operates in 15 cities and nine countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia.

• No Venture Capital Needed, or Wanted: The business world is filled with starry-eyed entrepreneurs who hope that the blessings of angel investors and venture capitalists will transform their start-up dreams into companies with billion-dollar valuations. But some successful start-ups have been bucking the trend by growing and expanding without taking a dime from major outside equity investors.Those who buck the odds by “bootstrapping” their own enterprises are rare, experts say. “It’s a huge anomaly,” said Mark Walsh, head of innovation and investment at the Small Business Administration He estimated that as few as one in 50 brick-and-mortar companies and one in 10 online companies could build their businesses into $50 million or $100 million enterprises on their own. But taking venture capital can be risky. In their haste to get financing, start-up founders often fail to read the fine print and later discover that they have signed away huge shares of the profits. In some cases, founders may be removed by the board of their own companies by the time the businesses are rapidly growing or plan to go public. For these reasons, some founders opt to take debt capital from banks and investors instead of giving away equity.

• Internet Boom Times Are Over, Says Mary Meeker’s Influential Report: Global internet and smartphone user growth are slowing dramatically, but at least things are looking up in India.  Growth of internet users worldwide is essentially flat, and smartphone growth is slowing, too. Those sobering insights were among the hundreds packed into the much-awaited Internet Trends report, an annual tech industry ritual led by Mary Meeker, a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Developing countries have proven harder to capture than expected because internet access remains inaccessible or unaffordable for many, the report said. Here are some other highlights from the report: India is the one country where internet usage is growing, up 40 percent compared with 33 percent a year ago. India passed the U.S. to become the No. 2 global market behind China in 2015. The Asia Pacific region represented 52 percent of smartphone users globally in 2015. The rapid growth in recent years has begun to slow, dropping to 23 percent in 2015 from 35 percent in 2014. North America, Europe, and Japan represented 63 percent of global GDP in 1985. By 2015, their contribution dropped to 29 percent. China and emerging markets in Asia represented 63 percent of global GDP last year. Online advertising is still not very effective. Advertisers are spending an outsize amount on legacy media. Global birth rates are down 39 percent since 1960. So where will technology growth come from? Who knows, but at least there's this: Global life expectancy is up 36 percent since 1960.

• Elizabeth Holmes, Founder of Theranos, Falls From Highest Perch Off Forbes List: Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the blood testing company Theranos, was a rare breed, something more rare than even the Silicon Valley unicorn she created: a self-made female billionaire. Forbes, the business publication that has made a franchise of cataloging the rich, had put Ms. Holmes on the top of its list last year of America’s richest self-made women.The magazine’s new estimated tally of her wealth? It went from $4.5 billion to $0. Ms. Holmes’s unusual status, as a young woman who created and controlled a company seemingly valued at about $9 billion, captivated the media: She graced countless magazine covers, including T: The New York Times Style Magazine. Theranos, she said, would revolutionize the lab industry by offering blood tests from a single finger prick at a fraction of the cost of traditional testing. But over the last year, Theranos became the subject of a series of hard-hitting Wall Street Journal articles and intense regulatory scrutiny from an array of federal agencies. The media is now mesmerized by Ms. Holmes’s fall. Truth be told, the half of the $9 billion valuation ascribed to Theranos and previously listed as Ms. Holmes’s wealth was nothing more than an estimate based on investors’ best guesses. Taking into account all the controversy and uncertainty surrounding the value of the company’s top-secret technology, Forbes is now guessing that the company is worth more like $800 million. While Ms. Holmes still owns at least half of the company, much of that value would be tied up with outside investors.Not surprisingly, Theranos refused to shed any light on the matter, except to dispute Forbes’s analysis.

• Early days, but Apple Pay struggles outside U.S.: More than 18 months after Apple Pay took the United States by storm, the smartphone giant has made only a small dent in the global payments market, snagged by technical challenges, low consumer take-up and resistance from banks. The service is available in six countries and among a limited range of banks, though in recent weeks Apple has added four banks to its sole Singapore partner American Express; Australia and New Zealand Banking Group in Australia; and Canada's five big banks. Apple Pay usage totaled $10.9 billion last year, the vast majority of that in the United States. That is less than the annual volume of transactions in Kenya, a mobile payments pioneer, according to research firm Timetric. And its global turnover is a drop in the bucket in China, where Internet giants Alibaba and Tencent dominate the world's biggest mobile payments market - with an estimated $1 trillion worth of mobile transactions last year, according to iResearch data. Anecdotal evidence from Britain, China and Australia suggests Apple Pay is popular with core Apple followers, but the quality of service, and interest in it, varies significantly. To use Apple Pay, consumers tap their iPhone over payment terminals to buy coffee, train tickets and other services. It can be also used at vending machines that accept contactless payments. Apple Pay transactions were a fraction of the $84.5 billion in iPhone sales for the six months to March, which accounted for two-thirds of Apple's total revenue.

• Singapore buys $1 billion in Alibaba stock in SoftBank sale: Singapore sovereign wealth funds bought $1 billion of Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's shares as part of an $8.9 billion sale by Japan's SoftBank Group Corp, Alibaba's biggest shareholder, the company said on Wednesday. Singapore's GIC Private, Ltd and Temasek Holdings each purchased $500 million of Alibaba shares at $74.00 apiece through subsidiaries, Alibaba said, offering details of the SoftBank sale announced on Tuesday. Alibaba purchased $2 billion of its own stock at the same price, in a move which would add to earnings, Executive Vice Chairman Joe Tsai told analysts on a call. Members of the Alibaba Partnership of senior executives and founders purchased another $400 million, as expected, at the $74 per share price, he added. SoftBank also offered $5.5 billion in debt securities, which can be exchanged for Alibaba stock in three years, Tsai said. SoftBank Group said on Tuesday it would sell at least $7.9 billion of shares in Alibaba to cut the Japanese company's debt. It said it would remain Alibaba's largest shareholder after the sale. Shares of Alibaba fell about 6.5 percent to close at $76.69.

• Salesforce takes aim at e-commerce with $2.8 billion Demandware buy: Cloud-based software maker Salesforce.com Inc (CRM.N) said on Wednesday it would buy Demandware Inc (DWRE.N), whose software is used by businesses to run e-commerce websites, for about $2.8 billion. The deal would help Salesforce open a new front as it seeks to take more market share from traditional software providers such as Oracle Corp (ORCL.N) and SAP AG (SAPG.DE), both of which already offer cloud-based e-commerce services. The e-commerce market has been growing at a blistering pace as retailers expand their online presence, boosting demand for software that helps manage functions such as payment processing and inventory management. Salesforce's cash offer of $75.00 per share represents a 56.3 percent premium to Demandware's Tuesday closing. The lofty premium indicates that multiple bidders were likely at the table for Demandware, Stifel Nicolaus & Co analyst Thomas Roderick said, naming Adobe Systems Inc ABDE.O and Oracle as the other possible contenders. Demandware's shares, which have fallen about 21 percent in the past year, rose 55.9 percent to $74.81 on Wednesday. Shares of Salesforce, considered a barometer for the cloud-computing industry, edged down 0.3 percent.

• Amazon sues sellers for buying fake reviews: Seller beware — if you buy reviews for your products on Amazon, the company might sue you. As part of its effort to combat fake reviews on its platform, Amazon sued three of its sellers today for using sock puppet accounts to post fake reviews about their products. Amazon has been aggressively pursuing reviewers it does not consider genuine over the last year, often using lawsuits to discourage the buying and selling of reviews, but this is the first time it has sued the sellers themselves. Today’s suits are against sellers who Amazon claims used fake accounts to leave positive reviews on their own products. The fake reviews spanned from 30 to 45 percent of the sellers’ total reviews. The defendants are Michael Abbara of California, Kurt Bauer of Pennsylvania, and a Chinese company called CCBetter Direct. Amazon is asking for the defendants to be banned from selling products on any of its sites or accessing its services. The suits also ask for the profits the sellers made on Amazon, attorneys’ fees, and damages exceeding $25,000. Amazon says that, since early 2015, it has sued over 1,000 people who posted fake reviews for cash. Now, the company is going after the retailers themselves. Amazon said that it intends to eliminate incentives for sellers to buy fake reviews for their products. “Our goal is to eliminate the incentives for sellers to engage in review abuse and shut down this ecosystem around fraudulent reviews in exchange for compensation,” an Amazon spokesperson said.

Daily Tech Snippet: Thursday, May 26

• Alibaba Facing SEC Investigation Over Accounting Practices: Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. fell the most in four months after the e-commerce giant said it’s being investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over its accounting practices and whether they violate federal laws. The company is providing documents and cooperating with the probe, according to the Hangzhou, China-based company’s annual report. The investigation is looking into consolidation practices, related party transactions and data reported from its Singles’ Day promotion. Singles’ Day is Alibaba’s biggest shopping day, attracting more than 90 billion yuan ($13.7 billion) of sales on its e-commerce platforms in a 24-hour period last year. Alibaba fell 6.8 percent to $75.59, the biggest drop since January. It was down less than 1 percent this year through Tuesday.

• In Silicon Valley, Gossip, Anger and Revenge: Silicon Valley likes to keep the media on a tight leash. Tech executives expect obedience, if not reverence, from reporters. They dole out information as grudgingly as possible. Sometimes they simply buy a chunk of a publication, a time-honored method of influencing what is deemed fit to write about. Valleywag declined to play the game. It was a gossip sheet for the digital age: abrasive, knowing, cynical, self-promoting, sometimes unfair. It dispensed snark by the truckload, printing things that people knew or surmised but were off the table. It said Google co-founder Larry Page had dated his then-colleague, Marissa Mayer. That the Google chairman Eric Schmidt was a playboy and a scamp. That the Napster co-founder and early Facebook executive Sean Parker’s wedding was seriously over the top. Most notoriously, at least in retrospect, the tech gossip blog said in late 2007 that Peter Thiel, who co-founded PayPal and was an early and significant investor in Facebook, was gay. This was gossip with an attitude, and an agenda. And what it unleashed was Mr. Thiel’s ire. He secretly financed a suit brought by the wrestler Hulk Hogan against Valleywag’s parent, Gawker Media, which has resulted in $140 million in damages. Gawker is appealing. The revelation of Mr. Thiel’s involvement in the suit this week brings the complicated relationship of Silicon Valley and the media once again to the forefront. The technology world is ever more important and richer, with smartphones in everyone’s pocket conveying a stream of news that Silicon Valley not only delivers, but helps shape. At the same time, the tech companies are less transparent about what they do.

• HP Inc profit beats Street amid weak market for PCs, printers: HP Inc, which houses the former Hewlett-Packard Co's legacy hardware business, reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit as aggressive cost cutting helped counter weak demand for personal computers and printers. The company's shares reversed course to trade up more than 2 percent at $12.45 after the bell on Wednesday. HP Inc, which houses the former Hewlett-Packard Co's legacy hardware business, reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit as aggressive cost cutting helped counter weak demand for personal computers and printers. The company's shares reversed course to trade up more than 2 percent at $12.45 after the bell on Wednesday.The company's revenue fell about 11 percent to $11.59 billion.Revenue in the personal systems business, the company's biggest, fell 9.9 percent in the second quarter, while revenue declined 15.8 percent in the printing division.Total costs and expenses fell by 10.3 percent to $10.75 billion in the second quarter ended April 30, from a year earlier.

• Salesforce inks deal with AWS to expand international presence: AWS announced today that it was expanding its relationship with Salesforce.com, with Salesforce naming the cloud giant a preferred cloud provider. The agreement should help Salesforce increase its international presence without having to build its own data centers in countries that have data sovereignty laws, which require that data stays in-country. It’s expensive to build their own, so they are turning to a public cloud infrastructure provider like Amazon to do the heavy lifting for them. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff spoke glowingly of AWS. “There is no public cloud infrastructure provider that is more sophisticated or has more robust enterprise capabilities for supporting the needs of our growing global customer base,” he said in a statement. It’s worth keeping in mind, however that Salesforce also has a deep relationship with Microsoft — and CEO Satya Nadella appeared on stage at Dreamforce, Salesforce’s massive customer conference last fall. But the relationship has a flip side and the companies also compete with one another. R Ray Wang, who is principal at Constellation Research, points out that this announcement should help Salesforce compete with Oracle and Microsoft overseas.

• Terrapattern is reverse image search for maps, powered by a neural network: Terrapattern is a visual search engine that, from the first moment you use it, you wonder: Why didn’t Google come up with this 10 years ago? Click on a feature on the map — a baseball diamond, a marina, a roundabout — and it immediately highlights everything its algorithm thinks looks like it. It’s remarkably fast, simple to use and potentially very powerful. Go ahead and give it a try first to see how natural it is to search for something. How does that work? And how did a handful of digital artists and developers create it — and for under $35,000? The secret, as with so many other interesting visual computing projects these days, is a convolutional neural network. It’s essentially an AI-like program that extracts every little detail from an image and looks for patterns at various levels of organization — similar to how our own visual system works, though the brain is infinitely more subtle and flexible. In Terrapattern’s case, the neural network was trained to look at small squares of the landscape and, comparing those patterns to a huge database of tagged map features from OpenStreetMap, it learned to associate them with certain concepts. Think of how a camera recognizes a face and knows when it is blinking or smiling. It doesn’t actually “know” what faces, smiles and eyes are, but it associates them with certain patterns of pixels, and can reliably pick them out. Once Terrapattern had been trained to recognize and categorize all manner of geographical features, from boats to water towers, its creators set it free on detailed maps of the greater New York, Pittsburgh, Detroit and San Francisco areas. It scoured the landscape and built a huge database of features and similarities — which can be quickly queried and the results returned immediately (the neural network isn’t doing any “thinking” when you click on a feature — its work is done for this dataset). Of course, you could just search for “tennis fields in Oakland” or the like and get perfectly good results, but this allows one to search for things that may not be listed so formally. What if you were looking for houses in the middle of fields, or cul de sacs, or dead lawns, or circular parking lots? Terrapattern knows where those are just as much as it knows where the airports and ferry terminals are. They’re all just assemblages of features to the neural network.

• Facebook will shut down FBX, its desktop ad exchange: Facebook plans to shut down FBX, the ad exchange that allows advertisers to buy retargeted desktop ads using third-party tools like Criteo and AppNexus. The news was first reported in The Wall Street Journal and we’ve confirmed it with Facebook. In an emailed statement, Vice President of Monetization Product Marketing Matt Idema suggested that this is part of Facebook’s shift to mobile (in its most recent earnings report, mobile accounted for 82 percent of Facebook’s ad revenue). He said: "Mobile is now a necessary component of effective marketing campaigns, and Facebook is helping millions of businesses understand their customers’ purchase path across devices. Dynamic Ads and Custom Audiences have mobile at their core and are delivering excellent results for businesses, so Facebook Exchange spending has shifted towards those solutions. This is about giving people more relevant ads and marketers more effective formats, especially in an increasingly mobile world. Our ads API is open to all developers so they can innovate on our platform and build great ad experiences for brands and their customers." Facebook launched FBX back in 2012, but its focus seemed to have shifted away from the exchange in recent years.

• Microsoft is giving up on consumer smartphones, too: The company is taking a $950 million charge to unwind the last vestiges of the Nokia deal. Microsoft is further scaling back its flagging phone business, exiting the consumer market and cutting another 1,850 jobs. As part of the move announced Wednesday, Microsoft will take a $950 million charge and cut what little remained of its Finland-based phone hardware business, unwinding the last of its disastrous $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia's phone unit. Last week, Microsoft announced separately that it was selling what was left of its low-end"feature phone" business.  The company has been scaling back its phone ambitions ever since the Nokia deal closed, with CEO Satya Nadella quickly shifting to a strategy focused on bringing Microsoft's software and services to Android and iOS rather than trying to convince phone buyers to shift to Windows. Despite all the cuts — and having already seen its market share dip below 1 percent — Microsoft says it isn't totally out of the phone-making business. The company insists it will continue to serve phones aimed at the business market and license Windows 10 to any other hardware makers that want to give Windows Phone a try.

Daily Tech Snippet: Friday, May 20

• Warren Buffett Stake Suggests Apple Is All Grown Up: With this week’s imprimatur from the legendary investor Warren Buffett, it should now be official: Apple, the world’s largest company by market capitalization and a symbol of American technological innovation, is a “value” stock. That may prove to be a decidedly mixed blessing. Mr. Buffett is the world’s most prominent and successful proponent of value investing — an approach that seeks stocks that are undervalued and sell for less than their “intrinsic value,” as Benjamin Graham put it his 1949 classic “The Intelligent Investor.” Mr. Buffett credits Mr. Graham with shaping his own approach to investing. So value investors took notice when Mr. Buffett’s holding company,Berkshire Hathaway, disclosed it had invested $1 billion in Apple stock during the last quarter. “We’ve just looked at it again,” said Bill Smead, who manages the Smead Value Fund, one of the most successful large-cap value mutual funds over the last five years, according to Morningstar. “Anybody that discounts the thinking at Berkshire Hathaway does so at their peril, in my opinion.” Value stocks are typically unpopular among many investors, their shares often battered by disappointing short-term revenue and earnings results. They usually trade at very low price-to-earnings ratios, a common valuation measure. Nonetheless, some academic studies have suggested that over time, they outperform other stocks, in part because expectations are so low. Today there are numerous value investors, value mutual funds and value exchange-traded funds that pursue variations of the strategy, many of them probably now considering adding Apple to their portfolios, if they haven’t already. Apple “is going to attract more value investors,” said Toni Sacconaghi, a senior analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein who covers Apple. “They’re looking for beaten-down stocks with negative sentiment. Apple has traded below a market multiple for years and sentiment has become increasingly pessimistic, especially over the past month.”

• Walmart Outperforms Estimates, but Online Retail Lags: Walmart reported on Thursday that its quarterly revenue had risen 0.9 percent, exceeding analysts’ forecasts and signaling that its strategies to combat a tough retail environment were working. The results were particularly striking after dismal earnings reports by several retail chains last week, and Walmart’s shares shot up nearly 10 percent.Amazon does much more business than Walmart.com, Mr. Saunders said, and yet it still reports double-digit growth. Amazon reported that net product sales rose 13 percent, to $79.3 billion in 2015, while Walmart reported that global annual e-commerce revenue had risen 12 percent to $13.7 billion in its latest fiscal year. In other areas, Walmart significantly outperformed its peers.Over all, Walmart reported that profit fell to $3.08 billion, or 98 cents a share, compared with $3.34 billion, or $1.03 a share, a year earlier. That beat expectations of 88 cents a share, according to analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. Revenue was $115.9 billion; analysts had expected $113.2 billion.“Walmart, especially with apparel, did better than other retailers for a really stressful period,” Mr. Sosnick said.

• Salesforce Surges as Big Money Deals Help Drive Sales Growth: Salesforce.com Inc. is targeting the biggest of customers to get big itself. The company, once known for selling business productivity software to small- and medium-sized clients, is getting more traction with large companies while drawing closer to an annual sales goal of $10 billion. Salesforce said Wednesday it landed the most large deals ever in a three-month period during the fiscal first quarter, including one worth at least $100 million. The company also forecast revenue in the current quarter that topped analysts’ estimates, sending shares up the most in almost three months Thursday. Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff is benefiting from a multiyear effort to persuade corporations to adopt software delivered over the Internet, or the cloud. During a call with analysts, the company touted new deals with Samsung Electronics Co., Uber Technologies Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. that expanded on existing relationships. Salesforce jumped 4.1 percent to $81.09, at the close in New York, the biggest advance since Feb. 25. That brings the gains for the year to 3.4 percent. Sales will be $2.01 billion to $2.02 billion in the fiscal second quarter, the San Francisco-based company said in a statement. Analysts on average had estimated $1.98 billion, according to data complied by Bloomberg. Revenue increased 27 percent to $1.92 billion in the fiscal first quarter ended April 30, topping the average estimate of $1.89 billion.

• Samsung to partner with Alibaba on mobile payments in China: Samsung Electronics said it had struck a deal with a Alibaba Group Holding for owners of its phones to be able to more easily make payments with Alipay accounts - a move it hopes will boost sales in the world's biggest smartphone market. Users of Samsung Pay will also have the option of paying with their Alipay accounts without having separately access the Alipay application. Alipay, which is operated by Alibaba unit Ant Financial Services Group, has 450 million active registered users. Samsung, the world's top smartphone maker, launched its own mobile payment system, Samsung Pay, in China in March, about one month after Apple Inc launched Apple Pay.But Alipay's dominant position has meant that it will be difficult for any latecomers in mobile payments to gain significant ground just on their own. Samsung has been losing out to Chinese rivals Huawei and Xiaomi as well as Apple and no longer ranks among the top five smartphone brands in China, according to market researcher Strategy Analytics.

Daily Tech Snippet: Tuesday, April 5

• Amazon Plans Big Push to Expand Prime Now Fast Delivery: Amazon.com Inc. plans to broaden the reach of its fast delivery service Prime Now, and is selling major brands promotional deals connected to the expansion, a sign the world’s largest Internet retailer is satisfied with early results from the nascent offering. The service -- now only available through the Prime Now app on smartphones -- will be run on Amazon’s website starting in May, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg. Getting Prime Now on the Web puts the service in front of a larger audience, many of whom may not have downloaded the app on their phones. While shopping on mobile devices is expected to reach $96.2 billion in the U.S. this year, that represents a quarter of all e-commerce, according to the research firm EMarketer. Amazon is trying to sell advertising space to major brands for the Web launch, promising them visibility with tens of millions of Amazon shoppers. The premium "Launch Hero Package" would cost $500,000 for about two weeks of placement on Amazon’s website associated with the rollout. That price includes e-mail promotions sent to Amazon customers, which Amazon said have a stand-alone value of $100,000, according to the documents reviewed by Bloomberg.

• Salesforce.com Acquires Deep Learning Startup MetaMind: Cloud business software company Salesforce.com has acquired MetaMind, a startup focused on artificial learning that had been funded by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and venture capital firm Khosla Ventures. Terms were not disclosed, but it has all the markings of an “acqhire” sort of deal. Founder and CTO Richard Socher announced the deal in a post on the MetaMind website. Socher says on his personal website that his new title is Chief Scientist at Salesforce. MetaMind’s area of expertise is deep learning, the subset of artificial intelligence focused on data processing that is en vogue with Google, Facebook and other tech companies. The startup’s specialty is natural language processing — allowing computers to analyze relationships between words. Some of its capabilities disclosed in published researchdescribe advancements in the field that outrank those of some of the larger tech giants. Socher, a Stanford PhD, has said MetaMind’s plan was to sell this technology as a service to other companies. At MetaMind, he led a tiny group of researchers who gained a reputation for some rapid breakthroughs in the area of artificial intelligence. A Re/codereport from 2014 described how after only four months, the team came in only slightly behind Google in the ImageNet competition, in which companies compete to build systems that can recognize images.

• Toyota expands Microsoft partnership in connected vehicle services: Toyota Motor Corp is expanding a five-year-old partnership with Microsoft Corp to develop new internet-connected vehicle services for owners and dealers, Toyota said on Monday. The automaker has established Toyota Connected at its U.S. headquarters in Plano, Texas, to consolidate its existing connectivity services and serve as the company's "data science" hub. Microsoft has a 5 percent stake in the venture. Among the services to be developed or expanded under Toyota Connected are insurance coverage and rates based on owners' actual driving patterns; connected vehicle networks that can share information on traffic and weather conditions, such as icy roads; and information services tailored to a driver's habits and preferences, including monitoring heart rate, glucose level and other personal health data. The new wireless services will use Microsoft's cloud-based Azure platform. Toyota launched its initial partnership with Microsoft in 2011. Ford Motor Co introduced a similar program with Microsoft a year ago, and BMW AG and Nissan Motor Co announced Azure-based services earlier this year. Toyota Connected will use Microsoft's cloud technology to develop "predictive, contextual and intuitive services" to "humanize the driving experience while pushing the technology into the background," Toyota said. Toyota Connected also will consolidate the automaker's current initiatives in data analytics, data management and data services for dealers and fleet customers. In addition, the new organization will provide support for Toyota's ongoing research in robotics and artificial intelligence, as well as development of self-driving cars.

• Microsoft’s mobile problem may not be a problem at all: When Microsoft announced its Windows 10 strategy last year, the thinking was that the unified platform would drive Windows Mobile and finally bring the Windows phone out of the doldrums where it’s been virtually forever. The idea was you could develop once for Windows 10 desktop and easily share that code on any device, making it impossibly attractive for developers, which would finally drive Windows Mobile popularity in a beautiful virtuous development cycle. Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out that way, and Microsoft finds itself in an unusual position, developing software for iOS and Android because it simply doesn’t have a viable Windows mobile ecosystem. The question remains; can Microsoft succeed without a strong Windows mobile position? From the looks of things, they don’t seem to have much choice. Nadella appears to be staking his position in the cloud, which is a perfectly reasonable way to play it, while opening up his company’s tools to iOS and Android in the absence of any meaningful Windows phone adoption. When you look at the beauty of the mobile-cloud connection, it’s understandable Microsoft would want to be there with Windows, but perhaps Nadella is beginning to understand that Windows is not necessarily the future of the company — Azure and Office 365 are — and that could explain why the company stayed firmly focused on these two areas at Build. When you combine that with the idea of bots created by Microsoft, including Cortana (Microsoft’s talking virtual assistant), that can run in Microsoft’s tools or external platforms like Slack and LINE, you start to see a vision where Microsoft thrives even without an in-house mobile platform. As the world moves swiftly to that mobile-cloud intersection, perhaps the underlying OS becomes less important. If that’s the case — if Microsoft can have a piece of the underlying cloud-mobile plumbing and have apps and bots created in its ecosystem, run anywhere on any device — it renders the Windows phone gap irrelevant.

Daily Tech Snippet: Friday, March 11th

• TechCrunch Sources: India’s Flipkart in talks to raise up to $1b, likely in a down round: After years of raising hundreds of millions of dollars to tap into the burgeoning e-commerce market in India, one of the country’s biggest tech companies is facing a markdown in its valuation as it aims to pick up yet more investment. TechCrunch has learned from sources that Flipkart is looking to raise up to $1 billion in funding to grow its business and shore up against competition from local rival Snapdeal and global giant Amazon. “The funding is now delayed and should take another 3-4 months. A downround is certain,” said a source. According to our sources, one potential investor is Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. The company — already a backer of rival Snapdeal — reportedly met with Flipkart management in Hong Kong to discuss investing at less than $10 billion. Other sources say a round would not be this low, and more likely in the range of $11 billion to $14 billion. Alibaba’s alleged interest in Flipkart has been reported previously. Another investor that has been eyeing up a stake in Flipkart is the Fosun Group, sometimes referred to as the Berkshire Hathaway of China. It’s not clear what valuation Fosun has discussed with Flipkart.

• Box Shares Soar as Sales Rise 36 Percent on Shrinking Losses: Shares of cloud storage and collaboration company Box rose by 11 percent in after-hours trading as the company posted fourth quarter results that were better than what analysts expected. Box shares rose $1.38 to $13.90 after posting a per-share loss of 26 cents on revenue of $87 million. Analysts had forecast a loss of 29 cents a share and sales of $81.8 million. The company also finished its fiscal year with revenue of $303 million, up 40 percent year-on-year, and an operating loss of $201 million which ballooned from a $166.6 million operating loss in 2015. The company said Q1 will come in between $88 million and $89 million with a loss of between 23 and 24 cents, both of which were in line with analysts’ estimates. For the year it expects revenue in the range of $390 million to $394 million, with a loss ranging from 83 to 85 cents. It also said it expects a positive free cash flow from operations — a key milestone toward profitability — in the fourth quarter.

• Pre-Roll Ads For Virtual Reality Are Here: Virtual reality is in its “early days” — ask anyone involved in the field and that’s usually their chosen term. And as with the genesis of social media, there’s a coming mad dash of people eager for ways to cash in. On Facebook, gaming companies figured out they could spend fistfuls advertising mobile games and get paying users in return. A handful of ad veterans who rode that social media wave are now trying to replicate the success on VR. A new startup called Immserv is launching a “first-of-a-kind platform” that lets developers creating VR content promote that content with ads. Their product is essentially a YouTube pre-roll ad, just inside VR devices. Immserv is starting with Google’s Cardboard and Samsung’s Gear VR. Say you’re playing a game in your virtual headpiece (maybe this Firefly Rescue one, designed by Immserv partner Archiact Interactive). A video ad pops up at the onset or in the middle of the game, promoting another game; users are invited to download that app by using the head tracking feature in the VR device. The ads are sold on a cost-per-view basis ranging from three to five cents, said Shah. The company has been testing the ads since December and is going live with at least a dozen apps, launching in advance of the Game Developers Conference next week. Ads in VR are tricky, partly because of formatting challenges, but more critically because they risk upsetting users coming to the incipient form. “You can absolutely turn off customers if you’re not careful,” said Eric Hine, an executive producer for Archiact Interactive. But he stressed that Immserv ads in his games won’t, because they play like thrilling trailers and only run if consumers opt in. The launch also comes at the onset of a pivotal year for VR, as big tech companies hope that consumer enthusiasm for the field approaches the fervor for it inside the big tech companies. Neither Google nor Facebook, massive digital ad sellers, have announced plans to bring ads to their VR efforts. Google is testing in-app purchases and pushing the media industry to build VR content for YouTube. These may be indicators of a coming ad model, although the search giant is also pondering a subscription model across several of its products.

• Salesforce Expands Machine-Learning Service to Microsoft Outlook: Salesforce.com Inc. is taking another step forward in its partnership with Microsoft Corp., expanding integration with the Outlook e-mail program to help sales representatives streamline tasks such as scheduling meetings and responding to messages. With the new SalesforceIQ Inbox for Outlook application, Salesforce is folding its predictive technology into an e-mail service that has more than 400 million users. The app will let executives work directly from within Outlook on their desktop computers, boosting productivity by automating key steps while interacting with their customers. E-mail continues to be a crucial tool used by sales representatives when they’re trying to land a deal, said Steve Loughlin, chief executive officer of the SalesforceIQ unit. “There are all these data sources that sales reps are trying to access -- they’re drowning in the information," Loughlin said. "This is a way to pull it all together into a single place and deliver it where they are working." Salesforce is extending the reach of machine-learning technology after acquiring RelateIQ for $390 million in 2014. With Inbox, predictive tools are folded into Outlook to erase manual steps. For example, the program can juggle potential meeting times inside e-mails -- automatically adjusting open calendar spots as they fill up before e-mails are returned. The cooperation between San Francisco-based Salesforce and Microsoft broadens the companies’ growing partnership. About two years ago, the two agreed to make some of their business-software products work better together, signaling a thaw in relations between the longtime rivals. “A large number of Salesforce’s large customers are on Outlook,” Loughlin said. "This is going to be a huge opportunity."

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: Wednesday September 16

• Want to Donate to a Political Candidate? Now There's a Tweet for That Twitter said it had partnered with Square Inc., a mobile payment company, to give U.S. political candidates a way to collect donations through tweets. Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter and Square, is running both companies after taking an interim CEO job at Twitter, making their cooperation on the donations tool convenient. "This is the fastest, easiest way to make an online donation, and the most effective way for campaigns to execute tailored digital fundraising, in real time, on the platform where Americans are already talking about the 2016 election and the issues they are passionate about," Jenna Golden, head of Twitter's political advertising sales, said in a post on the company's website. The new service comes after a U.S. Federal Election Commission ruling in 2012 that cleared the way for donations by text message and as candidates seek ways to increase the number of small donations from supporters.  Twitter's service allows a user to select a donation amount, pay with a debit card and submit information required by the FEC. Square charges a 1.9 percent transaction fee, according to its website. Twitter doesn't take a cut of the donation, according to the social media company. Campaigns can pay to promote tweets soliciting donations to specific users.

• Facebook weighs a "Dislike" button: Facebook’s famous “like” button, with its silhouette of an upturned thumb, will soon be accompanied by an alternative: a way to “dislike” a post. On Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s co-founder and chief executive, said that Facebook was “very close to shipping a test” of a dislike button. He suggested that the new button would probably be more nuanced than a simple thumbs-down option. His comments nevertheless raised the possibility that Facebook, the world’s largest forum for self-expression, could soon become a less friendly place. The prospect of a new dislike button has been polarizing among Facebook users. As for Facebook’s business — selling ads — a dislike button could cut both ways. It could increase the level of engagement that people have with posts, and therefore the number of ads they eventually see. But a dislike button could also be disconcerting to marketers, who prefer their messages to be surrounded by happy emotions. Over all, it’s probably a good thing to enable people to express feelings and emotions that they can’t express through a like button,” Ms. Williamson said. “But Facebook needs to be careful as to how they enable that capability with regard to advertising and all the potentially inflammatory discussions that could occur online.” Mr. Zuckerberg clearly has such concerns in mind. He stressed that Facebook would test the new button before introducing it broadly, and refine it based on user feedback. “Hopefully we’ll deliver something that meets the needs of our community,” he said. Facebook’s decision to experiment with a new button came after much deliberation. In December, Mr. Zuckerberg told a similar meeting of users that the company had been working on the idea but had not figured out how to add a dislike button “so that it ends up being a force for good and not a force for bad.”

• Hewlett-Packard to Cut About 30,000 Jobs, About 10 Percent of Work Force: About 10 percent of the jobs at the current HP, or perhaps 30,000 of its 300,000 employees, will be eliminated, company officials said. “We’re looking forward to operating as two industry-leading companies,” said Ms. Whitman, HP’s chief executive, speaking at a meeting of financial analysts. “You’ll see us doing more pruning of businesses that don’t fit.” Ms. Whitman became the head of HP in 2011. As part of a restructuring announced in 2012, 54,000 jobs have been cut at the company. The new cuts are on top of that. In November, Ms. Whitman will become the chief executive of HP Enterprise, or HPE, which will sell things like computer servers, data storage, software and services to business. The other company, called HP Inc., will focus on printers and personal computers. Ms. Whitman has said the division will enable both businesses to react faster to changing markets. The big job cuts will come from HP Enterprise, in particular jobs at call centers and other service centers in developed countries. HP plans to automate many of the jobs, and build out positions in countries like India and Costa Rica. The services business had been largely dependent on just a few customers, and in 2014 it lost important accounts.

• Salesforce Plans to Give Customers Amazon-Type Analytics: Salesforce.com was one of the early giants of the cloud-computing revolution. Now it wants to be at the center of two of the next big things — big data and so-called computational intelligence everywhere. Marc Benioff, the co-founder and chief executive of Salesforce, is expected to make its “Internet of Things Cloud” a centerpiece of the company’s customer conference in San Francisco this week. Mr. Benioff, who has been skilled at predicting and positioning his company on major tech trends, sometimes with mixed success, hopes he can give nontechnical companies automated customer service and recommendations, the kind of activities done by computing-intensive companies like Amazon. If successful, Salesforce’s Internet of Things could vastly increase the amount of personalization we now see in many products and services. It could also justify the company’s highflying stock price, by making it much more attractive to its own customers. The Internet of Things is a term for online data from machines about their behavior. This service would combine data from devices like sensors and smartphones with customer information already inside Salesforce, like personal profiles and previous transactions. In one example from Salesforce, an insurance company would get data from a car’s bumpers and airbag indicating a collision, and could then send to its customer’s phone messages about current coverage, nearby tow trucks and service centers. Salesforce hopes to bring that capability to thousands of companies, which work with millions of customers. Nothing like that has been done before, let alone in a way that people skilled only in basic spreadsheets could manage. That means Salesforce has to build a powerful sorting and computing technology, and a series of customizable templates that can be easily used in a lot of different businesses. No major company has successfully done that.

• Snapchat is going to charge for extra replays. Snapchat announced a new plan for making money Tuesday — it's going to let you pay for extra replays. According to the company's blog, the ephemeral messaging service wants to let you get a tiny bit more permanent. Users already get one free replay per day, but now Snapchat will let users pay 99 cents for up to three additional chances to see a snap again. "We’ve provided one Replay per Snapchatter per day, sometimes frustrating the millions of Snapchatters who receive many daily Snaps deserving of a Replay," the company said in an official blog post. "But then we realized — a Replay is like a compliment! So why stop at just one?" According to Snapchat, the replays work like this: you can use a replay on any snap you receive but, crucially, can only replay any single snap once. To this point, Snapchat has made its money off advertising, and has not previously charged users for any part of its service. The company, which reportedly turned down a $3 billion acquisition offer from Facebook, has been valued at roughly $19 billion on private markets. But a recent report from Gawker, citing leaked financial documents, indicated that Snapchat had generated just $3.1 million in revenue last year.

• Target Teams With Instacart to Challenge Amazon on Groceries: Target is teaming up with Instacart Inc. to offer same-day delivery of groceries and household items for $3.99 in its hometown of Minneapolis as the big-box retailer rolls out an alternative to Amazon.com’s $299-a-year Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service. Target will be Instacart’s second-largest retail partner by revenue, behind Costco, significantly expanding inventory for the San Francisco-based startup as it positions itself as the antidote to Amazon for brick-and-mortar retailers. Instacart delivery charges start at $3.99 per order, depending on its size. Even as sales of books, electronics and clothing shift online, shoppers still prefer supermarkets for food. Companies expect that grocery sales may move to the Web as well and are experimenting to find the best approach. Amazon, the world’s largest e-commerce retailer, has promoted its grocery delivery service with free 30-day trials in some markets. Google last week announced plans to begin testing a delivery service for groceries and fresh food later this year in San Francisco and one other city.

Daily Tech Snippet: Friday, August 21

Twitter shares hit an all-time low: Twitter stock dropped below its initial public offering price in intra-day trading Thursday as the company looks for a new chief executive. The social media titan has watched stocks slide for weeks after a disappointing earnings call with analysts last month that highlighted the company's troubles with growth and focus. On the call, interim chief executive and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey said that the company would need time to hit "mass market" growth — a message that didn't sit well with investors. The Pew Research Center reported Wednesday that 23 percent of all American adults online use Twitter, but that user growth among U.S. adults has slowed to a halt. The stock closed at $26 per share, down more than 5 percent for the day, and was relatively flat in after-hours trading.

Google, Amazon in fray to buy Tata's India Data centres: Google and Amazon are among those in talks with the Tata Group to buy the data centre business of Tata Communications in a deal expected to fetch about $650-700 million. They are competing with bulge-bracket private equity funds including the Blackstone Group, Carlyle, KKR, Bain Capital and Advent International, who are all looking to buy up to 74% stake in the data centre unit and take control of the business that is spread across 44 locations in India and abroad. Besides India, Tata Communications has data centres in the US, UK and Singapore, with over 1 million sq ft of co-location space, offering managed hosting and storage services. In India, it has facilities in leading metros such as New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata and Pune, besides some tier-II and tier-III locations. The data centre business addedRs 436 crore to Tata Communications' FY15 revenues and has about 27% EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation), the company said in an investor presentation last month after its June quarter earnings.

Salesforce raises full-year revenue forecast again: Salesforce.com reported better-than-expected quarterly revenue and profit, helped by an increase in demand for its Web-based sales and marketing software, and raised its revenue forecast for the full year for the third time. Revenue rose 24 percent to $1.63 billion, beating analysts' average estimate of $1.60 billion, and the company's net loss narrowed to $852,000 in the second quarter from $61.1 million a year earlier. The company's shares rose about 4 percent in extended trading after the world's biggest maker of online sales software also forecast current-quarter revenue and adjusted profit above the average analyst estimates. "... We'll go from being the sixth largest software company in the world to the fourth largest next year," Chief Executive Marc Benioff said on a conference call, adding that the company would only lag Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. Salesforce raised its revenue forecast for the year ending January 2016 to $6.60 billion-$6.63 billion from $6.52 billion-$6.55 billion. San Francisco-based Salesforce has been gaining market share from Oracle and SAP in customer relationship management software that helps companies organize and track sales calls and leads. Salesforce, which provides its services online, with no software directly installed on PCs, leads the global customer relationship management market, which is valued at $23 billion annually, according to tech research firm Gartner.

Global Smartphone Sales Growth Slowed in Second Quarter: The research firm Gartner said worldwide sales of smartphones in the second quarter grew at the slowest pace since 2013 as sales in China declined for the first time. Sales grew 13.5 percent to 330 million units in the second quarter compared with a year earlier. While demand continues to increase in emerging markets, Gartner says overall smartphone sales were mixed. Smartphone sales in China fell 4 percent year-over-year. China accounted for 30 percent of total smartphone sales in the second quarter, but Gartner says its phone market has reached saturation.

HP revenue falls on weak PC sales, lower demand for services: The 76-year-old company, which has struggled to adapt to mobiles and online computing, is splitting into two listed companies later this year, separating its computer and printer businesses from its faster-growing corporate hardware and services operations. HP is nearing the end of a multi-year restructuring under Whitman, who has been cutting costs and focusing on higher-margin sales. The plan includes the elimination of about 55,000 jobs. The decline in global PC sales was exacerbated in the second quarter of 2015 as customers awaited the release of Windows 10 in July. As a result, revenue at HP's personal computer and printer businesses, its largest, fell 11.5 percent in the third quarter ended July 31. Enterprise services division sales dropped 11 percent, while revenue at the enterprise group rose 2 percent. For the full-year ending October, the company said it expected adjusted profit of $3.59-$3.65 per share, largely below the average analyst estimate of $3.64 per share. Total revenue fell 8.1 percent to $25.35 billion in the third quarter, also hurt by a strong dollar.

After Years Of Restraint, Facebook Tries Allowing GIFs In Ads And Page Posts: Facebook refused to fill its site with flashy animated banner ads for a decade. Zuckerberg thought these interrupted the user experience, and could stunt growth. But after reaching near ubiquity and acclimating users to video ads, today the company tells me it’s relaxing its standards and starting to allow businesses to post GIFs as ads and Page posts. Wendy’s and Coca-Cola’s Brazilian brand Kuat are the first businesses with the ability to share them. Wendy’s ad shows a salad being constructed, while Kuat’s is basically the rainbow-shooting poptart meme Nyan Cat with a brand name slapped on. GIFs can’t go in the tiny sidebar ads Facebook is phasing out, only “Boosted” Page posts, which make up most of the ads you see in your feed. The social network started supporting GIFs in user posts starting in May, but hadn’t allowed businesses to try the hip graphic interchange format all the kids are Tumbling over. Facebook tells me “GIFs can be a fun and compelling way to communicate, so we’ve started testing GIF support in posts and boosted posts for a small percentage of Facebook Pages. We will evaluate whether it drives a great experience for people before rolling it out to more Pages.” So basically, if users hate them and they don’t perform well, Facebook will scrap them. But if the eyegrabbing ads and Page posts drive business without annoying the hell out of people, all companies might soon get the option to animate your News Feed. GIFs are the visual equivalent of shouting. You have to really care about the message or you’d prefer they just shut up.

Google Express Plans to Shut Down Its Two Delivery Hubs: Google Express, the search giant’s same-day delivery service, is shutting down its two delivery hubs in San Francisco and Mountain View, Calif., according to sources. The move is part of a broader push within Google to revamp the service, which launched in March 2013, after it failed to make a serious dent in a market crowded with Amazon and a myriad of on-demand startups. The service is not shutting down, but seems to be recalibrating a logistical plan it was testing in California. Express was hatched out of Google’s commerce plans, formed, in part, to hedge against Amazon’s growing foray into product searches. It is now in seven major cities. In most of them, Google delivers goods from retail and shipping partners. When the service arrived in the Bay Area, Google tried out a hub model. Customers would order from Google’s retail partners, and drivers delivered the goods from the two locations on the same day or overnight. Now, Google is changing course. And the change comes after a tumultuous year for the company’s commerce initiatives: It lost the exec atop Express, Tom Fallows, then the exec atop all of commerce, Sameer Samat. After Fallows’s departure, Google shook up the Express leadership multiple times, putting the business development lead for Google Shopping, Brian Elliott, at its helm in July. Rising costs of the drivers and vehicles are likely one rationale. According to multiple sources, Google is trying to curb these by outsourcing its delivery to other on-demand startups and has held initial talks with multiple companies, including Postmates and Flywheel.