"Entering terminal count autosequence. 60 seconds to engine fire. #DragonLaunch," Tweeted Elon Musk as his space company was less than a minute away from it's historic flight. But the launch didn't happen. Nothing happened as Long-time NASA commentator George Diller counted down the seconds, "3..2..1......We've had a cutoff. Liftoff did not occur." Musk tweeted 11 minutes later at 5:06am EDT, "Launch aborted: slightly high combustion chamber pressure on engine 5. Will adjust limits for countdown in a few days."

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WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama urged members of Congress on Saturday to defend Wall Street reform, arguing the recovering US economy cannot take the risk of lax oversight over the financial sector.

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ATHENS: Greek political leaders reacted angrily on Saturday to a suggestion, attributed to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, that the country hold a referendum on euro membership alongside an election next month.

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ATHENS: Greek poll front-runner Alexis Tsipras, buoyed by a groundswell of opposition to EU-IMF imposed austerity measures, says forcing his country out of the eurozone would sink the region as a whole.

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CAMP DAVID, Maryland: Leaders of the world's most powerful nations were to focus their attention on Europe's economic woes on Saturday after President Barack Obama threw his weight behind French calls for more pro-growth policies.

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When an email hits our inbox, we know not only who it’s from but their entire web imprint. LinkedIn can point out the profile of the woman you interviewed for a sales role last week and the gentleman you spoke with earlier in the year at a conference.And rest assured that the dining room set you checked out over the weekend at CrateAndBarrel.com will haunt your online experience for the forseeable future.Data -- its collection and manipulation at scale -- has revolutionized how we interact online. Homepages, banner advertisements and what we see in our Facebook timeline are all tailored-to-fit the reader, and we don’t give it a second thought.But the hyperlink, the key feature that distinguishes hypertext from text has remained largely unchanged since Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the web.

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Managed to take a day off to get out of Tokyo and went to a town called Karuizawa [] in the Nagao prefecture. Karuizawa has a population of 17,833 and is recognized particularly as a summer retreat spot.


Could have gone by train but we like to go out n about in the car which also enables us to get around freely without waiting for public transport at the destination.

Here we are passing through the ETC which is the Electronic Toll Collection system which lets us pass through without stopping the car and manually handing over cash. We get billed at the end of the month for using the highways.

For the past 10 months or so, the government has been making it dead cheap to use the highways on certain days. Trips that would normally cost 10,000 yen now cost a mere 1,000 yen. When there is a public holiday on a Friday or Monday, many citizens would make use of the 1000 yen deal and get out n about for the long weekend which would cause longer tailbacks on the highway...


While the 1000 yen deal gets more people out n about which stimulates economic growth especially at tourist spots, the coach and shinkansen bullet trains have taken a hard hit as more people want to travel by car instead - understandable as folks only pay 1000 yen for a car filled with people.



Running ones own company does have some perks - being able to get away when one chooses - even though its not that often ^^;
Left on a Friday morning which was a normal weekday for most folks meaning that we avoided any tailbacks on the highway. Tailbacks in Japan are horrible!


Surrounded by mountains after a few hours drive.


Arrived at the Prince Hotel Karuizawa which is a ski resort and outlet mall all rolled into one. Arrived just in time for lunch.
If you are going by train, you would need to get off at Karuizawa Station.
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After lunch its a stroll around the area. T'was biting cold!


Karuizawa is more recognized as more of a Summer retreat spot - thanks to a Canadian missionary called Alexander Croft Shaw who said that Karuizawa felt like back home in Toronto.
In 1888, Shaw set up a cottage house which then paved the way for Karuizawa to become an area filled with cottages for the Summer retreat.



Our daily bicycles are foldable which we usually bung in the boot when we head out somewhere far by car.


Beware of bears or people who look like bears.


This lake is basked in golden brown leaves in the Autumn and becomes a popular photo spot. At this time of year however, there is only being a few ducks.


I love Japan - most likely to be one of the few places on earth where I can forget my iPhone on the bike and come back to find that its still there ^^;


Karuizawa is filled with roads like this which are lined with tall trees that go on forever.


I think this was Naka Karuizawa which is filled with the touristy souvenir shops and restaurants.


A few snacks can be picked up for those who like to nibble on something while taking a stroll.


And this is what I was nibbling on. Kinda looks like poo but also tasted a bit like poo too.


Since becoming a Dollfie parent, I find myself always thinking about my daughters and whether something would fit them when I see miniature clothing.
I saw some pet clothes and immediately thought if they would fit on a Dollfie ^^;;;


Donguri Kyowakoku - the Ghibli store.


I love Ghibli stuff and owe a lot to the various Ghibli animations which I studied a lot of Japanese from.


Remember when I first watched Laputa - could only understand bits of it. Laputa is such an awesome movie that you can watch again and again without getting bored.


Totoro was great too.


A large percentage of interior bedroom lights in Japan come with a cord that one pulls to turn it on n off. These Totoro goodies are designed to be hung off the end of those cords


Rabbit thingies with no mouths.


Majo no Takkyubin (Kiki's Delivery Service) is another fave of mine. I love Kiki! I guess shes my fave loli.
There is a poll embedded in this article.


Looking back at these photos - I regret not picking up one of these - would have looked good on the desk.


Passing through a shrine. The statues with the red hats and bibs are Ojizousama. Ojizousama is a god who is said to look after the young. I bought a small one from a souvenir shop in Hiroshima when I was a visitor to Japan many moons ago. I put it on my window sill when I got back to London and used to put a small cup of water in front of Ojizousama which I changed every day.
I clearly remember rushing for school one day but I forgot to change the water in his cup - dropped everything at the door and ran up to my room to change the water for him. Could it be that he helped me get to Japan?


People write their wishes on some enma which are hung up at the shrine.


Karuizawa seems to be popular for the jams produced locally - the shops are filled with them!
Most of the jams are displayed next to some crackers for you to check out the taste.



One of our life goals is to get another house somewhere outside of Tokyo. Many of our friends in Tokyo have been buying land and houses in the Karuizawa area.

Land area is usually measured in a unit called tsubo [] which is about 3.31 square meters. You can use Japanese Google to do a search like 2 which will then convert that into square meters for you.

Here we see that a patch of 85 tsubo (280 square meters) is going for 4,800,000 yen, while the most land one can get from this bunch is 940 tsubo (3107 square meters!) for 54,000,000 yen - less than what our house cost ^^; Our current house in central Tokyo is about 20 tsubo which is 66 square meters - good thing we have three floors.



Here we have some land that come with houses. 18,000,000 yen for a second hand place with 285 tsubo (942 square meters).


Land in Karuizawa is very cheap - and you get lots of it when compared to land prices and space in Tokyo.


Cycling back to the hotel after a day out n about Karuizawa.


Time for some buffet dindins at the hotel.


Omrice please. Omrice [] is a rice dish which is covered with an omelette.


Omelette about to be devoured.


Mio-chan joins us for dindins.


Main dish is a sea animal.


Mio-chan kawaii!


Dinner done and its time for our after dindins walk.


The hotel grounds are well lit and there is a nice pond outside with other folks taking an evening stroll.


We stayed at the Karuizawa West Prince Hotel. I would only recommend this place if you are here to do some skiing - you can walk to the slopes which are nearby.
If you are not indulging in any snow activities however, the Prince Hotel would probably bore you - quite a bog standard hotel with no hot springs. They do have hot springs nearby but charge something in the region of 2,000 yen just to use them - and you need to take a shuttle bus to get there.


No Internet connectivity in the hotel either so had to get one of those pre-paid cards to use wifi which was only available in the lounge. There was no phone receptions in the room either so iPhones are about as useful as a nail in the forehead.


To compensate for not having onsen at the hotel, some Babu is provided - plonk it in the bath tub which will transform into a fizzy bubbling bath without having to fart as hard as you can.


Time to pack up the bikes and head out by car.


After driving for a bit, we encounter a load of lovely snow.


Its standard practice to place chains around the tyres when it snows but we didn't have any meaning that some toll gates didn't let us through. We did go through some very icy patches though with a load of skidding around ^^;


We are now in the Gunma prefecture at Onioshidashi which is a popular tourist spot. There are large areas of lava which was erupted from Mount Asama back in 1783.

I love the name of the park - if you translate the kanji of the park into English you get "A Devil which has pushed (it) out" [] which I presume refers to the lava.


The place was actually closed at this time of year - not a soul in sight. Was surreal being up there without a single sound - no wind, no birds, nothing. "Solitude" is the word that comes to mind to describe the experience.

This observation deck reminded me somehow of the Playstation 1 Metal Gear Solid.


I remember buying the game on a trip to Japan and then buying a huge TV when I got back to London to play the game.
Ended up selling the TV only a few weeks after I got it as I got the job in Japan...


As the main park was closed, there wasn't a lot to see up here.


Something for your kanji learning. How much of this can you read?


Map of the local area.


The place was like a ghost town. There were tractors, snow rakes, vending machines and wot not but just no people.


If you do decide to come to onioshidashi during the winter, be careful as some of the snow is very deep - about leg deep as we found out the hard way ^^;


Something very odd happened to my iPhone while I was up at Onioshidashi - the time reset to 1970/1/1 and the compass started to spin around at an alarming rate. Has this happened to any of you?


Mio is also leg deep in snow but shes wearing thermal shimapan which keeps her warm.


Back in central Karuizawa to relax with some grub.


Kara-age is a fave dish of mine. Deep fried chicken.


Picking up some cakes for afternoon tea.


Mmmmmm.


Mio-chan - one of my most fave nendos ever.


Attack of the kewpie clones. All of them are showing their dolphins - do I need to censor?


A look at some of the outlet shops. Picked up a new beanie.


Use the chopsticks to place some pickles in your hand before trying. After munching and licking the pickles from the palm of your hand, use the cloth provided to wipe your mouth. Then wipe your hand on another customers coat.


More jam delights for you to take back home.


Wifey picks up some socks. Saw this in the sock shop and thought that my Dollfies would look good in something like this *calls chun*


Evidence that "Loli" did not originate from Japan.


Time to head back home. 183km back to base.


Sunny evening driving through the roads which weave back n forth through the mountains.


If "Eyes" is the first thing that pops in your mind when you see this photo then you have been watching waaaay to much oppai anime.


Listening to Ridge Racer while driving on the highways of Japan is a most refreshing experience ^^;




Little did I know what was going to be in store for me for the first few weeks of Jan after getting back to Tokyo...







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We’ve all watched from the sidelines as companies have come out in a burst of glory, and then, two years later, spent their venture capital, lost their user base, and failed to monetize. This begs the question - what are the factors that drive a company’s survival, differentiate it, and ultimately make it a winner? In today’s online world, personalization is increasingly making or breaking companies. The companies that win are the ones making personalization a key company value – not just a feature.In the early days of the web, consumers were happy just to gain access to information. However, as technology became more sophisticated, and as more consumers and companies came online, we quickly moved out of the access age and into a state of information overload, often leaving consumers frustrated and confused. Companies that helped consumers cut through the clutter to reveal relevant information had a critical and sustainable competitive advantage in their respective areas. The concept of relevance is critical to the success of Google, for example.

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Mentioned it in the previous Desk Diary when we moved office but wasn't too keen on the curtains - so I went and made my own ^^;


For a wee bit, we were using Yuzusoft tapestries as curtains ^^


I considered line drapes and roll blinds but then took inspiration from the Yuzusoft tapestries and made some long Mirai Millennium tapestries instead. The art work is done by Kazunori Iwakura who is also responsible for titles like Railgun, Toradora, Sky Girls, Kimikiss, Daphne in the Brilliant Blue, Shakugan no Shana, Hidan no Aria and more.





Lately I've been doing a lot of my printing at a company in Asakusa called Pop Box who can practically print and make anything - they even done the work on our new Mirai Itasha Ver 2. If you want something done - just contact them through their site and tell them that Danny sent you for a discount ^^


Data of the artwork is prepared by myself - I measure how big I want each side to be and make a canvas of the same size in Photoshop. I then resize up the artwork to fill up the space. The artwork may look blurry on screen but looks fine when printed on cloth.


I left the previous curtain rails where they were so that I could roll up each side of the curtain.


And this is what it looks like during the day. Was considering making the background white but it turned out just fine the way it is.



Need to stand on a chair to roll up the curtain but takes only a few seconds.


This is the hook that I used - the instructions should be self explanatory but you dont need anything else to attach this to the ceiling and will hold up to 2kgs. You can get a pack of 5 from Amazon for only 380 yen.



All I need to do now is to cut the string of the tapestries short and hang them up like so - done! If you got long tapestries then you may want to use this idea for your windows.

Would you consider using anime/2D style tapestries for your windows?
There is a poll embedded in this article.







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Mentioned it in the previous Desk Diary when we moved office but wasn't too keen on the curtains - so I went and made my own ^^;


For a wee bit, we were using Yuzusoft tapestries as curtains ^^


I considered line drapes and roll blinds but then took inspiration from the Yuzusoft tapestries and made some long Mirai Millennium tapestries instead. The art work is done by Kazunori Iwakura who is also responsible for titles like Railgun, Toradora, Sky Girls, Kimikiss, Daphne in the Brilliant Blue, Shakugan no Shana, Hidan no Aria and more.





Lately I've been doing a lot of my printing at a company in Asakusa called Pop Box who can practically print and make anything - they even done the work on our new Mirai Itasha Ver 2. If you want something done - just contact them through their site and tell them that Danny sent you for a discount ^^


Data of the artwork is prepared by myself - I measure how big I want each side to be and make a canvas of the same size in Photoshop. I then resize up the artwork to fill up the space. The artwork may look blurry on screen but looks fine when printed on cloth.


I left the previous curtain rails where they were so that I could roll up each side of the curtain.


And this is what it looks like during the day. Was considering making the background white but it turned out just fine the way it is.



Need to stand on a chair to roll up the curtain but takes only a few seconds.


This is the hook that I used - the instructions should be self explanatory but you dont need anything else to attach this to the ceiling and will hold up to 2kgs. You can get a pack of 5 from Amazon for only 380 yen.



All I need to do now is to cut the string of the tapestries short and hang them up like so - done! If you got long tapestries then you may want to use this idea for your windows.

Would you consider using anime/2D style tapestries for your windows?
There is a poll embedded in this article.







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SpaceX, the private space exploration company founded by PalPal and Tesla Motors co-founder Elon Musk, is ready to boldly go where no private company has legitimately attempted to go before: The International Space Station. (Live video of the rocket at Cape Canaveral in Florida is embedded above.)

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jurong east branch next to maybank, their herbal taste so fragrant, walk nearby bas stop oso can smell~ :eek:

CAMP DAVID, Maryland: President Barack Obama threw his weight behind French calls more pro-growth policies in Europe Friday, as he welcomed G8 leaders to Camp David for a summit darkened by Greece's possible eurozone exit.

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WASHINGTON: Japan said Friday that it stood ready to extend help in stemming the eurozone's debt crisis as the Group of Eight major industrialized nations opened crisis talks.

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NEW YORK: Facebook stumbled on its first trading day as shares ended barely above the starting price, raising questions about what will happen to the share price when the Nasdaq reopens on Monday.

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Some of you are probably reading this post with ad blocker right now — and to be honest, I don't blame you. Sure, there's the occasional amusing or genuinely useful ad, but not terribly often, so why not install a plugin and avoid the whole mess? Of course, those ads make money, so if ad blockers become widespread enough, it could be a real problem for online publishers (who have enough problems already). Israeli startup ClarityRay says it's not something looming in the misty future — it's happening now, and it's only going to get worse.

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LONDON: World oil prices slid to new multi-month lows on Friday as the market was rattled once again by concern about the outlook for demand linked to the eurozone debt crisis, analysts said.

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Mark Zuckerberg's remote ringing of the opening bell and Facebook's initial stock trades were a bit anti-climactic in person at the NASDAQ Marketsite in New York City, as we've written -- NASDAQ is a digital exchange after all, so there's not too much to see visually. But being there was still a great opportunity to talk all things Facebook with David Kirkpatrick, the NYC-based founder of Techonomy, Fortune Magazine alum, and best-selling author of the book "The Facebook Effect -- The Inside Story Of The Company That Is Connecting The World." So we were happy to have Kirkpatrick join TechCrunch TV for an interview on the floor of the NASDAQ Marketsite.

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Just after the markets closed on its first day of public trading, Facebook amended its S-1 with a complete prospectus detailing how much stock each underwriter got to sell. Morgan Stanley, the lead-left bank, received 162.1 million shares ($6.15 billion worth) followed by J.P. Morgan with 84.8 million ($3.22 billion), and Goldman Sachs pulled down 63.1 million shares ($2.4 billion).

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Facebook's IPO was obviously the single most discussed topic on Twitter today. The good folks over at social media data platform DataSift monitored what Twitter users were saying about the IPO throughout the day and came up with some interesting conclusions. Turns out, the ups and down of how Twitter's users felt about the stock pretty much mirrored the price of Facebook's stock as the day progressed.

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NEW YORK: US stocks slumped on Friday as Facebook's keenly awaited market debut disappointed, adding to bearish sentiment about Europe's financial woes.

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NEW YORK: The euro rebounded slightly against the dollar after falling steadily since the beginning of the month on eroding confidence in the eurozone economy.

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CAMP DAVID, Maryland: President Barack Obama threw his weight behind France's demand for pro-growth policies in Europe on Friday, as world leaders gathered at Camp David for a G8 summit darkened by Greece's possible eurozone exit.

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Gillmor Gang - Gabe Rivera, John Taschek, Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gilmor. Recording has concluded.

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The underwriters of Facebook's $16 billion debut on NASDAQ fought to the finish to keep the company's shares above last night's final price of $38 a share. Shares closed at $38.23 today. Sources tell us that the syndicate of banks underwriting the deal have been putting in buy orders to keep its price afloat. It's not necessarily a bad outcome for Facebook as the company didn't leave any money on the table, but bankers are sure to be unhappy. Plus, the company's tepid premiere is killing the performance of tech stocks across the board.Basically, what we hear is that the underwriters including Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, just got too aggressive in the final days before the IPO about pricing. Earlier this month, the company was slated to open at a $28 to 35 price range, but that range was pushed up to $34 to 38 a share. Then Facebook priced at the very high end at $38 last night. "The only thing keeping it at $38 are support mechanisms," a source tells us. "There just wasn't*the institutional investor demand that people thought there would be." They added that about 20 percent of buying orders seem to be coming from retail investors (e.g. regular people), which is "unprecedented."

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Facebook has just acquired mobile commerce startup Karma, which makes apps for gifting friends and family. The terms of the deal are undisclosed but 16 employees of the startup will be joining Facebook. The purchase will help Facebook build up monetization prowess on mobile platforms -- an area that it had said it's admittedly weak in. The price was not disclosed.With the deal, Facebook gets two extremely experienced leaders in building and monetizing mobile apps. Karma's chief executive Lee Linden and its co-founder Ben Lewis were behind Tapjoy, a company that became a huge force in distributing and making money from mobile games. Both he and Lewis were product managers at Google and Microsoft. Linden and Lewis have known each other since they were kids and have been building companies together for a couple years.

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While, arguably, you’re not going to convince many kids to give up their Topps or Pokemon cards for these things, it’s nice to know they exist. They’re 3D Printer trading cards featuring some of the best 3D printers in the world. You got your Makerbot Replicator, your UP! Printer, and your Printrbot Plus. You got stats on there, a little trivia, some pricing information and then you can trade with your friends (“Awwww man, I need that Reprap clone!”) You can check them all out here or see them in person at Maker Faire in SF this week. Sadly, they’re not actually printing these things but if they did I’d totally buy a pack. The impetus? They came to creator Shawn Wallace in a dream: I had a dream that I found a box of 3D Printer Trading cards from 2012 at the Seekonk Speedway Flea Market. When I awoke I realized that might be a good way to introduce some of the 3D printer makers who will be exhibiting at the Maker Faire Bay Area next week. I’ll be posting these all week in no particular order; collect them all!

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GameStop is hurting. Same store sales fell 5%-11% and revenue was down 17% to $2 billion. Profit fell to $72.5 million. Arguably, those are still huge numbers and presumably a new console refresh should push the company out of the doldrums. But what the company has just launched - a new MVNO called GameStop Mobile - is almost inexplicable.GameStop Mobile is, in short, an unlimited data and voice offering for $55 a month (down to $20 a month for pay-as-you-go plans.) Gamestop is just selling SIM cards and service and is running on AT&T's network with some notable dead spots.

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NEW YORK: Facebook stumbled in its eagerly anticipated market debut on Friday, as shares ended barely above the offering price, dampening optimism over the world's biggest social network.

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LONDON: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on Friday selected British top civil servant Suma Chakrabarti as its president to 2016, replacing German incumbent Thomas Mirow after a shock vote.

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SAN FRANCISCO: Yahoo! stock price climbed on Friday on renewed rumours that it was close to a multibillion-dollar deal to sell half of its stake in Alibaba.com back to the Chinese online shopping portal.

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China's Internet juggernaut Tencent announced today that it would undergo a restructuring of its business units into six groups. Ren Yuxin was also named as the new chief operating officer and will head up the media and social-networking groups. The six groups include:

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Is The Avengers worth your money? Do the disc-blasting Nerf guns leave a welt? How do you pull a Pebble and reign in $3 million on Kickstarter? In this week's TC/Gadgets webcast, we answer all this and more.

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In case there was any confusion after Facebook's eight years in business and its recent geographic expansions, it was cleared up today: Facebook's home and heart lies in Silicon Valley. TechCrunch TV saw that first-hand this morning at NASDAQ's Marketsite in New York City's Times Square. We were on hand there for the ringing of the NASDAQ opening bell, but as expected, Facebook's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg took advantage of the option to ring it remotely from his company's Menlo Park, California headquarters.

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If only Facebook IPO day were a little less of a snoozefest than it is now. If only it had Zuckerberg impaling investors while riding a bull rampaging through a city. Or an elevator to space. Or Zuckerberg bouncing Ronald McDonald and the Hamburglar off a giant scale. But sadly, our surrealist dreams will never be realized. We will just have to settle for the ho-hum performance of Facebook's shares so far. In the meantime, you can watch this re-enactment from NMA TV or Next Media Animation, that Taiwanese animation subsidiary that riffs off current events with 3D animated videos that look like what the lovechild of Salvador Dali and Reddit would make. Oh, and did we mention that their parent company invests in tech startups too?

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Facebook, which has now listed on NASDAQ, is set to make $16 billion if its share holds at the $38 price that it set yesterday -- more if it ends higher. Here's a coincidence: that's just north of the total amount in damages, $15 billion, that a new class-action case is seeking against the social network over privacy invasion.Filed in U.S. Federal Court in San Jose, California, the case (embedded below)*combines 21 separate cases that have been filed in different courts in the U.S. in 2011 and 2012 -- as the plaintiffs look for strength in numbers. All of the cases are connected to "Internet tracking," or how Facebook tracks users when they are browsing the wider web outside of Facebook's own pages, even after they have logged out of Facebook.Facebook has already responded to the case with a flat statement of denial of guilt. "We believe this complaint is without merit and we will fight it vigorously," a spokesperson told TechCrunch.

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The President's technology gurus, US CTO Todd Park and CIO Steven VanRoekel, will be looking for savvy innovators to work with at next week's TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York (tickets here). Park and VanRoekel will be announcing some new technology initiatives at their Disrupt Panel. We understand that they'll be looking for both startup partners and individuals to work with the White House, and are eager to meet participants at Disrupt, who may be the fit that they're looking for.

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The tale of Docracy's year-long journey is a fun one. When Matt Hall and his partner John Watkinson first went into the Hackathon last year, the only goal was to get a prototype working for an idea they had, a GitHub for legal documents. Sure, a win would've been nice, but the main goal was to push out a prototype they could pitch to investors (instead of just an idea) with a firm deadline hanging over their shoulders. But alas, Docracy took home the top prize despite the fact that they were the first of more than 100 presentations that day. And after last year's Disrupt NYC (tickets to this year's Disrupt here), the story only gets better.

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Say you’re a misanthrope and you’re afraid of humans. What to do? Well, you could cower in the dark when people ring your doorbell or you could laugh derisively at their smug faces in the screen of your iPhone. I’m going for the derisive laughter. This DIY Arduino project involves a simple circuit, a webcam, and a few API calls to PushingBox to enable a truly enjoyable derisive experience. The system works by pushing images grabbed by the webcam through PushingBox to an app like Prowl or Pushme.to. When the doorbell is pressed, it sends a serial signal to the Arduino board which in turn notifies the various services. The webcam picture then gets sent over to you so you can decide whether to let whoever is outside in. It’s probably a little more complex than it needs to be, but if you’re totally into watching the world pass you by it’s a great solution and a fun weekend project. Project Page

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Microsoft, just like Apple, usually runs a major back-to-school promotion every summer that is meant to give students (and their parents) some extra incentives to buy a new computer. The company's just-announced back-to-school deal for the U.S. and Canada is pretty much the same as last year's. A year ago, Microsoft gave students who bought a new PC and Xbox 360 and this year it's doing exactly the same.

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NEW YORK: Facebook saw a roller-coaster market debut on Friday after an early surge faded, and then buyers stepped in give the stock fresh momentum.

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LONDON: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on Friday selected British senior civil servant Suma Chakrabarti as its president to 2016, replacing German national Thomas Mirow.

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Trading has now begun on Facebook after a bit of a hiccup with NASDAQ, and while the numbers are nowhere near the heady heights*of $70-$100 that some people were murmuring earlier, the $42.05 opening figure is still 10 percent higher than the $38-per-share price set by Facebook yesterday.At the time of this writing, it is trading a bit lower, at $40.75, which gives the company about a $111 billion valuation. In Facebook's S-1, the company listed how many shares main players were set to sell at listing time. Based on the originally sale price of $38 and then Facebook's current price at $40.75, here are how the values are coming out. The first number is the value of the shares they sold, and the second is the value of their remaining stake in the company:

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According to online analytics company comScore, Americans watched 37 billion online videos on sites like YouTube, Yahoo and Facebook in April. In total, 181 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 1,307 minutes of online videos last month. Those numbers are virtually unchanged from last month, but one area that has seen pretty spectacular growth over the last few month is online video advertising. According to comScore, U.S. Internet users watched almost 9.5 billion video ads last month. That's about 60 ads per viewer. What makes this number even more astonishing is that it was only in March of this year that the number of video ads topped 8 billion for the first time.

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Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg received a hoodie from the NASDAQ and thanked his site's users in opening remarks recorded before he rang the NASDAQ opening bell this morning.In his short speech that just aired on Bloomberg TV Zuckerberg said, "I know this may seem like a big deal. But here's the thing: our mission isn't to be a public company. Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. All of you out there have built the largest community in the history of the world. You've done amazing things that we never would have dreamed of and I can't wait to see what you're going to be doing as we go forward. So on this special day, on behalf of everyone at Facebook, I just want to say to all the people out there who use our products, thank you."

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Well, they warned us.Yesterday, Facebook PR was telling reporters that when the company went public this morning, there wouldn't be much to see at the Menlo Park headquarters. Nonetheless, I made the drive down from San Francisco, and I wasn't alone. When I arrived at around 6:30am Pacific, the small parking lot set aside from reporters and news vans was already full. Facebook provided coffee and breakfast, as well as a portable bathroom.

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Why is there nothing but Facebook IPO news today, you (Facebook haters) may be asking? Well, outside of the obvious - people are obsessed, this is a historic event, it's the biggest tech IPO over, etc., etc. - there's another reason why all the news outlets are publishing Facebook this and Facebook that today.*It's because everyone else is holding their news for a later date....the result of which has led to a historic event of my own: inbox zero. So this is what it's like not being a tech blogger?

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How timely. After launching a year ago at Disrupt NYC 2011, Tracks is today releasing one of its biggest updates to date. The service is much like Color, but without the creepy factor as any and all members of a specific photo-sharing group must be invited. I like to think of it as the place where Color and Google+ Circles intersect, but I far prefer Tracks than either of the former. Thus far Tracks has offered iOS, web- and real-world versions of your tracks (the collection of photos shared with a specific social network, which can be both geo-temporal or last forever). Today, however, the service gets much more beefy, with the ability to shoot and send real-time video and the addition of new filters, Instagram-style. There are now ten filter options on the app, and they'll all work on both photos and videos. But that's not all.

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There are lots of different approaches to the amorphous market of 'e-learning' but only a handful ever feel much like fun. I think amongst the best of these are sites like MangaHigh which teaches Math, or Moshi Monsters which has subtle learning tasks for kids. Another which works well is Quipper, which, in a Q&A format, helps people learn things in a sort of game format. Today it's announced that it has raised $3.6m (£2.3m) of Series A funding led by Globis, the Japanese VC. The round has been two other investors: Atomico, the London-based VC firm led by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström and Benesse, a major Japanese education and publishing company.

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Facebook's opening trade on NASDAQ has been delayed. We don't know why, but we're hearing mixed reports involving both unexpectedly high demand from retail investors and problems with canceling orders. As we explained in a post about 20 minutes ago, the underwriters of the deal are meeting and trying to set an opening price. But because of unexpected changes in demand, it seems market makers are having issues settling on an opening price. They have the option of delaying the offering in five-minute increments until they can find a final price.

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Facebook shares opened at $42.05, a 10.5 percent increase from its final price last night at $38. This would value the company at $115 billion.*While the price is going to fluctuate a lot today, there's a crowdsourced bet from Twitter users on*FacebookIPOClosingPrice.com*that the company will close at a*$54 price and a $135.7 billion*valuation. Shares are currently trading at $40.01, a 5 percent increase that gives the company a $110 billion valuation. It's a very safe, by-the-book increase that ensures that Facebook had efficient pricing from its underwriters and didn't leave too much money on the table. But there's also a slight bump so it doesn't produce bad publicity.

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Zynga's share price plummeted 11.4% from $8.09 to $7.19 in the eight minutes after Facebook's IPO went live, and down 13.3% since yesterday. Investors may be worrying that a solid performance of Facebook's stock indicates that the social network will be less reliant on Zynga. Renren, LinkedIn, and some other tech stocks are down too.

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Facebook shares are supposed to go live on the NASDAQ market in about 20 minutes. But what happens in the next crucial 15? We caught up with NASDAQ's Bruce Aust, who is the executive vice president and head of the global corporate client group there. After several years of carefully courting the company's management, NASDAQ beat out rival New York Stock Exchange for Facebook's hand. NASDAQ is usually is the exchange of choice for most tech companies like Google and Apple, but NYSE has snuck away with a company or two in the last year like LinkedIn. Companies generally go live after market opening at around 10:30 or 11 a.m. Eastern, he said. About 15 minutes before shares start trading (e.g. right now!), the underwriters of Facebook's offering like the offering's lead Morgan Stanley get together and discuss current market orders, he said.

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In this first installment of Gadget Of The Week I decided to try something a bit different. Rather than focus on some obscure cellphone or wonky laptop, I decided to take on one of the biggest questions in the average small and home office: which juicer should I buy? After trying a number of juicers - and investing in a few - I'm pleased to report that the Omega J8006 is definitely worth the investment. I am what they call, in the medical literature, a fat and lazy blogger. There's nothing I love more than scarfing down cookies as I sit at my computer. With that in mind (and inspired by Brian Lam's article at The Wirecutter), I decided to try my hand at juicing.

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Today's Facebook IPO is a momentous, historical occasion. It's set to be the biggest tech IPO ever, and the third largest IPO in U.S. history, second only to Visa and General Motors. The company that was once just a glimmer in the eye of a Harvard student named Mark Zuckerberg raised over $16 billion yesterday as shares were gobbled up by hungry investors, and that $38 share price point is expected to increase as the stock starts trading around 11am today. Do you know how much money that is?

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NEW YORK - Mark Zuckerberg, wearing his trademark hooded sweatshirt, remotely rang the bell to open trade Friday on the Nasdaq, marking a record-setting public offering for Facebook.

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Another startup cashing in (figuratively speaking) on the FB IPO: StockTwits. Earlier this week, the social network for investors added Facebook to its*StockTwits Social Heatmap, a feature on the site that provides a visualization of what the StockTwits some 200,000 investors and traders are talking about. Usually, the heatmap looks looks like a bunch of little squares - the bigger the square means more conversation.But today, Facebook ($FB) is dominating, even pushing fan favorite $AAPL aside.

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Social finance site*TradingView, which launched in September of last year, is rolling out a new feature just in time for the Facebook IPO (c'mon, you knew there would have to be at least one story about "just in time for the Facebook IPO" today, right?). But anyway, this one seems relevant at least: TradingView is launching interactive real-time chatting on its site, which lets users talk about stocks in a slightly more private forum than Twitter.

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Editor's note:*Some savvy Facebook engineers rigged the NASDAQ button to automatically post "Mark Zuckerberg has listed a company on NASDAQ - FB" to the CEO's Timeline as he*rung the bell to open the NASDAQ's day of trading.*David Garcia, a senior software engineer at Facebook, explains how they turned the NASDAQ on to Open Graph.It was a normal Monday. Nothing out of the ordinary other than that Facebook was set to go public at the end of the week. Camera crews were beginning to appear and NASDAQ was coming to campus so we could ring the opening bell together. Other than that, it was like any other Monday.

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Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg didn't travel to New York's Times Square for the company's big day. He did it unconventionally like you'd expect a hacker would. *He opened the bell remotely from the company's Menlo Park Headquarters after Facebook employees had just finished a long, all-night Hackathon -- their 31st. They played midnight hockey and worked on extra projects, as you can see from photos we re-posted here. (It's Facebook's version of Google's 20 percent time, if you will).Just ahead of the 6:30 PST open, the company's employees got together again in the main headquarters "Hacker Square" in front of a big stage where he rang the bell. Unlike Zynga CEO Mark Pincus in last December's IPO, Zuckerberg didn't give any remarks. He was flanked by chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, vice president of product Chris Cox and Elliot Schrage, who is Facebook's vice president of public policy and communications. A Facebook engineer named David Garcia had hacked the NASDAQ button to auto-post the bell opening to Zuckerberg's Timeline (and we have the inside scoop on how he did it!)

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The Hackathon is one of the best parts of Disrupt. Granted, it's not quite as emotional as watching the Battlefield rounds play out, but there's something sort of inspiring about the idea that you may be building the start of a company during a 24-hour beer/pizza/Red Bull-fest. Success stories like Group.me and Docracy were born at our Hackathon, but they'd be the first to tell you that none of it is possible without our awesome API sponsors. These include foursquare, The Echo Nest, metaLayer, Twilio, bitly, Tumblr, Spotify, Mobli and more. But one has gone above and beyond when it comes to teasing out the event, with the promise to offer "one thousand dolla dolla bills" to the hacker who makes the best use of their API.Knodes, who is offering up a context API which maps users' social graphs, has made a movie-type trailer ahead of the Hackathon and posted it to YouTube.

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This is awesome. At 9:30 AM ET, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted what's bound to be a historical status update to his Facebook Timeline. The post simply reads: "Mark Zuckerberg*listed a company on*NASDAQ. — with*Chris Cox*and*4 others."The post went live just as Zuckerberg rang the NASDAQ Opening Bell.

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NEW YORK: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg will ring the opening bell Friday as the social network he founded eight years ago in his Harvard dorm room makes its long-awaited Wall Street debut.

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You can watch live*from the NASDAQ site*as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes history this morning ringing the bell to open the day's trading on the NASDAQ from Facebook's headquarters just before his company's IPO. The ceremony has just transpired, with Zuckerberg not giving any speech or remarks. He signed the NASDAQ bell's touchscreen "To a more open and connected world". Facebook stock won't actually begin trading until 8am PST / 11am EST so investors will have a few more hours to salivate.Employees have been at 1 Hacker Way in Menlo Park for an all-night hackathon that's about to culminate with Zuck's bell-ringing ceremony.

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The Facebook IPO is expected to usher in a day of massive trading volumes on the markets, and some believe that might translate to a lift for some tech stocks. But one that could really use some help has just been served another course of bad press: Nokia is apparently burning through its cash reserves -- fast.The company, for years the biggest mobile phone maker in the world, has fallen on very tough times, as competition from companies like Samsung, Apple and a barrage of inexpensive device makers, have translated into declines in sales, market share and profitability.That's now translating into what has been identified as another issue: the burning of the cash pile.*In the last five quarters, Nokia has burned through €2.1 billion ($2.7 billion) from its cash reserves. Analysts polled by Reuters on average believe that at the rate Nokia is going, it will go through another €2 billion ($2.5 billion) in the next three quarters, with the total current cash pile of €4.9 billion ($6 billion) gone within two years.

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Facebook will be the largest tech IPO in history today as the company and its early shareholders raise $16 billion. There is also an allotment for them to sell up to $2.4 billion more in the next 30 days. We've made a couple of charts to show how it compares to other historical IPOs, according to NASDAQ data. Then we also have historical price data from SecondMarket, which is a private secondary market that became popular among former Facebook employees who wanted to offload some shares.

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As if anyone needed any more proof that the Samsung's Galaxy S III would sell like (slightly more expensive) hotcakes, a report from the Korean Economic Daily reveals that the long-awaited handset has been pre-ordered over 9 million times worldwide.To put that number in a bit of perspective, the tremendously popular Galaxy S II was officially unveiled at MWC in February 2011, and managed to rack up 3 million global pre-orders by the end of April. Its successor, on the other hand, managed to garner triple the number of pre-orders in the three weeks since it was revealed in London.

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I don't understand Klout. I've convinced myself that it's best that way. I just avoid it, really. Grading a person's social media influence on a scale of 100 seems like something popular girls would do in high school. Like Alexia said last year, nobody gives a damn about your Klout score. I honestly didn't give a damn about my Klout score until I heard about the deals with airlines. That said, free perks do not outweigh worrying about a seemingly arbitrary scoring system. Today's XKCD comic nails it. Please, Internet, if I ever write about Klout in any way, punch me square in the face.

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Yeah, it's not $99 and it's refurbished but it's still a TouchPad. The tablet was once heralded as an iPad killer. Now, I'm not sure if it could even kill a Notion Ink Adam in a head-to-head sales battle. But still, thanks to an honestly smart move from HP, the TouchPad and webOS is valuable to some in the development community.But you better act fast like previous TouchPad offers. This deal is up on Woot, where the Amazon subsidiary only has a limited number of items. The price is $195 for a 32GB WiFi TouchPad -- not a bad deal for a slightly bulky tab capable of running Android.

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HONG KONG - Asian markets slumped and the euro fell further on Friday as the eurozone debt crisis was stoked by a ratings downgrade for Greece and 16 Spanish banks, while weak US data added to the pessimism.

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MADRID: Shares in Spain's troubled Bankia soared 25.88 per cent on Friday as the financial sector staged a dramatic recovery a day after 16 banks were sharply downgraded by Moody's.

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MADRID - Spain's banks fell deeper into a loans crisis and Greece tottered closer to bankruptcy on Friday as markets swung wildly ahead of a Camp David summit to prevent a eurozone catastrophe.

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Exercise: that thing on our to-do list every single day that so seldom gets checked off. When we do finally find time to do it, we want to make the most of it and often skip an important step of the workout routine: stretching. According to Reuters, “experts say . . . stretching can help you sharpen your performance, prevent injury, improve your posture and even improve your mood.” You wouldn’t start driving your car without putting its tires on-the same theory applies here. This is where I found the article: Stretching: An important part of your workout routine

Two ways to stretch

Stretching doesn’t have to take up your whole workout time-just make an effort to fit in at least five minutes of stretching before and after your regular workout. There are two kinds of stretching to choose from, according to Reuters, who explains, “A static stretch is essentially a stretch held in one position; dynamic stretching involves active movements.” For instance, a static stretch might be a toe touch held for 30 seconds while a dynamic exercise could be jumping jacks.

Secure and effective stretching

Just be sure that whenever you stretch, you don’t push your body further than it can go. Jessica Mathews of the American Council on Exercise claims for stretches to be “safe and effective, they should be held only to the point of tension-never to the point of pain.” Also, you should never bounce during your static stretching. According to the Mayo Clinic, this may cause little tears in the muscle. You should also be careful for those who have a chronic condition that may be exacerbated by stretching-talk to your doctor for questions on what kinds of stretching would work best for you.

Sources
Reuters
Mayo Clinic

Recently we saw a review of Real Action Heroes Black Rock Shooter White Edition and today we take a lookie at an up n coming release - "REAL ACTION HEROES MGM : Madoka Kaname."
She is about 30cm tall and is a blend between figure and doll just like all the RAH figures. The head is designed by Max Factory and is based on the figma version of Madoka and Good Smile Company helped with the figure production all round.

Pre-order info should be up at the Medicom Toy site soon.

Is this something you would be putting on your to-get list? Photos from the English Mikatan Blog.
There is a poll embedded in this article.
















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MADRID: Shares in Spain's troubled Bankia soared 28.88 per cent on Friday as the financial sector staged a dramatic recovery a day after 16 banks were sharply downgraded by Moody's.

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The lush green vegetation and the backwaters of Kerala have always been a feast for the eyes. Hence, people love to own properties in the state. kerala properties has become much popular among the NRIs too, who have started investing widely in the field. Many have invested their shares with the builders in the state. Huge profits are obtained from the luxury resorts and hotels which target the tourists mainly. Many natives too prefer spend their vacation in such resorts. These are usually constructed in locations where the scenic beauty of ‘Gods’ own country’ dominates. Therefore, land in such areas is demanded much by the builders. The land owners sell their property for high costs.

The recent development of the IT hubs and IT parks have added value to the properties in Kerala. Many people are shifting their residence to places near these IT firms and multinational companies. It has simultaneously caused increase in costs for these properties. People prefer to reside in ready to occupy homes rather than spending time in constructing individual homes. They also want the best of the amenities and facilities that they can have. Luxury apartments, villas and flats are thus widely popular in Kerala. People occupy these mostly in areas where the IT sector is soaring rapidly. They relocate in order to pursue a better career, education or lifestyle.

Considering the boom in the tourism sector and IT sector, one can conclude that the real estate sector in Kerala, which is largely dependent on these, is all set to soar higher and higher.

Perhaps not the best timing for Facebook, but great timing for those looking for more profile on the whole issue of privacy and how it is approached by Facebook. The European activists*“europe-v-facebook.org”, led by a group of Austrian students, say that they have reached the 7,000-comment threshold needed in response to a Facebook privacy proposal that will force the company to take it to a worldwide vote. Specifically, if you go to Facebook's English-language Data Use Policy page where it has detailed the new proposals, there are now over 9,000 comments on the post. The proposal, you can see, has some XXX's at the top: that's because it is due to close this evening, at 5pm Pacific time (yes, more business as usual at Facebook, despite the fact that it also happens to be going through the biggest IPO ever in tech history).

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Only 30 minutes to go, but TEAM LAB will be hosting a jam session where anyone can participate by logging in with their twitter handle. We deviously blogged this here, so check out the info there and join in. Session will start at 7pm Japan time, so 6am EST for the early birds (or late ones) [...]

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HONG KONG: Asian markets slumped and the euro fell further on Friday as the eurozone debt crisis was stoked by a ratings downgrade for Greece and 16 Spanish banks, while weak US data added to the pessimism.

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Facebook knows what's best for you, sometimes before you do. That's the meaning of a new "Likers Gonna Like" inspirational mini-poster printed by the Facebook Toronto Office. If you don't approve of something Facebook's doing, fine, there's millions of other people who do. And just as with the launch of the news feed, if you hate some change to the Facebook interface, wait a few months, and you'll probably end up Liking it too. It's a cavalier statement, one based on several old hip-hop songs including "In Da Club" by 50 Cent, where he raps "If [they] hate then let 'em hate and watch the money pile up". It's a mentality that has gotten the company into privacy trouble. But the idea that Facebook and its visionary CEO Mark Zuckerberg should push forward with bold ideas because "Likers Gonna Like" is what's let Facebook move faster than its older rivals, and kept it from being disrupted these last eight years.

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With Facebook announcing its ballsy stock price of $38 yesterday and all eyes now on what will happen with the social network when it finally goes public today, a new trading platform in Hong Kong, 8 Securities, is seizing the moment to boost its own profile by offering customers US$200 of Facebook shares if they sign up to trade on 8 Securities' trading platform in the next month. The offer indirectly serves a couple of other purposes, too: it gives non-U.S. citizens a relatively easy crack at a bit of stock in the most valuable tech IPO ever, and it raises Facebook's Asia profile even further as people continue to wonder how Facebook might finally address one of the biggest markets in the world, China.

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HONG KONG: Asian markets slumped and the euro fell further on Friday as the eurozone debt crisis was stoked by a ratings downgrade for Greece and 16 Spanish banks, while weak US data added to the pessimism.

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MUMBAI: The Indian rupee plumbed new depths on Friday, sinking to a record low against the dollar for the third successive day amid turmoil on global markets.

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Two years ago, WhiteyBoard founders Saachi Cywinski, Sherwin Kim and Jason Wilk set out to re-think those clunky, inflexible whiteboards found in classrooms and offices around the country. They developed a portable, flexible alternative: An inexpensive, "instant" plastic board that weighs less than two pounds and adheres to any surface without screws. Wilk tells us that WhiteyPaint has since found an eager audience, leading to the fortunate problem of demand quickly outpacing supply. Struggling to finance demand on a bootstrapped budget, the founders reached out to Dallas Mavericks owner, Shark Tank investor, and HDNet Co-founder Mark Cuban. Seeing a billion-dollar market dominated by a few bloated players, Wilk said, Cuban believed WhiteyBoard was onto something.

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SINGAPORE: Oil extended its losses in Asian trade Friday on growing concerns that the eurozone's debt woes could worsen, causing a global crisis that would ravage energy demand, analysts said.

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SHANGHAI: Chinese companies have slammed the United States as "short-sighted" and warned of a trade war after it imposed hefty duties on solar cells it said were being sold at artificially low prices.

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TAIPEI: Taiwan has said it will begin talks on a trade pact with New Zealand later this year, as part of its moves to join a Pacific-wide economic bloc.

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SHANGHAI: Prices for new homes in China fell in more than 60 percent of major cities in April from March, the government said Friday, as moves to curb the property market took effect.

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Hundreds of Facebook employees congregated at 'Hacker Square' at the company's Menlo Park headquarters this evening ahead of the company's insanely-hyped initial public offering. Now, some of the first photos are starting to trickle in. There was a standing ovation for chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, who gave a talk before several long-time engineers bounced in while wearing capes or bringing boomboxes.Tonight Facebook is having its 31st Hackathon to celebrate the IPO. Hackathons are a company tradition. They're a place where engineers and other non-technical employees get to stay out all night building concepts into real products that sometimes eventually get shipped. Some of the big products that have come out of earlier Hackathons include Facebook chat and an early version of Timeline.

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Kigurumi - a sign that your mascot character has finally made it big time ^^; This Kigurumification of our mascot character Mirai Suenaga by Haru. Photos by Hoson/Danny - uniform available for purchase by Lucy Pop!

These photos going into the Mirai cosplay archive - standing by for yours too!









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TOKYO: Japan on Friday upgraded its view of the economy for the first time in nine months, a day after better-than-expected growth figures and thanks to a pickup in exports and consumer spending.

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Tomorrow Facebook will sell shares in one of the biggest tech IPOs in history. New investors will gobble up the stock to get a piece of the global phenomenon famously started in Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room in 2004. But while owning the stock will have quantifiable value when it trades on the open market, few buyers will be able to say truthfully that they understood the value of the company just a few years ago. Ask yourself candidly, what did you think of Facebook the first time you landed on its homepage? Where you blown away? Could you see how it would fill a gaping need in the lives of nearly a billion people? If you’re honest with yourself, and you’re not Peter Thiel, your answer is probably, “No, not really.”

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HONG KONG: Asian markets resumed their downward trend on Friday as the eurozone debt crisis was stoked by a ratings downgrade for Greece and 16 Spanish banks, while weak US data added to the pessimism.

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PayPal Study Reveals 2011 As Blockbuster Year for Mobile Commerce in Singapore
2012/05/17 16:39
Singapore mobile shopping market grew more than 660 per cent to S$328m in 2011

SINGAPORE, May 17, 2012 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- The "PayPal Online and Mobile Shopping Insights 2011" study revealed that 2011 proved to be a landmark year for mobile commerce in Singapore fuelled by a rise in the number of mobile shoppers and a dramatic increase in spend per head. The mobile commerce market in Singapore saw phenomenal growth from S$43 million in 2010 to S$328 million in 2011, representing more than a 660 per cent jump in just one year. The mobile commerce market is also forecasted to grow ten-fold to reach S$3.1 billion in 2015. This shows that mobile commerce is now mainstream and will play an increasingly significant role in the overall commerce market as Internet-enabled mobile devices become a key part of Singaporeans' daily lives.

(Photo: http://www.prnasia.com/sa/2012/05/17...636505391.html )
(Photo: http://www.prnasia.com/sa/2012/05/17...515617625.html )

The results of the mobile commerce study are staggering and show just how quickly shopping and paying on mobile devices has taken off in Singapore. Mobile shopping comprised about a quarter (23%) of all online shopping in 2011, nearly six times its share (4%) of the online shopping market in 2010. Mobile shoppers constituted close to half (48%) of all online shoppers in 2011, compared to about one in three (29%) in 2010. The median spend per head for mobile shoppers increased from S$93 in 2010 to S$354 in 2011. There were 880,792 Singaporeans who made a purchase through a mobile device in 2011, compared to 364,390 in the previous year.

"As we had predicted, 2011 was a blockbuster year for mobile commerce in Singapore. Retailers are waking up to the fact that they need to offer 'anytime anywhere' mobile shopping experiences for their customers. At PayPal, we are offering safer, faster mobile payments in as little as two clicks to Singaporean consumers that use our digital wallet, while bringing new mobile payment innovation to Singapore such as our QR code shopping at selected MRT stations,§ said Elias Ghanem, managing director, PayPal Southeast Asia and India.

In addition to the overall growth of the mobile commerce market, the survey also showed how mobile shopping behavior is changing, from the differences between smartphone and tablet shopping to new forms of mobile shopping such as scanning QR codes.

Smartphones leading mobile commerce but tablet owners spending more

The study revealed that the majority (75%) of purchases made using mobile devices were via smartphones. Singaporeans spent S$244 million through their smartphones in 2011 - representing close to three-quarters of the total mobile commerce market - compared to S$82 million through tablets. However, the average spend per head on tablets was S$380, significantly higher than the average spend per head on smartphones, which amounted to S$274 suggesting a growing market and potential for mobile shopping via web-enabled tablets.

With an eye on future mobile shopping trends, the survey asked consumers what they would like to purchase via their smartphones. Almost a quarter of mobile shoppers indicated a desire to purchase fashion items, airline and movie tickets on-the-go with their smartphones indicating there is room for growth and that retailers have the opportunity to provide multi-channel shopping experiences in these categories.

Those who shopped on their tablets exhibited a different set of preferences. Tablet users indicated they would like to purchase automotive goods and computer hardware. This suggests that compared to smartphone users, tablet owners are more likely to purchase higher ticket items on their devices due to the tablet's larger screen size.

The survey findings revealed a clear trend in couch commerce with four out of every ten purchases on both tablets and smartphones made at home. The office was the next common place to shop (18% of smartphone users and 11% of tablet users). Mobile shopping while commuting via bus or train or in transit was yet another preferred place for transactions (13% of smartphone users and 11% of tablet users).

The top spending categories for mobile shopping are listed in the graph below. Mobile shopping is much broader than just digital downloads with "fashion and accessories" and "movie tickets" seen as hot favorites for both smartphone and tablet shoppers.

QR codes enable 24 by 7 mobile shopping and blur the lines between online and offline commerce

Smartphones are increasingly bridging the gap between the online and offline retail worlds. The study revealed that Quick Response (QR) codes are gaining popularity among Singapore smartphone shoppers. Four out of every ten smartphone users were aware of QR codes, and of those who were aware, 45 per cent had used QR codes for an average of eight transactions in 2011.

The most common items purchased through QR codes were books, fashion items and computer hardware. Curiosity (33%) combined with ease-of-use (21%) were cited as the main drivers of QR code usage. QR codes provide retailers the benefit of launching virtual pop-up stores across all channels and media and enable 24 by 7 mobile shopping to complement brick-and-mortar store locations.

PayPal's QR code campaign with SMRT from February till April this year enabled an average of 500 transactions per 10,000 scans by Singaporean commuters, equivalent to a 5 per cent customer conversion rate, which is higher than the average direct email response rate of 1.7 per cent (Note 2). Showbiz Asia saw huge mobile sales success by offering one-for-one tickets for award winning show WICKED to Singaporean commuters via this QR code campaign, resulting in close to five times increase in mobile ticket sales through PayPal as compared to sales for the same period pre-campaign.

Security concerns and lack of user-friendliness present mobile shopping barriers for consumers

While Singaporean consumers are increasing their mobile commerce spend exponentially, security concerns and the lack of user-friendliness were indicated as the main barriers towards greater adoption. The research highlighted that 40 per cent of all mobile shoppers felt that mobile transactions were not safe enough. Other barriers to further adoption of smartphones for mobile shopping included "screen size is too small§ and "Internet speed is slow.§

Research Methodology

Commissioned by PayPal, The Nielsen Company conducted the online research study "PayPal Online and Mobile Shopping Insights 2011" to develop a greater understanding of the mobile commerce market and the habits of Singaporean mobile shoppers in 2011. The research (Note 3), which was conducted online, surveyed a representative sample of 1009 Singaporean online shoppers aged 18 and above, of which mobile shoppers (Note 1) constituted 482 respondents.

Note:

1. Mobile shoppers are defined as those who shopped or made online purchases using smart phones and/or web-enabled tablets for this study.
2. According to Response Rate Trend Report 2010 by Direct Marketing Association (DMA). It refers to a 1.73 per cent customer conversion rates for emails to a house list.
3. Unless stated otherwise, all data provided in this press release is from the "PayPal Online and Mobile Shopping Insights 2011" study.

About PayPal

PayPal is the faster, safer way to pay and get paid online. The service allows members to send payments without sharing financial information, with the flexibility to pay using their account balances, bank accounts (where available), debit cards and credit cards in various markets. PayPal is an eBay company and enables global e-commerce with more than 110 million active accounts in 190 markets and 25 currencies around the world. More information about the company can be found at https://www.paypal.com.sg.

PayPal is headquartered in San Jose, California and its international headquarters is located in Singapore.


Media Contacts

Malini Mitra
PayPal, Singapore
T: +65-6590-5543
E: mamitra@paypal.com

Bridget Kow
The Hoffman Agency
T: +65-6361-0250
E: bkow@hoffman.com


SOURCE﹛Paypal

Mobile-optimizedcheckout and websites result in six-fold increase in mobile transaction value in 2011

SINGAPORE, May 17, 2012 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- PayPal today unveiled two easy-to-use mobile commerce solutions for mobile-optimized checkout and mobile shopping websites, so that businesses of all sizes in Singapore can capitalize on the exponential growth of mobile shopping from S$328 million in 2011 to S$3.1 billion in 2015 (Note 1). With over 1.4 million smartphones sold in Singapore in 2011 (Note 2) and nearly half of all online shoppers making a purchase on their mobile devices last year (Note 3), Singaporean shoppers are driving a fundamental change in the retail commerce market by choosing to shop and pay using their smartphones anytime, anywhere. Businesses need to adapt to this changing consumer shopping behaviour and PayPal offers innovative solutions to increase mobile conversion, lift mobile sales and deepen engagement with mobile shoppers.

(Photo: http://www.prnasia.com/sa/2012/05/17...905466816.html )

PayPal is a global leader in mobile payments and is expected to process US$7 billion in mobile payment volume this year. In 2011, the company processed over US$4 billion in global mobile payment volume which represented a five-fold jump in mobile payments as compared to the previous year (US$750 million in 2010). PayPal currently has over 17 million global customers regularly making purchases through their mobile devices.

"Mobile commerce is one of the fastest-growing trends in the retail market today as mobile devices are changing the way consumers shop and pay every day," said Rahul Shinghal, Director, PayPal Mobile Asia Pacific. "PayPal is aggressively driving this change by streamlining the payment process in as little as two clicks on web-enabled mobile devices for millions of consumers and businesses across the world. The time is right for Singapore's retail industry to go multichannel by offering mobile-optimized checkout and mobile shopping websites to take advantage of this major change in consumer shopping behavior."

Simpler, faster mobile payment experience for all merchants that accept PayPal

Businesses need to offer consumers a streamlined mobile payment experience to truly capitalize on the booming mobile commerce trend in Singapore. According to a recent PayPal survey, nearly two-thirds of mobile shoppers in Singapore had previously stopped a mobile transaction because of the hassle of entering their financial details, such as 16-digit credit card numbers, on a small screen. However, merchants in Singapore and across the Asia Pacific region that have used PayPal's mobile-optimized checkout solutions have seen a six-fold increase in mobile transaction value in 2011. PayPal's mobile-optimized checkout solutions allow consumers to pay faster in as little as two clicks on smartphones and do not store any sensitive financial details on the mobile device.

To enable more Singaporean businesses to increase their sales through mobile devices, PayPal is announcing its "PayPal Mobile Payments Standard" solution which automatically provides all merchants that accept PayPal on their website today with a mobile payment checkout experience optimized for mobile devices, including iPhone, iPad, iPod and Android devices. PayPal detects when customers are using their mobile device for the payment process and redirects them to a mobile-optimized payment page, even if the merchant's website is not optimized for mobile devices yet. If the merchant currently has PayPal on their website, then the mobile optimized payment checkout experience is available to their customers without any additional integration work. For a new merchant, they simply integrate PayPal into their website to get all the benefits of a mobile-optimized payment checkout solution for customers making purchases on mobile devices.

Mobile optimized sites lead to higher conversion, sales and engagement with customers

While a mobile optimized payment checkout experience can help to increase mobile sales, the ultimate mobile commerce solution for businesses is to offer a website optimized for mobile devices. Businesses that do not have a mobile friendly version of their website risk losing customers who become increasingly frustrated with the poor shopping experience on their smartphones. Google data shows that 3 out of 4 Singaporean businesses do not have mobile friendly websites, but PayPal aims to fix this situation.

Today, PayPal is piloting its "Mobile Commerce in a Box" solution in Singapore to help businesses build mobile-optimized websites by converting their online stores into a mobile friendly interface - all in under an hour and at no additional cost to the merchant. The mobile-optimized site will have larger product photos, buttons, links and text to make it much easier to browse and shop on a mobile device, while still providing mobile-optimized checkout in as little as two clicks.

Businesses will benefit from lower bounce rates, increased browsing time, higher conversion rates and ultimately increased mobile sales. To use this mobile commerce solution, PayPal merchants who use ZenCart or osCommerce shopping carts can download, install and use the free PayPal Mobile Store Plugin which will convert their existing online store into a fully operational mobile optimized store.

Andy Shea from BestOfferBuy.com said, "Initial results of our mobile friendly website are very encouraging as they show that PayPal is helping drive significantly higher conversion and increased engagement with mobile shoppers. PayPal's Mobile Commerce in a Box solution was simple to use and best of all it's a free plugin for my website. It's a great offering from PayPal and helps a small business like us quickly adapt to the growing trend of more Singaporeans shopping and paying on their smartphones."

Singaporean businesses with an existing online store can register their interest for PayPal's Mobile Commerce in a Box solution at https://www.paypal-apac.com/minabox.

Note:

1. PayPal Online and Mobile Shopping Insights 2011
2. GfK Asia 2012
3. PayPal Online and Mobile Shopping Insights 2011

About PayPal

PayPal is the faster, safer way to pay and get paid online. The service allows members to send payments without sharing financial information, with the flexibility to pay using their account balances, bank accounts (where available), debit cards and credit cards in various markets. PayPal is an eBay company and enables global e-commerce with more than 110 million active accounts in 190 markets and 25 currencies around the world. More information about the company can be found at https://www.paypal.com.sg.

PayPal is headquartered in San Jose, California and its international headquarters is located in Singapore.

Media Contacts

Malini Mitra
PayPal, Singapore
T: +65-6590-5543
E: mamitra@paypal.com

Bridget Kow
The Hoffman Agency
T: +65-6361-0250
E: bkow@hoffman.com




SOURCE﹛PayPal

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