Summit Notebook
Exclusive outtakes from industry leaders
So how plugged in is the SEC chair? (technologically speaking)
Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro says her agency has its work cut out to compete with the massive amounts of money that private firms, policed by the SEC, pour into the latest technology.
“Can we keep up with Wall Street? I think we have a fighting chance. We’ll never have, under any circumstances, the kind of budgets that would allow us to spend a billion dollars a year on technology as some firms do, I mean that’s just not going to happen, and I totally understand that,” she said at the Reuters Future Face of Finance Summit.
“If we can build a forensics lab for our enforcement people to be able to download data off of iPhones and iPads and other instruments, then we will be a lot better able to pursue insider trading potentially and other securities law violations,” she said.
So how technologically plugged in is the SEC chair personally?
“I have an iPad,” Schapiro said.
“No I don’t do Twitter, I don’t have a Facebook page. You know, in my position it would be complicated,” she said with a laugh. “So maybe I’m kind of middling in terms of technology.”
Her agency has a Twitter feed and a Facebook page in development.
from MediaFile:
GlobalMedia-iPad cautionary tale: What not to watch, up close
Media executives love to go on about their love of the Apple's iPad. But the tablet isn't suited for everything. Walt Disney's Anne Sweeney relayed her recent experience catching up on an ABC TV show using the popular tablet.
Sweeney missed the season finale Grey's Anatomy and, while traveling, decided to watch the show in her hotel room. The episode was particularly gory -- several characters were picked off by a aggrieved man who held the hospital at gunpoint.
"It was a massacre," Sweeney said at the Reuters Global Media Summit. "There's nothing like seeing that on your pillow. There are some things you might not want to watch that close on your iPad."
(Photo: Reuters)
from MediaFile:
GlobalMedia: EA nabs triple word Scrabble score from Oprah
Forget sports tournaments or new movie releases as boosters for game demand. Electronic Arts' latest hero is America's most famous chat show host.
Chief Executive John Riccitiello, at the Reuters Media summit, went out of his way to praise Oprah Winfrey, whose recent shout-out of Scrabble gave a new lease of life to the not-so-new word game.
"We're very thankful to Oprah for mentioning Scrabble on iPad as one of her ultimate favorite gifts. There was a 400 percent pop ... on her word." He said. "I think there's different grades of favorite so we were happy to be among her ultimate favorites."
So did Riccitiello contact Oprah directly to say thanks? "My sense is that the number of people sending her flowers is too many for her to notice my petunias," he said.
(Photo: Reuters)
from Shop Talk:
Check Out Line: Cautious notes hit by top luxury execs
Check out the cautious notes being sounded in the global luxury market.
Industry executives voiced concerns about everything from unemployment to Europe's brewing economic crisis, but are nonetheless banking on growth from China and a recovering U.S. market.
Leading officials speaking at the Reuters Global Luxury Summit said the debt crisis in Europe is threatening to halt luxury's rebound, but demand for fine merchandise was picking up in the United States while China's shoppers were venturing frequently into Tokyo for top brands.
"The euro zone is a sizable market, but today the growth reserve is in the emerging countries, and particularly in China, whose demand is pulling the entire sector," said Isabelle Ardon, head of Paris-based SG Gestion's luxury fund.
The debt crisis and depreciation of the euro have raised concerns of a double dip global recession that could knock luxury spending back down after a fragile recovery. Bulgari's CEO Francesco Trapani (pictured) said Europe would remain a difficult market.
Meanwhile, a top industry consultant warned a U.S. rebound remains fragile due to high unemployment and the specter of higher taxes.
"The aspirants will come back when unemployment comes down to 5 percent," said Milton Pedraza, chief executive of the Luxury Institute.
Dell: stay tuned for “Streak”
It’s hard to tell how much anticipation there is out there for Dell’s upcoming “Streak” micro-tablet. The No. 3 PC maker’s latest foray into a consumer arena that Apple’s iPad has essentially helped create is set to hit stores this summer in the United States.
Consumer business unit chief Steve Felice told the Reuters Global Technology Summit that Dell isn’t interested in becoming the No. 1 player in the smartphone and tablet mobile devices categories, where Apple and Google are waging a very high-profile war. But the former leader in personal computers fully intends to be a “top-tier player”.
“We look at this whole thing as an experience between the computer and the remote device. We still view these as complementary devices,” he said.
Like a bunch of other tablet computers in the pipeline — courtesy of everyone from Hewlett Packard to Acer – Dell’s is getting a fair share of Web attention, but this one is a little different though. At just 5-inches, the gizmo isn’t quite a smartphone, yet can’t quite call itself a tablet a la Apple’s 11-inch product.
It remains to be seen where consumers will actually want a smartphone-tablet size-hybrid. Much of that may depend on price of course, but Felice isn’t talking — yet.
(Photo courtesy of tech blog Engadget)
from MediaFile:
Don’t look for Sony’s iPad killer any time soon
Don't expect to see Sony's response to Apple's iPad tablet computer any time soon.
We talked to Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer, who was in town to discuss the unveiling of Google TV, the initiative that marries the Web to television. Stringer was very excited about that product, which will appear first in Sony TVs later this year, giving the electronics maker a head start against what is expected to be a future filled with Internet-enabled TVs. While noting that Sony's digital book reader product sales are still strong, he seemed much less thrilled about any iPad-killer plans for Sony, maker of the popular Vaio line of computers.
Everybody's now making one aren't they? Tablets, tablets, as far as the eye can see.
We have to find a way to make it cost competitive. Apple's brilliance is always to make a relationship with an operator or someone to pay a significant part of it. That's something we haven't been successful at. Even with Google and Sony Ericsson, we are still working on relationships with operators.
We have got to master all of that before we simply launch yet another unprofitable product onto the marketplace.
Stringer's comments come after Sony's CFO earlier in the year said that the company aims to launch new products that will vie with Apple's iPad, and has the necessary technology, but added "there is no denying that we are running a bit behind."
A Sony representative confirmed that while Sony is studying the tablet PC market, it has "no concrete plans at this time to come to market with such a product."
(Photo: Sir Howard Stringer at the introduction of Google TV in San Francisco)
Is Apple in Intel’s future?
Apple developed the processor for it’s recently launched iPad tablet PC in-house. Intel was left waiting on the sidelines but change may be in store. Future tablets from other device makers, and maybe even Apple, could prove to be a lucrative for the world’s largest chipmaker. And why not, Intel already makes the microprocessors that are used in more than three quarters of the world’s PCs. Tom Kilroy, Intel senior vice president and general manager of sales and marketing, says “wait til Computex” for a big announcement. So, what’s likely to come out of the industry trade show this June in Taipei? Any thoughts? Click below to hear what Kilroy had to say in San Francisco at the 2010 Reuters Global Technology Summit.
Intel on Tablet Opportunities from Reuters TV on Vimeo.
from MediaFile:
Want an in with Kleiner? Send a drawing
For Matt Murphy, partner with influential Silicon Valley Venture fund Kleiner Perkins and point person on the firm's iFund, old-school is still the way to go.
During an interview at the Reuters technology summit, the VC said picking the right startups to back was tough, given that he had received 8,000 business plans for iFund, which invests in iPhone and iPad applications.
The onslaught of business plans from app developers escalated to almost 500 per day when the fund expanded to $200 million in March.
When asked what gets his attention, Murphy said anything handwritten or hand-made leaves an impression.
"What stands out in this day and age of technology is when somebody sends me like handwritten things with hand sketched-out drawing, or a model or mock-up of something they are building," he said. "It is always entertaining to see something done in an old-school way that stands out."
"I can't say if any of those things I funded, but it did leave an impression on me."
(reporting by Poornima Gupta)
The SEC is at least ten years behind Wall Street. They have nowhere near the resources that Wall Street can bring to bear on manipulation of markets. By the time they catch up to the bad actors, either the statutes of limitations are already expired, or the thieves have taken their loot and disappeared to South America.