The Costa Rica Star newspaper, current events, noticias de Costa Rica news » Technology News

E-Commerce Day Costa Rica Launches First Annual Event

Marcel Evans — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 21:44:56 +0000

On February 21, Costa Rica will host its first E-Commerce Day, as part of the lecture series that drive the development of electronic commerce in Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Sao Paulo and Costa Rica.

The event will be held on Thursday at the Hotel Real Intercontinental, with the aim of promoting the region’s approach companies and new entrepreneurs to trade online, bringing together leaders of e-commerce who will share their knowledge to help enhance business opportunities online for brands and products in the country.

This session will be in San Jose special guests Alicia Avendaño, Director General, Digital Government of Costa Rica; Carolina Forero Director of E-commerce for Visa, Pablo Vargas Group CEO Britt; Lee Araujo Director, Commercial Cybersource for Latin America, Fernando Monteiro, Founder & CEO, Cobrebem (Brazil); Adsmovil CEO Alberto Pardo (Colombia), Mark Pueyrredon, President eInstituto (American Institute of Electronic Commerce, Argentina) and Nils Strandberg, CEO of Latin Pacific, among many others.

Source: TheCostaRicaNews.com

Akamai Releases Unique View into ‘State of the Internet’ for Costa Rica

Marcel Evans — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 14:24:20 +0000

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica, Feb. 13, 2013 – Akamai Technologies, Inc., the leading cloud platform for helping enterprises provide secure, high-performing user experiences on any device, anywhere, today released a unique view into the State of the Internet for Costa Rica.

Available at http://www.akamai.com/dl/akamai/q3_2012_costarica_soti_infographic.pdf, the data set compiles Internet connectivity metrics including average connection speed and average peak connection speed, as well as comparisons with other countries in Latin America.

The data is a subset of Akamai’s Third Quarter, 2012 State of the Internet report. The report includes data gathered from across the Akamai Intelligent Platform about attack traffic, broadband adoption, mobile connectivity and other relevant topics concerning the Internet and its usage, as well as trends seen in this data over time.

Akamai announced the opening of its new operation center in Costa Rica, which specializes in customer service and technical support, in October of 2012. The new center is slated to create over 50 jobs through the end of 2014.

To download the figures from the Third Quarter, 2012 State of the Internet report, please visit http://wwwns.akamai.com/soti/soti_q312_figures.zip

About Akamai

Akamai® (NASDAQ: AKAM) is the leading cloud platform for helping enterprises provide secure, high-performing user experiences on any device, anywhere. At the core of the Company’s solutions is the Akamai Intelligent Platform™ providing extensive reach, coupled with unmatched reliability, security, visibility and expertise. Akamai removes the complexities of connecting the increasingly mobile world, supporting 24/7 consumer demand, and enabling enterprises to securely leverage the cloud. To learn more about how Akamai is accelerating the pace of innovation in a hyperconnected world, please visit www.akamai.com or blogs.akamai.com, and follow @Akamai on Twitter.

Contacts:
Susan Fonseca Garcia
Jeff Young

Akamai – Costa Rica

Media Relations

+506 2201 4846
617-444-3913

sgarcia@akamai.com
jyoung@akamai.com

SOURCE Akamai Technologies, Inc.

More Wind Power Generation Coming To Costa Rica

Marcel Evans — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 14:36:00 +0000

The province of Guanacaste, an area where the winds blow strong, is hot for investors interested in wind farms, reports Nacion.com.

In Tilaran, Guanacaste, there are already five power plants with wind turbines in operation. One is owned by the state run Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), and the other four are owned by private businessmen.

Jovel Arias, mayor, said that because of the prevailing wind conditions in the area, “there are many investors interested in developing wind farms,” adding that “the Tilawind wind farm is also underway, having already had its environmental impact study approved.

We have three projects: one in Tierras Morenas, another on the way to Quebrada Grande, which is called Mandela I and Mandela II, to be developed by construction company H Solis.

This same company will install the plants Lebanon I and Lebanon II, which are currently in the planning phase, said the mayor. He added that currently the only impediment to the development of all these projects is that ICE refuses to make more room for this type of electricity.

Source: Power Engineering

UFO Filmed By Pilot Over Costa Rica, iPhone Video

Marcel Evans — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 12:56:10 +0000

A UFO was filmed by a pilot flying over Costa Rica, video posted to Youtube on January 30th, 2013.

The silver, rounded orb flew past his airplane at an incredible rate of speed.

What is it?

The video below, posted to YouTube, is a Costa Rican TV broadcast report in Spanish. But the translation in the description tells the story.

The pilot was filming out the window with an iPhone when the silver orb whizzed past. But, he claims, he did not notice it at the time.

A closeup of the saucer-like object doesn’t help much to identify what it is, but it doesn’t resemble any known aircraft. And it cannot be a bird as it is much too large and flying much too fast.

The UFO is rounded, silvery and doesn’t appear to have wings. It’s not showing aviation running lights and there is no exhaust plume exiting the tail.

The craft does resemble many other unidentified flying objects filmed in the area in the last few years, which is considered to be a hotspot for sightings.

So, what is it?

Here’s the video:

Source: Gather.com

Costa Rica Shows Rapid Growth In New Technology

Marcel Evans — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 15:13:05 +0000

This Central American country has become a strategic location for international companies to develop new forms of information technology.

The data provided by the International Monetary Fund on the economy of Costa Rica reflects strength and growth. This small Central American country has seen its economy rise this year by 4.8%, one point more than speculated in January this year, and it is expected to also rise in 2013, by 4.3%.

The GDP of this nation of approximately 4 million people continues to grow despite the economic crisis affecting the whole world. The Costa Rican socioeconomic system has been driven by increased private investment and exports.

Many companies dedicated to technological innovation in the field of computing have set up in San Jose, the country’s capital. This has also been reflected in other countries such as Chile, Argentina and Brazil, according to a book written by versa Ciravegna Luciano (Royal Holloway, University of London).

Titled “Promoting Silicon Valleys in Latin America: Lessons from Costa Rica”, this book is trying to make an analysis of this great situation prevailing in a region that has always been known mainly for its exports of coffee bean and environmental richness. It is now home to major research centres.

The book is titled after the name of one of the regions of California that has experienced the boom of these types of companies: the Silicon Valley region has seen multinationals like Oracle, IFM and Amazon, all which have opened their offices there.

The reasons these businesses have chosen Costa Rica have been the skilled workforce and proximity to the United States.

The release of the book by Luciano Ciravegna is to be held at UCL-Institute of the Americas, London on 13th February.

For more information: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/americas/ia-events/costarican-siliconvalley

Source: ThePrisma

Costa Rica To Select Portability Administrator On 30 January

Marcel Evans — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 13:45:20 +0000

The board of Costa Rica’s telecoms regulator Sutel will select the number portability administrator on 30 January, local newspaper El Financiero reports. The administrator will be selected by Sutel, because the Portability Commission has not reached an unanimous verdict in the recent tender which included bids from Teletech, Telcordia, El Corte Ingles and Porting XS.

Costa Rica’s Portability Commission includes representatives of Claro, ICE, Movistar and of MVNOs Tuyo Movil and Full Movil. At the final vote, ICE expressed its opposition to the process. ‘The vote was four to one’, said Eduardo Castellon, Sutel spokesman. The portability regulations state that the vote should be unanimous, otherwise, the Sutel board will name the portability administrator.

Source: Telecompaper

Movistar Costa Rica offers free access to social networks

Marcel Evans — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 15:55:48 +0000

Movistar has launched a promotion for its prepay users in Costa Rica. Customers who make a minimum top-up of CRC 1,000 will receive free access to social networking services Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp for three days. Customers will also receive a bonus of 400 SMS to national numbers.

The promotion is part of the operator’s ‘Generacion Movistar’ campaign, which targets young customers, La Nacion reports, citing Matias Senoran, communications manager at Movistar Costa Rica. To enter the promotion, customers should send an SMS to a special short number. This service activation SMS is charged CRC 500.

Tubular raises $2.5 million to serve burgeoning YouTube industry

Reuters — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 14:09:16 +0000

By Gerry Shih

SAN FRANCISCO |
Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:09am EST

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Tubular, a small San Francisco start-up that provides analytics for YouTube content creators, has raised $2.5 million in venture capital in the latest sign of how far the business ecosystem has evolved around the Google-owned video repository.

YouTube was once known as Wild West of online video, but over the past two years Google has focused on raising the quality of YouTube content through a series of direct investments and the cultivation of third-party “networks”.

The result is a cluster of small studios, mostly based in Los Angeles, that acts like a digital Hollywood, pumping out slick YouTube hits.

With the ultimate goal of hosting enough high-quality content to lure big-spending advertisers to YouTube, Google doled out more than $100 million last year in grants to its networks and bedroom stars.

In May Google led a group of investors who poured $35 million into Machinima, a leading network, to stoke growth in the YouTube industry.

That market has now grown to the point that it can support its own start-ups, says Tubular’s founder Rob Gabel.

COMPETITION

As more semi-professional and professional YouTube creators enter the sector, with increasing competition among them, there is a growing need for analytical services.

Tubular is one such service, allowing customers to monitor and measure when videos get the most views and comments, or the sources of referred traffic.

The software includes a dashboard that displays the real-time analytics, which are generated by tapping into a stream of data provided by YouTube.

“If YouTube is a multibillion-dollar market, then that’s billions of dollars going out to content creators who can then invest that again,” said Gabel, a former Machinima employee.

“On every platform, from Google to Facebook to Twitter, people have turned to third parties’ helpful tools.”

At a high level, the pie is large and continuing to grow rapidly. Former Citi analyst Mark Mahaney estimates that YouTube will bring Google a total of $3.6 billion in 2012.

Rich Heitzmann, a co-founder of FirstMark Capital, which led Tubular’s latest funding round, said that Google is far from wringing out all of the potential revenue from YouTube.

“We think the ecosystem is at least the size of Facebook’s, considering it has a billion users and if you consider the time spent on YouTube,” Heitzmann said.

“The advertising opportunities are there, and yet the ecosystem hasn’t evolved technologically.”

SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS

Other investors in Tubular’s first tranche of equity financing included High Line Venture Partners, SV Angel, Lerer Ventures and Bedrocket Media Ventures.

Still, Gabel is betting that he can create a long-term, sustainable business on YouTube’s platform at a time when some Silicon Valley companies are wary of building on the backs of larger companies.

Twitter, for instance, courted controversy this year when it made a business decision to shut off its firehose of data for a number of popular third-party developers to drive more visitors to its own site.

Allen DeBevoise, the CEO of Machinima who is also a Tubular investor, said that YouTube has reason to foster its independent developers rather than squash them.

“It’s a thriving and fast-moving ecosystem now,” he said. “But a lot of players are needed to make it all work.”

Though Gabel acknowledges that the YouTube industry’s rapid expansion is no guarantee of success, he has high hopes.

“Everything is a bit of gamble,” he said, “but I feel good gambling on YouTube and online video.”

(Editing by David Goodman)

Bankrupt Eastman Kodak to sell patents for $525 million

Reuters — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 13:53:27 +0000

Wed Dec 19, 2012 8:53am EST

(Reuters) – Bankrupt camera maker Eastman Kodak Co agreed to sell its digital imaging patents for about $525 million to a consortium led by Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corp, a key step to ending its bankruptcy.

The photography pioneer said a portion of the payment will come from 12 intellectual property licensees organized by Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corporation.

A sale of the roughly 1,100 patents, which Kodak has said could be worth as much as $2.6 billion, has been a key element of the Rochester, New York-based company’s plans to shift its focus to commercial packaging and printing from photography.

The agreements are subject to approval by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.

The Kodak bankruptcy case is in Re: Eastman Kodak Co. et al, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-10202.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware and Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bangalore; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

Former Vivendi boss to run France’s Thales

Reuters — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 13:47:30 +0000

ISTRES, France |
Wed Dec 19, 2012 8:47am EST

ISTRES, France (Reuters) – French defense electronics group Thales will name former Vivendi chief executive Jean-Bernard Levy as its new chief executive on Thursday, the head of key shareholder Dassault Aviation said.

The French state and jet maker Dassault Aviation, which own 27 and 26 percent of Thales respectively, have agreed to appoint Levy to replace Luc Vigneron at the head of Thales, Dassault CEO Charles Edelstenne said on Wednesday.

Levy stepped down in June as CEO of French media-to-telecoms conglomerate Vivendi over a strategy dispute with its supervisory board.

Vigneron has faced sustained criticism from within Thales as he pushed through a program of spending cuts.

The news comes a day after Dassault Aviation said Eric Trappier, the head of its international operations, would take over as CEO when Edelstenne reaches retirement age in January.

Aerospace and defense group EADS holds 46.3 percent of Dassault Aviation.

(Reporting by Cyril Altmeyer; Editing by Christian Plumb and James Regan)

Strong software sales boost Oracle shares

Reuters — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 13:46:55 +0000

Wed Dec 19, 2012 8:46am EST

(Reuters) – Shares of Oracle Corp, the world’s No. 3 software maker, looked set to open about 3 percent higher on Wednesday after it forecast strong sales for next year, prompting several brokerages to raise their price targets on the stock.

The company’s results often set the tone for smaller software makers, and analysts said the 17 percent jump in its quarterly software sales boded well for the industry.

Investors pay close attention to new software sales as they generate high-margin, long-term maintenance contracts and are an important gauge of a company’s future profits.

“Oracle delivered strong results in a challenging environment,” Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Derrick Wood said in a note to clients.

Some investors are worried that corporations would postpone spending on technology because of uncertainty over the year-end deadline for Congress and U.S. President Barack Obama to reach a compromise on the looming “fiscal cliff”.

“While (Oracle’s) results may point to a bit more stable spending environment than is generally perceived, we think Oracle’s strong execution is mostly being driven by the improvements they made to their go-to-market sales structure,” Wood said.

Wood, who has a “positive” rating on Oracle’s stock, raised his price target by $2 to $40.

Shares of the company, which closed at $32.88 on Tuesday on the Nasdaq, were up 2.9 percent at $33.79 in premarket trading.

However, the company’s hardware business, which it acquired with its $5.6 billion purchase of Sun Microsystems in January 2010, continued to be sluggish, and quarterly hardware systems product sales fell 23 percent from a year earlier.

“The only blemish in the quarter was on the hardware front, as the company remains focused on sunsetting uneconomical product offerings,” FBR Capital Markets analysts said.

The brokerage, which has an “outperform” rating on the company’s stock, raised its price target by $1 to $37.

(Reporting by Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore; Editing by Roshni Menon)

Sberbank to buy Yandex online payments service: source

Reuters — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 13:04:51 +0000

MOSCOW |
Wed Dec 19, 2012 8:04am EST

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Sberbank, Russia’s top lender, plans to buy Yandex.Dengi, an online payment service owned by Russian search engine Yandex, a source familiar with the matter said.

Sberbank declined to comment. Yandex, which was not available to comment, was expected to hold a news conference on Wednesday.

Sberbank, which accounts for a third of overall lending in Russia, has been expanding in the consumer credit market amid weak corporate loan portfolio growth.

In recent years, it has launched its own credit card business and tied up with French bank BNP Paribas in a joint venture focusing on point-of-sale lending, a popular form of in-store consumer finance in Russia.

Yandex, which raised $1.4 billion when it floated on the U.S. stock market in May 2011, came under scrutiny during election protests over the past year when it was reported that opposition leaders were raising funds via Yandex.Dengi.

(Reporting by Katya Golubkova and Anastasia Teterevleva; Editing by Dan Lalor)

Instagram tests new limits in user privacy

Reuters — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 02:45:54 +0000

By Gerry Shih and Alexei Oreskovic

SAN FRANCISCO |
Tue Dec 18, 2012 9:45pm EST

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Instagram, which spurred suspicions this week that it would sell user photos after revising its terms of service, has sparked renewed debate about how much control over personal data users must give up to live and participate in a world steeped in social media.

In forcefully establishing a new set of usage terms, Instagram, the massively popular photo-sharing service owned by Facebook Inc, has claimed some rights that have been practically unheard of among its prominent social media peers, legal experts and consumer advocates say.

Users who decline to accept Instagram’s new privacy policy have one month to delete their accounts, or they will be bound by the new terms. Another clause appears to waive the rights of minors on the service. And in the wake of a class-action settlement involving Facebook and privacy issues, Instagram has added terms to shield itself from similar litigation.

All told, the revised terms reflect a new, draconian grip over user rights, experts say.

“This is all uncharted territory,” said Jay Edelson, a partner at the Chicago law firm Edelson McGuire. “If Instagram is to encourage as many lawsuits as possible and as much backlash as possible then they succeeded.”

Instagram’s new policies, which go into effect January 16, lay the groundwork for the company to begin generating advertising revenue by giving marketers the right to display profile pictures and other personal information such as who users follow in advertisements.

The new terms, which allow an advertiser to pay Instagram “to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata)” without compensation, triggered an outburst of complaints on the Web on Tuesday from users upset that Instagram would make money from their uploaded content.

The uproar prompted a lengthy blog post from the company to “clarify” the changes, with CEO Kevin Systrom saying the company had no current plans to incorporate photos taken by users into ads.

Instagram declined comment beyond its blog post, which failed to appease critics including National Geographic, which suspended new posts to Instagram. “We are very concerned with the direction of the proposed new terms of service and if they remain as presented we may close our account,” said National Geographic, an early Instagram adopter.

PUSHING BOUNDARIES

Consumer advocates said Facebook was using Instagram’s aggressive new terms to push the boundaries of how social media sites can make money while its own hands were tied by recent agreements with regulators and class action plaintiffs.

Under the terms of a 2011 settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, Facebook is required to get user consent before personal information is shared beyond their privacy settings. A preliminary class action lawsuit settlement with Facebook allows users to opt-out of being included in the “sponsored stories” ads that use their personal information.

Under Instagram’s new terms, users who want to opt-out must simply quit using the service.

“Instagram has given people a pretty stark choice: Take it or leave, and if you leave it you’ve got to leave the service,” said Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a Internet user right’s group.

What’s more, he said, if a user initially agrees to the new terms but then has a change of mind, their information could still be used for commercial purposes.

In a post on its official blog on Tuesday, Instagram did not address another controversial provision that states that if a child under the age of 18 uses the service, then it is implied that his or her parent has tacitly agreed to Instagram’s terms.

“The notion is that minors can’t be bound to a contract. And that also means they can’t be bound to a provision that says they agree to waive the rights,” said the EFF’s Opsahl.

BLOCKING CLASS ACTION SUITS

While Facebook continues to be bogged in its own class action suit, Instagram took preventive steps to avoid a similar legal morass.

Its new terms of service require users with a legal complaint to enter arbitration, rather than take the company to court. It prohibits users from joining a class action lawsuit unless they mail a written “opt-out” statement to Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park within 30 days of joining Instagram.

That provision is not included in terms of service for other leading social media companies like Twitter, Google, YouTube or even Facebook itself, and it immunizes Instagram from many forms of legal liability, said Michael Rustad, a professor at Suffolk University Law School.

Rustad, who has studied the terms of services for 157 social media services, said just 10 contained provisions prohibiting class action lawsuits.

The clause effectively cripples users who want to legally challenge the company because lawyers will not likely represent an individual plaintiff, Rustad argued.

“No lawyers will take these cases,” Rustad said. “In consumer arbitration cases, everything is stacked against the consumer. It’s a pretense, it’s a legal fiction, that there are remedies.”

Instagram, which has 100 million users, allows consumers to tweak the photos they take on their smartphones and share the images with friends. Facebook acquired Instagram in September for $715 million.

Instagram’s take-it-or-leave-it policy pushes the envelope for how social networking companies treat user privacy issues, said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

“I think Facebook is probably using Instagram to see how far it can press this advertising model,” said Rotenberg. “If they can keep a lot of users, then all those users have agreed to have their images as part of advertising.”

(Additional reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

FTC to delay Google anti-trust probe decision: source

Reuters — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 01:57:12 +0000

WASHINGTON |
Tue Dec 18, 2012 8:57pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which had been expected to wrap up an anti-trust probe into Google within days, will now delay its decision for weeks, a source said on Tuesday.

Google has been accused of giving competitors in lucrative areas like travel a lower ranking in search results, thus making it harder for their customers to find them. Google has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz had hoped to wrap up the long-running investigation this month.

Talk of a potential settlement in recent days had suggested Google would emerge from the more than two-year probe with little more than a slap on the wrist from the commission.

The delay, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, came after the European Union took a hard line with the search engine giant on Tuesday in a parallel investigation.

The EU’s antitrust chief, Joaquin Almunia, gave Google a month to come up with detailed proposals to resolve a two-year investigation into complaints that it used its power to block rivals, including Microsoft.

The European Commission has been examining informal settlement proposals from Google since July but has not sought feedback from the complainants, suggesting it is not convinced by what Google has put on the table so far.

Google’s critics have accused it of a long list of wrongdoing – everything from putting its own products high up in search results to bring them business to “scraping” reviews of hotels and restaurants from other sites for its own products.

Google had reportedly been prepared to make some changes to its business practices to secure an end to the FTC investigation but had balked at allowing regulators to interfere with its search algorithm. The company was also apparently prepared to make concessions on certain patent infringement lawsuits.

(Reporting By Diane Bartz; Editing by Ros Krasny and Michael Perry)

ITC judge sides with Apple against Google on phone patent

Reuters — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 01:54:27 +0000

By Dan Levine

Tue Dec 18, 2012 8:54pm EST

(Reuters) – Google’s Motorola Mobility unit cannot assert a patent against Apple Inc which covers a sensor that stops phone users from dialing wrong numbers on touchscreen devices, a U.S. trade judge ruled.

In an entry on the U.S. International Trade Commission docket on Tuesday, Administrative Law Judge Thomas Pender ruled the Motorola patent invalid.

“We’re disappointed with this outcome and are evaluating our options,” Motorola spokeswoman Jennifer Weyrauch-Erickson said. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.

Apple has been litigating around the world against various manufacturers of phones that operate on Google’s Android operating system. Google acquired Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion this year, partly for its library of telecommunications patents.

The ITC, a U.S. trade panel that investigates patent infringement involving imported goods, is a popular venue for patent lawsuits because it can bar the importation of infringing products and because it issues decisions relatively quickly.

In August, the commission found that Apple had not violated three other Motorola patents, and ordered Pender to further examine the touchscreen sensor patent. The full ITC will now review Pender’s latest ruling.

The case in the ITC is In the Matter of Certain Wireless Communication Devices, Portable Music and Data Processing Devices, Computers and Components Thereof, 337-745.

(Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Ken Wills)

Oracle beats outlook, easing "fiscal cliff" worries

Reuters — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 23:15:37 +0000

By Jim Finkle

BOSTON |
Tue Dec 18, 2012 5:29pm EST

BOSTON (Reuters) – Oracle Corp’s quarterly profit beat Wall Street expectations on strong software sales growth, suggesting that the approach of the “fiscal cliff” has yet to crimp corporate spending on technology.

Shares of the world’s No. 3 software maker rose 2.6 percent on the news.

“I would call it an early Christmas present,” FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives said. “It’s a positive sign for the overall technology sector.”

The company reported that software sales and cloud software subscriptions rose 17 percent from a year earlier to $2.4 billion in its fiscal second quarter.

Oracle had forecast that new software sales would climb 5 to 15 percent from a year earlier when it last reported earnings on September 20.

Investors pay close attention to new software sales because they generate high-margin, long-term maintenance contracts and are an important gauge of the company’s future profits.

Oracle posted a second-quarter profit, excluding items, of 64 cents per share, beating the average analyst forecast of 61 cents according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Jefferies & Co analyst Ross MacMillan said that Oracle’s results are encouraging for other makers of business software, many of which end their quarter on December 31.

Some investors have worried that corporations would postpone spending on technology projects because of uncertainty over the year-end deadline for Congress and U.S. President Barack Obama to reach a compromise to thwart an automatic rise in tax rates and government spending cuts that economists say could lead to another U.S. recession.

“It tells you that there’s still money being spend by enterprises on software. It’s not like the world has ground to a halt,” MacMillan said.

The picture was not so bright for Oracle’s troubled hardware division, which it acquired with its $5.6 billion purchase of Sun Microsystems in January 2010. The division’s revenue has fallen every quarter since it closed that deal.

Hardware systems product sales fell 23 percent from a year earlier to $734 million. Oracle had forecast that hardware sales would drop between 8 and 18 percent.

Oracle shares rose to $33.75 in extended trade after closing at $32.88 on Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle. Additional reporting by Noel Randewich; Editing by Gary Hill and Richard Chang)

U.S. says it has reached e-books settlement with Penguin

Reuters — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 22:48:18 +0000

WASHINGTON |
Tue Dec 18, 2012 5:48pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it has reached a settlement with Pearson Plc’s Penguin Group in the government’s investigation of alleged price-setting in the e-book market.

In a statement, the Justice Department’s antitrust office said it will continue to press its case against defendants Apple Inc and Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC.

(Reporting by David Ingram)

Instagram says no plans to put user photos in ads

Reuters — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 22:47:31 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO |
Tue Dec 18, 2012 5:47pm EST

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Instagram, the popular photo-sharing service owned by Facebook Inc, said on Tuesday it has “no plans” to incorporate user photos into ads in response to a growing public outcry over new privacy policies unveiled this week.

Instagram Chief Executive Kevin Systrom said in a blog post that users had incorrectly interpreted Instagram’s revised terms of service, released on Monday, to mean that user photos would be sold to others without compensation.

“This is not true and it is our mistake that this language is confusing,” Systrom said. “To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos. We are working on updated language in the terms to make sure this is clear.”

But Systrom said Instagram may display users’ profile pictures and information about who they follow as part of an ad – a social marketing technique similar to what Facebook uses in its “sponsored stories” ad product.

He added that Instagram will not incorporate users’ uploaded photos as ads because the service wants “to avoid things like advertising banners.”

Instagram, which is free to use, triggered an uproar this week when it revised its terms of service in order to begin carrying advertising.

Facebook bought the fast-growing photo service – now with 100 million users – earlier this year in a cash-and-stock deal valued initially at $1 billion. The transaction closed in September at $715 million, reflecting a decline in the value of Facebook shares.

(Reporting By Gerry Shih; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

Samsung drops attempt to ban Apple sales in Europe

Reuters — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 20:35:22 +0000

STOCKHOLM |
Tue Dec 18, 2012 3:35pm EST

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Korea’s Samsung Electronics on Tuesday said it would drop law suits aimed at banning the sale of Apple Inc. products in Europe just a day after scoring a victory in a battle in the United States with the maker of iPhones.

Samsung and Apple, the world’s top two smartphone makers, have been locked in patent disputes in at least 10 countries over the last 18 months since Apple sued Samsung, saying the Korean firm copied its best-selling iPhone and iPad.

On Tuesday, Samsung said it was dropping an attempt to stop the sale of some Apple products in Germany, Britain, France, Italy and the Netherlands, though it did not say it would halt its court battle for compensation.

“Samsung remains committed to licensing our technologies on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, and we strongly believe it is better when companies compete fairly in the marketplace, rather than in court,” the company said in a statement.

A spokesman for Apple declined to comment on Samsung’s decision.

The decision comes a day after a judge rejected Apple Inc’s request for a ban on the sale of Samsung Electronics’ smartphones in the United States.

In August, Apple was awarded $1.05 billion in damages after a U.S. jury found Samsung had copied critical features of the iPhone and iPad. The Samsung products run on the Android operating system, developed by Google.

In January, the European Commission opened an investigation into whether Samsung Electronics has distorted competition in the European mobile device market, breaking EU antitrust rules.

(Reporting by Simon Johnson, additional reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Louise Heavens)

EU’s Almunia sets deadline for Google antitrust plan

Reuters — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 19:21:39 +0000

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS |
Tue Dec 18, 2012 2:21pm EST

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union set Google an ultimatum on Tuesday, giving it a month to come up with detailed proposals to resolve a two-year investigation into complaints that it used its power to block rivals, including Microsoft.

The EU’s antitrust chief, Joaquin Almunia, delivered the deadline in a meeting with Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt in Brussels.

If it fails to address the complaints, the world’s most popular search engine could face a lengthy battle with what is arguably the world’s most powerful antitrust authority. If found guilty, it could mean a fine of up to 10 percent of its revenue, or $4 billion.

“Since our preliminary talks with Google started in July, we have substantially reduced our differences regarding possible ways to address each of the four competition concerns expressed by the Commission,” Almunia said in a statement.

“On the basis of the progress made, I now expect Google to come forward with a detailed commitment text in January 2013.”

Almunia said he would seek feedback from rivals and users once he has received Google’s proposal.

Google said it continues to work co-operatively with the Commission.

The EU watchdog’s two-year investigation has centered on complaints that Google unfairly favored its services over its rivals in search results, and that it may have copied material from travel and restaurant websites without permission.

The Commission is also looking into whether Google restricted advertisers from transferring their data to rivals.

The Commission’s decision to press Google to offer more far-reaching concessions comes in sharp contrast to the case U.S. regulators have against the company.

Sources told Reuters the U.S. Federal Trade Commission could drop their investigation into Google without requiring any major change in how the company does business.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Robin Emmott, Louise Heavens and Nick Zieminski)