MasterCard + more news

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MasterCard

NTT DOCOMO and MasterCard to offer NFC payments in 41 countries— MasterCard PayPass merchants to accept DOCOMO’s iD-brand mobile credit payments — | Press Center | NTT DOCOMO Global – interesting move by MasterCard. NTT DoCoMo, Sony and other Japanese countries have already been ing the NFC payments business for a while. MasterCard will be a fast follower, but had the advantage of a international user base. Even then it will be competing against China’s Union Pay and others.

MasterCard already has extensive experience in RFID with most modern cards in Europe vended. However like Visa, MasterCard is not a technology company in its own right. The company provides payment reconciliation software. For card hardware it relies on vendors like GemPlus, Infineon, NXP and Oberthur. The MasterCard move also sparks questions about security applications for Near Field Communications in the future. Will MasterCard be the pioneer that open this up further?

China

Great internet resources from CIC – great resources on the Chinese web

Consumer behaviour

4-in-10 Adults Use Social Networking to Engage in Political or Civil Activities – Pew Research Center

Economics

Bloomberg Has Tough Criticism for Obama and Romney – NYTimes.com – raise taxes, cut costs to sort out deficit and be more progressive on social issues

Rebalancing China: China’s consumer-led growth | The Economist – growth driven by Chinese consumers rather than inbound investment

The problem with high frequency trading | Felix Salmon – great read

South Africa: BITs in pieces | beyondbrics – a sell and divestment signal on South African exposed equities, bonds etc

Cities of Opportunity: Analysis and forecast of global urban economic centres: PwC – it seems to be sponsored by ‘Partnership for New York City’, interesting research even if some of the findings are debatable

Immigrant Entrepreneurship Has Stalled for the First Time in Decades, Kauffman Foundation Study Shows – entrepreneurship more attractive in home countries. More related content here.

China and Australia’s Coming Economic ‘Divorce’ – Pacific Money

Household wealth to surge | Warc.com – doesn’t mean relief for the declining middle classes of western economies

Finance

Turkcell heading to US to show off mobile wallet service | TotalTelecom

FMCG

Revisiting The Bullish Case For McDonald’s – Seeking Alpha – Europe business doing surprisingly well

McDonald’s gets flak for removing menus from counters ‹ Japan Today – interesting change, presumably designed to rush customers into higher value meal buys

How to

How to Add a Logo or Watermark to YouTube Videos

Top 50 Google Webmaster Guidelines Pages Monitor « « hobo

Innovation

Contribution of open source to Europe’s economy: 450 billion per year | Joinup

Steve Jobs Vowed To Patent Everything Apple Invented After Being Stung By $100m iPod Fine [Report] | Cult of Mac

MIT creates hydrophobic material that could revolutionize fossil fuel and nuclear power plants | ExtremeTech

MIT applies ‘invisibility’ to electronics

How the U.S. Can Reinvent Manufacturing » Techonomy

Gordon Moore’s journey – Fortune Tech – talking about changing skills and decline of hard innovation in Silicon Valley “… Software applications are where all the big deals seem to be. I don’t understand why things like Facebook (FB) and other social media deals get the attention they do — not being on Facebook myself, I guess.

US Megaupload copyright witch hunt threatens online innovation- The Inquirer

Did Apple and Google really spend more on patents than R&D?Technovia

Apple Hires Away Top Samsung CPU Designer to Build Custom Apple Chips

Ireland

I Survived an Assassination Hit on a Real IRA Leader | VICE – I didn’t realise that Ireland had turned into that much of a battleground

The story of Ireland told to the world from Manchester – The Irish Times

Japan

Life on a Budget and How the Salarymen and Women of Japan Make Ends Meet | RocketNews24

Sony closes Japan factory, cuts 2,000 jobs | ZDNet – it’s like a Greek tragedy

London

‘The Cartel’ Are Britain’s Biggest Drug Gang | VICE

Luxury

Dapper Dan of Harlem | Official Blog – the original Dapper Dan who made blinged out hip hop and hustler clothing with the finished fabrics, finishes and fake designer trimmings from Korea

Ermenegildo Zegna expects a bumpy ride – FT.com – growth declining from 20-30 per cent back to 10 per cent

Nokia finishes offloading Vertu, rumors claim Vertu plans a matching switch to Android – Engadget

Luxury CEOs get even more pessimistic | Material World

Media

China: where’s our Gangnam style? | beyondbrics

Music Consumption – Listening to CDs is more popular than listening to the radio or to digital downloads

Textbook Publisher Pearson Takes Down 1.5 Million Teacher And Student Blogs With A Single DMCA Notice | Techdirt

Investors like New York Times‘ ‘paywall’ progress — paidContent

F.T.C. Staff Prepares Antitrust Case Against Google Over Search – NYTimes.com – interesting that it is being compared to the Microsoft case, which I don’t think is particularly pertinent

Have we lost 41 percent of our musicians? Depends on how you (the RIAA) count | Ars Technica

Facebook Tries to Monetize By Annoying; LinkedIn Adds to Value of its Site – Forbes

APAC to become biggest ad market: News from Warc.com

Google In Breach Of E.U. Privacy Laws, Say Commissioners | Fast Company

Robert Bork on antitrust: Google is no Microsoft | CNET News – oh yes it is

4 Reasons It’s Time to Sell Google – Seeking Alpha

Online

“Suicide Prices” (& the Coming Crisis) at Big Law Firms | The Big Picture – fees got so expensive it encourage innovation in legal process outsourcing, moving work abroad to the likes of India

Facebook: We Weren’t Moving Fast Enough in Mobile – AllThingsD – I don’t think many people have it right

iCloud: Sharing done wrong | Macworld – iDisk was far better. Apple jumped the shark on its cloud services

Yahoo to exit South Korea in first Asian pullout | Reuters

Yahoo’s Search Share Is Imploding – Business Insider – no real surprise here, apart from the fact there isn’t a realisation in the report that search is the glue in the Yahoo! network for the other properties effectively cross-selling users across properties…

PG tips adds scratch card Facebook App – conversion rate is going to take a hit, going to a microsite

Quality

Put This On • Seven Things Better Bought Used It’s sometimes… – interesting how much of this is down to changing economics and processes. Globalisation and progress aren’t always positive

Retailing

MediaPost Publications Macy’s Involves Marilyn To Woo Gen Y 10/22/2012 – authenticity from nostalgia

Security

Women Use Monitoring Program To Track Their Spouses’ Facebook Activity – AllFacebook – and they wonder why many men won’t commit

Chrome Extension Protects Your Privacy on Facebook, Google

Communications Data Bill: Their secrecy, your verdict – Simon Says…

Microsoft DMCA Notice ‘Mistakenly’ Targets BBC, Techcrunch, Wikipedia and U.S. Govt | TorrentFreak

China says U.S. report on Huawei based on “untrue evidence” | VentureBeat

Software

RIM takes BlackBerry 10 on the road to woo corporate clients | TotalTelecom

Apple removes Java from all OS X Web browsers | Ars Technica

RIM broadens BB10’s appeal with Car 2 – Rethink Wireless

Apple acquires HTML5 design house – Rethink Wireless

Gartner Releases 2012 Magic Quadrant for Social Software in the Workplace – Igloo Software – interesting, I would have had 37 Signals and Google in there

Microsoft strategy analysis: Microsoft forced to be more like Apple

TelecomTV | RIM shares take another hit after analyst says the fabled BlackBerry 10 OS will not be available before the end of March next year

Technology

1080p smartphones: Dr. Raymond Soneira breaks down display myth

Hands on with Apple’s Lightning to 30-pin Adapters | Macworld – some good workarounds

Apple: Take The Money And Run (Part 2) – Seeking Alpha – has Apple reached it’s maximum possible value

Why the iPod Still Matters to Apple – interesting particular use cases (context rather than convergence) and as a gateway product

Global PC Shipments Expected to Decline in 2012

Telecoms

Bechtolsheim brainstorms on next networking wave

UK worst in Europe for superfast FTTH broadband – Operators still focusing on FTTC upgrades | TechEye

Huawei, Chinese Telecom Company, Finds Warmer Welcome in Europe – NYTimes.com

Web of no web

Microsoft’s Plan to Bring About the Era of Gesture Control – Technology Review – Kinect developer support. Lots of niche applications

Baidu Ramping up LBS Effort to Tap into O2O Heat | TechNode

Microsoft expands Motorola patent case to target Google Maps

Wireless

Google Weighs Mobile-Patent Antitrust Settlement – WSJ.com – interesting, is this Google or Motorola Mobility related?

It’s Official: SoftBank Links Up With Sprint in $20 Billion Deal – AllThingsD – what does all this mean for Clearwire?

Why Apple should acquire Nokia — TNL.net – I am not convinced that this would be a sensible course of action, but it could be of interest to read at least

Communities Dominate Brands: Nokia Q3 Results.. What can I say, we knew it would be misery all around

Sorry, Samsung, iPhone Is Not Your Mother’s Smartphone