Facebook's IPO show to hit the road on May 7: source

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The roadshow for Facebook Inc's initial public offering is scheduled to start on Monday, meaning the company's shares should begin trading on May 18, a source familiar with the process said on Tuesday.

Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has mostly operated in the background during Facebook's closely watched journey to public markets, will be involved in the roadshow, another source said.

Facebook declined to comment.

Many on Wall Street had not expected Zuckerberg to turn up on the roadshow after he skipped a March analysts' meeting, ceding the stage to COO Sheryl Sandberg and CFO David Ebersman. His March absence irked some investors who were indignant that the CEO, while wielding near-absolute control over the eight-year-old firm, had snubbed Wall Street.

IPO roadshows, in which company management presents its strategy to prospective investors, typically last one to two weeks. If the roadshow goes particularly well, shares sometimes start trading a few days earlier.

Facebook is set to raise at least $5 billion in what will likely be the largest Silicon Valley IPO ever. The world's largest social network continues to command keen investor interest although disappointing first-quarter results raised questions about whether it can sustain breakneck growth for the longer term.

A source familiar with the offering said last week that a recent acquisition spurt by the company could have added about a week to the IPO timetable as regulators signed off on the deals.

This review is close to completion, however, allowing the company to go ahead with the roadshow on May 7, according to the source who spoke with Reuters on Tuesday. The sources did not want to be identified because they are not authorized to speak about the company's IPO.

"I have not seen as broad-based interest in an IPO since Google. Investor demand is immense," said Scott Sweet of research firm IPO Boutique. "I expect a roadshow that will rival all roadshows where investors will be turned away at the door."

The news on the road show was first reported by tech blog AllThingsDigital and the Wall Street Journal.

See the original article here

Read More

Ferrari F70 concept

Then next Ferrari F70 is expected next year. The prototype is undergoing various testing. This is a concept design created by Constantin-Gabriel Radu and gives us some idea of what the next Ferrari hypercar could look like.

The F70 is said to have close to 900BHP thanks to KERS and a V12 petrol powerplant. Nevertheless we wait to receive further clarification on the final details.

See the original article here 

Read More

Samsung sells 2 million Galaxy Notes in South Korea in 5 months, but not really

Samsung announced this morning that it reached 2 million Galaxy Note smartphone sales in South Korea in April, achieving the milestone less than six months after the device launched domestically.

Samsung notes that these sales are to its supply base, so we could take this as 2 million device shipments, not actual sales to the consumer. However, it states that demand for the device is still strong despite the upcoming launch of the Galaxy S III, which is due to be unveiled in London tomorrow.

In its monthly report, Samsung states that for April, sales of its LTE Galaxy Note accounted for 67% of domestic LTE handset sales, holding 64% of the 1.52 million total device sales in the country.

In terms of worldwide sales, the device topped 1 million sales two months after it went on sale and it has already passed 5 million ’global cumulative sales’ in its supply chain (shipments) in five months.

Samsung says that China, Spain and France contribute the largest share of purchases in its overseas markets, matching the markets that saw increased sales in December where shipments were “on the rise in Europe and Asia including France, Germany, Hong Kong and Taiwan”.

See the original article here 

Read More

Myows rolls out automated copyright protection for content on Flickr, Dribbble or any site with an RSS feed

Myows (short for ‘My Original Works’), one of the easiest ways to protect your intellectual property online, just got that much easier to use.

The South Africa-based company, which we covered in our list of 5 ways to protect your work online, has rolled out a new feature, introducing a completely automated way to add your online work to your Myows account using RSS feeds.

The service allows users to register copyrighted files online for proof of ownership and provides both the guidelines and the means to build a copyright infringement case.

Myows’ latest feature allows you to automatically add copies of your work that you’ve posted online, provided you have access to an RSS feed.

This throws the door wide open to a wide variety of online services, allowing you to automatically save images from Flickr and Dribbble, save posts from WordPress and Blogger and more. No matter what kind of content is being imported, it will be saved to your Myows account as a PDF file.
Myows automatically registers content to your account from anywhere on the Web, whether photos, text or designs, provided it has access to an RSS feed.  Any content that has already been uploaded or posted online will not be registered.

Myows does warn, however, that the feature is in beta and there are still a couple of bugs to work out, so the feature may not work as expected right away. In our experience, it took a while for the files to show up, but once they did, it was working seamlessly.

Myows also recently rolled out a new contract generator, as well as a built-in copyright detection feature, allowing users to identify unauthorized copies of their work online.

See the original article here

Read More

Amazon and Apple ebook price war results in book being pulled

Buzz Bissinger is no stranger to the literary world, having written several bestselling books. So it was all the more confusing when his recent ebook, After Friday Night Lights, recently vanished without warning from the Amazon Kindle store. It took a little time for Bissinger to sort out why his 12,000 word $2.99 Kindle title was pulled, and he wasn’t expecting to find that it was all because of a tiff between Apple and Amazon.

Mr. Bissinger found after a publicity stop to promote the book that he could no longer find its listing on Amazon. His initial feeling was that it was just a mistake, but he found that he was, in fact, caught up in an automated fight between Amazon and Apple. The difficulty is that Apple chose to list After Friday Night Lights as a featured title in iBooks, and was giving it away for free with a code.

Bissinger was still receiving royalties from Apple, but Amazon’s automated system interpreted the promotion as a price drop, and tried to match it on the Kindle. That meant the book went from being $2.99 to free overnight. Amazon didn’t have anything to do with the book disappearing; that was all the publisher’s doing. It seems that the folks at digital publisher Byliner panicked and pulled the book rather than lose sales, which they got nothing for.

After Friday Night Lights follows the life of a high school football star whose career was ended by an injury early on. The book was written exclusively for Byliner.com, a digital publishing house that is making a go of things by publishing shorter digital works. Bissinger believes that the book has lost its chance thanks to Amazon’s pricing scheme.

Amazon has said the book can be posted again, but Byliner has not made a decision on how to proceed. There is no reason to think this won’t continue happening to this and other books. At a time when everyone is being investigated for ebook price fixing, this is just another reminder of how broken the current system is.

See the original article here 

Read More

Dell sees brisk sales of new ultrabooks

(Reuters) - Dell Inc's new ultra-thin laptop computer meant to rival Apple Inc's popular MacBook Air is doing much better than the company expected.

Sales of the XPS 13 ultrabook, which hit store shelves on February 28, are now more than double the company's internal forecast, driven by strong demand from both consumers and big corporations, Dell said.

"With this product, we went aggressive with the forecast,"

Dell product marketing director Alison Gardner said. "Since we started shipping it to customers, XPS 13 has exceeded our expectations."

Almost half of the sales of the XPS 13, which starts at $999, were to corporations, she added.

Dell's so-called enterprise business has doubled in the past five to six years and now represents half of the company's profit.

While Gardner declined to reveal the exact number of units sold so far or the internal forecast, she said Dell is seeing a lot of sales momentum for the super-thin category of laptops.

PC manufacturers plunged into ultrabooks - a super-thin category of laptops that chipmaker Intel Corp helped create - to attract consumers increasingly captivated by Apple's iPad, MacBook Air and other mobile devices.

Some analysts have said the high price of the laptops, driven up by expensive components such as solid-state drives, may impede sales and force Intel to sacrifice profit margins on its processors to help make them affordable.

Intel, which dubbed them ultrabooks, is providing support by kicking off its biggest marketing push since 2003.

The chip maker's "A New Era in Computing" campaign, which began in April, includes TV and print advertising along with a push in social media.

Clunky laptops are increasingly under threat as tablets grow more powerful and are used for multiple functions, from Web surfing to sophisticated graphics and video manipulation.

Round Rock, Texas-based Dell - which has been waging an uphill battle to diversify its revenue base from PCs to become a larger player in the data center equipment market and IT services - also plans to launch its first consumer tablet computer in late 2012.

See the original article here

Read More

New Volkswagen Golf GTI Cabriolet Priced from £29,310 in the UK

Volkswagen has announced UK pricing for its new Golf GTI Cabriolet that starts at £29,310 OTR for the manual gearbox model and rises to £30,610 for the DSG dual-clutch transmission version.

The first convertible in the Golf GTI's long history is available for order now from Volkswagen's UK dealerships, with the first deliveries due in July.

Watch this Video

Naturally, the Cabriolet is powered by the same 2.0-liter turbocharged four-pot with 207hp (210PS) as the Golf GTI hatch with VW quoting a 0-62 mph (100km/h) sprint time of 7.3 seconds regardless of transmission, and a top speed of 147mph (237km/h) for the manual and 146mph (235km/h) for the DSG.

Combined fuel consumption is 37.2 mpg UK for the manual and 36.7mpg UK for the DSG, with CO2 emissions of 177 g/km and 180g/km respectively.

The Golf GTI Cabriolet is equipped with a hydraulically operated cloth top that can open or close in 9.5 seconds, and can be operated at speeds of up to 18 mph (29km/h).

The open-top model features the same styling features as the GTI hatch inside and out including the bespoke radiator grille with red edging, sport front and rear bumpers, side sill extensions, 18-inch alloy wheels, classic tartan ‘Jacara’ cloth upholstery or optionally leather sport seats, and a flat-bottom leather steering wheel.

See the original article here

Read More

PayPunch Enterprise 8.22.203

PayPunch is a Biometric Time Clock & Attendance tracking system that replaces the typical time clock used to track employees’ attendance. Instead of employees punching a time-card, they simply insert their hand into the reader and enter their employee number. PayPunch does the rest! PayPunch ROI is absolutely outstanding and it can pay for itself in as little as 2-3 months. How will it save your company money? PayPunch is a simple solution that pays for itself over and over again by allowing your company to: Automate payroll processing Eliminate buddy-punching Eliminate time-cards Eliminate early punch-ins Eliminate unauthorized overtimeEliminate hours of payroll calculationsAccurately reports employee time/attendance to Payroll & HRPayPunch Benefits:Drastically Reduces Payroll Processing CostEliminates paper cards and all cost associated with paper cards (cards, ribbons, etc.)

Reduces time needed to verify attendance dataReduces time needed to calculate and process payrollEliminates mistakes calculating working hours and other human errors (manual reentering, etc.)Centralized payroll processing reduces HR and accounting personnel involvementEliminates "Buddy-Punching"Biometric HandReaders provide with highest level of securityImpossible to punch in or out for somebody elseHelps Managers and Supervisors Control OvertimeEnforces company rounding rules and policies for multiple shifts and departmentsProvides reports identifying overtime usage for better controlKeeps historical data to analyze trends.. 

and much more!PayPunch, version 7, provides the following new or modified software changes:• New User Interface - PayPunch appearance changes from MS Office 2003 to MS Office 2007.• Report Editor• Exceptions • User Management - Two new roles added• History Tracking - Retains a history of manual changes in the system to the Employee Attendance and provides rollback capabilities.• Customizable Export

PayPunch Enterprise 8.22.203 Business software developed by Xpress Software Inc. The license of this business software is shareware, the price is $29.95, you can free download and get a free trial before you buy a registration or license. Do not use warez version, crack, serial numbers, registration codes, pirate key for this business software PayPunch Enterprise. If you want to get a full and unlimited version of PayPunch Enterprise, you should buy from original publisher Xpress Software Inc. 

See the original article here

Read More

Ex-AOL exec calls Facebook new 'walled garden'

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — A former AOL executive says Facebook is doing what the Internet portal should have done: It is keeping its structure as a "walled garden."

For years, AOL tried its best to keep users hooked with exclusive articles, chat rooms and other features reserved for paying customers. Facebook likewise keeps posts and photos within a group of friends or acquaintances who sign up for accounts.

"When you have the walled garden, it was wonderful how it perpetuated itself," Bob Pittman, AOL's former chief operating officer, said Tuesday at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills. "When you wanted to talk to someone in the walled garden, you had to join the walled garden."

Pittman, earlier a founder of MTV, said AOL's decision to break down its walls beginning in 2004 "probably was the downfall of AOL." He'd left AOL in 2002, before it reached that juncture, but he said Facebook is unlikely to make the same mistake.

"Facebook is the next walled garden. It's the second walled garden after AOL. They are really smart, and they are not letting anybody convince them to get rid of the walled garden."

Pittman, who now heads radio giant Clear Channel, said AOL's ability to sell access to the large community inside its walls was what created its value.

Facebook is certainly valuable. It is expected to offer shares to the public this month for the first time in an offering that could give the company a market capitalization of more than $100 billion.

Once the country's largest Internet access provider, AOL Inc. started giving away its AOL.com email accounts for free in 2006 just to draw traffic. It had little choice as Internet users increasingly abandoned dial-up connections for broadband. AOL lost millions of subscribers who had been paying $19.95 a month.

AOL then turned to online advertising, which makes up the bulk of its revenue and growth prospects today.

See the original article here

Read More

Facebook sent 160M visitors and 1.1B visits to mobile apps in April

The social mobile app boon is thanks in large part to Facebook and it’s Open Graph platform it launched last year at f8.

Many apps have seen explosive growth and engagement thanks to sharing actions on the Timeline of Facebook users, and the social network has shared some astonishing numbers that support the trend.

According to Facebook, it sent 160 million visitors to mobile apps totaling 1.1B visits:

    - Facebook sent more than 160 million visitors last month to mobile apps (up from 60 million in late February).
    - These mobile visitors were responsible for more than 1.1 billion visits to mobile apps in the same time frame (up from 320 million in late February).
    - Seven of the top ten grossing iOS apps and six of the top ten grossing Android apps are integrated with Facebook.

One of the apps that has Facebook to thank for its growth is social video sharing site Viddy. The app has grown its userbase to over 16M users, with the majority coming once videos and actions started appearing on its member’s Timelines.

The integration of Facebook was a huge jumping off point for iOS-only-at-first Instagram, leaving many Android users feeling left out until they got their own version of the app.

Facebook integration, once only helpful for easy sign-up and login, is doing more than driving new users to apps. Mobile content from the apps are seeing an increase in visits as well. Movie review app Flixster says that its visitor numbers have risen 10X since it launched its Open Graph integration just four weeks ago.

See the original article here 

Read More