Sainsbury Bank + more news

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Sainsbury Bank

Eye-catching recruits and full bank buyout fast-tracks grocer’s push for supremacy – The Independent – interesting how Sainsbury Bank is going for it whilst the UK banking sector licks its wounds. Don’t forget that MBNA entered and disrupted the UK credit card market at the tail-end of the recession in the mid-1990s whilst the banks worried about underwater mortgages and building society demutualisation. Sainsbury Bank will be able to knit together Nectar loyalty points, retail presence, retail data and payments with its banking business. Sainsbury Bank could even be promoted through the supermarket website and magazine.

Consumer behaviour

Consumption and growth – interesting consumer confidence data

14 Facts about Mothers from Euromonitor’s Survey Research – Analyst Insight from Euromonitor International

Economics

Remember when the global economy was desperate for steel? That’s over – is building becoming more controlled in its pace? Construction for the Beijing olympics, particularly the Bird’s Nest

Three facts about emerging markets everyone should know

Temporary and part-time jobs are going to kill the global economy – Quartz – vicious circle

How Silicon Valley is Hollowing Out the Economy (And Stealing From You To Boot)

The further you are from London, the more equal the cities are

Study on the great restructure in Europe by Ipsos France and FreeThinking | Publicis Europe – (PDF)

Finance

Older bankers are sticking around longer, making it harder for younger colleagues to get promoted – this should slow down financial innovation

French banks SocGen and Credit Agricole still look dodgy

FMCG

‘Nandos Fergie Time’ on Twitter – chicken restaurant reacts to Manchester United news! #nandosfergietime – nice bit of work by Jonathan Hopkin’s team

How to

Nisus InfoClick – Uniquely Powerful Search for Apple Mail

loads.in – test how fast a webpage loads in a real browser from over 50 locations worldwide

Innovation

A tour of some of Japan’s coolest tech innovations, by Dentsu’s Kei Shimada – 20 years ago this wouldn’t even be needed, Japan as an innovator wouldn’t be questioned

The Exit Trap – I, Cringely

Tech City – believe the hype? | guardian.co.uk – probably not

Chart of the week: China’s patent / royalty disconnect | beyondbrics

Japan

Quality vs cost in Japan ‹ Japan Today – interesting points but look at the comments. More Japan related content can be found here.

Luxury

A Shift in the Goals of China’s Rich Abroad

Media

Localization alone isn’t enough for overseas game studios succeed in China, says App Annie chief

Report shows bit torrent users pay for more content than honest consumers

Master List of Facebook Marketing Links – JonLoomer.com

Online

Ping.it: An RSS reader that lets you create tailored feeds by keywords and popularity

Microsoft’s Bing adds Facebook commenting and Like actions to its social sidebar – interesting move to improve the user search experience, particularly for the under 25s who rely more on social. But it also is an incremental steal in advertising from Facebook

Marissa Mayer Has Turned Yahoo Into ‘A Safe Haven’ For Failed Startups – interesting contrast with 2005? Whilst Flickr broke even, Delicious was barely up and running as a business, blo.gs and Upcoming.org were burning cash (not that was bad then) and Jumpcut was more like an early project

YouTube Blog: New ways to support great content on YouTube

Yahoo’s Mayer Plans Search Revamp to Narrow Google Lead – Bloomberg

BitTorrent introduces Bundles to help creators make money with file sharing — paidContent

YouTube Trends: Introducing the YouTube Trends Map

Yahoo Struggles to Find Way Out of Microsoft Web-Search Deal – WSJ.com

Google services survive if they make money, aren’t social | Ars Technica

Retailing

Shoppers Who Use Mobile In-Store, Spend More [Infographic]

PwC multichannel shopper survey – includes interesting data on China (PDF)

Security

India Outsourcing Under Scanner After $45-mn Global ATM Heist

eBay, The FBI, Shawn Hogan And Brian Dunning – Business Insider

Individuals can be identified despite IP address sharing, BT says

Software

Does Windows 8 RT Have Enough Users for Its Own iTunes App? – does it need to tie this in for Office on the Mac?

Microsoft reveals only 145,000 apps in Windows Phone Store – developer interest slower

The ISS Has Ditched Windows Entirely–For Linuxdecided to stop using all Windows computers aboard the ISS, in favour of Linux—to ensure it’s systems are “stable and reliable” – admittedly the ISS was using Windows XP, but this still has to hurt…

Windows 8: forget 100m licences ‘sold’, here’s how many PCs are running it | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Why Adobe’s move to the cloud is a future victory for Apple

After nearly 10 years, Adobe abandons its Creative Suite entirely to focus on Creative Cloud – The Next Web

Style

True Religion board accepts $835-million takeover bid – latimes.com – no substance behind the brand, and consumer’s requirement for innovation. The product itself, including a lot of the innovation (like many jeans brands such Guess and Arcadia) is done by third parties like Hong Kong headquartered Frontline Clothing

Technology

Adobe Debuts “Project Mighty” Smart Stylus For Tablets And “Napoleon,” A Digital Ruler And Guide | TechCrunch

Most data isn’t “big,” and businesses are wasting money pretending it is – Quartz

EE Times’ Top 15 Hot Technologies for 2013

Telecoms

Facebook aims to knock Cisco down a peg with open network hardware | Ars Technica

Web of no web

Smart metering rollout deadline pushed back to 2020

Tesla CEO Talking With Google About ‘Autopilot’ Systems – Bloomberg

Wireless

Analyst Gene Munster Confirms One Of The Great Apple Fears, Says Margins Are Going To Drop Significantly (AAPL)

Apple, Samsung: Smartphone profit still only a two player game | BGR

Deep inside Intel’s new ARM killer: Silvermont • The Register

Foxconn may be planning to pull a Samsung on Apple

EU Backs Apple in Google-Motorola Patent Fight |IndustryWeek