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  • Nov 14, 2012
    4:52 PM

    Best Buy CEO: We ‘Love’ Being Used As The Internet’s Showroom

    Bloomberg

    One of the big challenges facing consumer electronics retailer Best Buy is the practice of “showrooming” — shoppers using the company’s chain of expensive-to-run physical stores as a place to check out a product, then going home and ordering it from a cheaper online retailer.

    With shrinking same-store sales and falling profits, the company’s new CEO, Hubert Joly, needs to deal with the showrooming phenomenon. But one thing he made clear today in a visit to the WSJ mother ship: Best Buy has no beef with the idea of being used as a physical front-of-house for online retail.

    “We love showrooming,” he said. “We want to turn the tables and embrace showrooming.”

    Read the full story on The WSJ’s Corporate Intelligence blog.

  • Nov 14, 2012
    4:20 PM

    Carl Icahn and the Fight for Netflix’s Future

    AP

    Netflix is steeling itself to do battle with Carl Icahn, who bought a 10% stake in the company and is pushing for its sale to a cash-rich technology company. David Benoit has the latest on Markets Hub.

  • Nov 14, 2012
    12:15 PM

    Massive Facebook Lockup Expires, But Shares Still Soar

    Via Bloomberg
    Despite a huge lockup expiring, Facebook’s shares are soaring today.

    Facebook’s stock is soaring today, up more than 8%, even as a massive lockup that allows employees to sell a ton of stock expired this morning.

    Given that the market is getting flooded with new shares, it might be expected that Facebook’s stock price would fall sharply.

    The last time a Facebook lockup expired, shares fell slightly after market open — despite being delayed by mayhem caused by Hurricane Sandy. That doesn’t seem to be the case today.

  • Nov 14, 2012
    10:22 AM

    RIM Unveils Free Voice Chats with BBM Over Wi-Fi

    AFP/Getty Images
    Research In Motion has added a feature to its BlackBerry Messenger service that lets people make free voice calls to other users.

    When Research In Motion Ltd. surprised analysts during its last earnings call by announcing a subscriber base that was still growing, it pinned that growth on emerging markets and the strength of its BlackBerry Messenger, or BBM, service.

    On Wednesday, RIM announced a new feature for BBM aimed at further shoring up that base.

    The feature, BBM Voice, allows customers to make free voice calls to other BBM users around the world over a Wi-Fi connection.

  • Nov 13, 2012
    11:32 PM

    Line: Asia’s Answer to WhatsApp?

    Line, a smartphone chat application developed in Japan, has rapidly expanded in Asia since its debut last year. One of its major competitors in Asia and elsewhere is WhatsApp Messenger, a popular instant-messaging app from a Mountain View, California-based startup by the same name. But their business models are very different.

    NHN Japan Corp., the Tokyo-based company behind Line, is a unit of South Korea’s NHN Corp. As part of the NHN group, Line gets most of its funding from the parent firm, which operates South Korea’s dominant search engine and Internet portal called Naver.

    NHN Japan says its culture blends the freedom of a startup with the resources of an Internet conglomerate. Line’s success is due in part to strong support from the South Korean parent, it says.

  • Nov 13, 2012
    5:11 PM

    Russia Software Tycoon: US Cyber Tracing May Not Work

    U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta last month said his department is developing forensics to identify the sources of cyber attacks—addressing the longstanding and key concern that cyber attackers who hit the U.S. might be able to hide their identities.

    But the head of Russia’s biggest antivirus software company isn’t sure the forensics will work.

    Eugene Kaspersky, Chief Executive of Kaspersky Lab, whose products are used on more than 300 million systems worldwide, says users of the attack-attribution techniques that he is aware of can still be fooled.

    Last month, in a speech at a dinner event held by the Business Executives for National Security group, Mr. Panetta said the U.S. Defense Department is seeing returns on investments it has made in forensic capabilities to locate the sources of cyber attacks. “Potential aggressors should be aware that the United States has the capacity to locate them and hold them accountable for actions that harm America or its interests,” Mr. Panetta said, according to a copy of his prepared remarks.

  • Nov 13, 2012
    4:50 PM

    Petraeus Guest Stars in ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops 2′

    Activision Blizzard (L); Associated Press (R)
    The new game Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 includes a character with the likeness and name of David Petraeus.

    Activision Blizzard’s highly anticipated game “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2″ hit the market Tuesday amid fanfare from critics and fans across the Web.

    But the military shooter game is also receiving attention for an awkward reason: One of the characters has the likeness and name of David Petraeus, who stepped down last week as the chief of the Central Intelligence Agency chief amid his extramarital affair.

    The “Call of Duty” franchise includes highly-stylized depictions of specialized soldiers, usually partaking in some kind of global conflict — and are often inspired by real-life people and events.

     

  • Nov 13, 2012
    2:33 PM

    China’s Venture Deals See Sharp Decline in Third Quarter

    Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images
    Venture capital deals are slipping in China.

    China has fallen behind the U.S. and U.K. as the largest recipient of venture capital, with a 58% drop in the value of deals in the third quarter on the back of political change in the mainland.

    The number of deals fell 61% to 41 in the third quarter, while the value dipped 58% to $612 million,  according to data provider Dow Jones VentureSource, which is owned by Dow Jones & Co. , publisher of this blog. Activity paused ahead of the Communist Party leadership handover that saw Hu Jintao step down as the country’s president on Nov. 9, and Xi Jinping step up as president.

    From January to September, venture capital investment totaled $2.7 billion for 150 deals, a 44% drop in capital and 44% fall in deals compared with the same time-period a year earlier. Meanwhile shortfalls were largely seen in the consumer and industrial goods sectors.

    Read the full story on The WSJ’s Venture Capital Dispatch blog.

  • Nov 13, 2012
    1:48 PM

    What Sinofsky’s Departure Means for Microsoft

    AP
    Microsoft’s Windows boss is leaving the company.

    After spearheading the development of two versions of Microsoft Windows, including last month’s launch of Windows 8, Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows division, steps down. The WSJ’s Shira Ovide has the latest.

  • Nov 13, 2012
    12:49 PM
    Intel CEO Paul Otellini (L) speaking with President Barack Obama at an Intel semiconductor manufacturing facility in Oregon last year. Otellini was one of several CEOs urging the president and Congress to avert a “fiscal cliff.”

    The Technology CEO Council has urged the Obama administration and Congress to pass legislation that prevents the so-called fiscal cliff.

    In a letter, nine chief executives from companies including Dell Inc., International Business Machines Corp. and Intel Corp., asked Congress and the administration to “work together and pass concrete legislation that forestalls much of the across-the-board spending cuts and immediate tax increases” and “implements a pro-growth framework for long-term fiscal sustainability.”

    The CEOs said the country faces “one of the most avoidable economic crises in U.S. history,” noting that increasing taxes by more than $400 billion and cutting spending by more than $100 billion effective the beginning of next year “will most likely reduce economic growth and hinder employment in the United States and globally.”

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  • Digits delivers breaking news and insights about the technology landscape, including Q&As with newsmakers, product news and strategic moves. Send news items, comments and questions to digits@wsj.com.

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