Category: Business

Business Retail Sales

Staples is launching an in-store 3D printing service

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As reported on Engadget. BY SEAN BUCKLEY First it sold select 3D printers in stores, then it sold print-by-mail services in Europe — now Staples is offering US customers a chance to print objects on-demand and on-site. The company’s launch event is focusing on the fun side of 3D printing, serving up action figures and personalized Starfleet officers to walk-in customers, but Staples says it hopes the service will catch the attention of small businesses. Customers will have access to up…

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Business Mobile

BlackBerry is willing to stop making phones if they keep losing money

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As reported on Engadget. BY JON FINGAS BlackBerry CEO John Chen has long made it obvious that he wants to turn a profit by 2016, but it’s now clear that nothing will stand in the way of that goal — not even his company’s smartphones. While devices are still part of the plan, Chen tells Bloomberg and Reuters that he wants to avoid depending on them for revenue, and may “not be in the handset business” if the hardware doesn’t make cash.…

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Business OS

Death of Windows XP can’t quite reverse slowing PC sales

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As reported on Engadget. BY JON FINGAS The official end to Windows XP support may have sent many companies into a panic, but it was good news for PC manufacturers this winter… well, sort of. Both Gartner and IDC report a big increase in PC shipments during the first quarter thanks to companies scrambling to replace old XP computers at the last possible moment. However, the two analyst groups note that the sudden spike only managed to soften ongoing declines in PC shipments, rather…

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Business Internet

Comcast could soon launch its own WiFi-powered mobile service

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As reported on Engadget. BY STEVE DENT With companies like Verizon pushing into its broadband turf, Comcast may be pushing back with its own mobile network, according to a report from The Information. Insiders claim that,like Google, it’s considering a service that would work using a combination of Comcast’s million+ WiFi hotspots and leased cellular capacity from other operators. Those could include Verizon, with which it already has a deal in place for wholesale network access. In addition, it has over…

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Business Space

NASA’s breakup with Russia is a manipulative money grab

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As reported on The Verge. By Arielle Duhaime-Ross Why the agency is really leveraging the crisis in Ukraine NASA ordered its officials to put an end to communications with Russian government officials and scientists yesterday. The order was leaked through an internal memo,obtained by The Verge, in which the US space agency explained that teleconferences, email exchanges, and meetings with Russian officials were to cease immediately. This ban excludes the International Space Station (ISS) — NASA sent…

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Business Hardware Dev

Samsung promises truly flexible electronics sooner with graphene breakthrough

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As reported on Engadget. BY MAT SMITH Graphene. It was going to reinvigorate the electronics industry. Better than silicon, flexible yet more durable than steel and with high heat conduction, it all sounded like The Dream for thinner components and wearables.. but it kinda faded away. Well, it’s back, according to Samsung. In a partnership with Sungkyunkwan University, it reckons it’s solved the tricky issue of manufacturing “large area, single crystal wafer scale graphene,” or simply: big,…

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Business

One Company Betting On Oculus Rift As The Platform For VR HR Training

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Darrell Etherington The Oculus Rift and its creator Oculus VR have been purchased by Facebook, and that’s causing some, including Minecraft developer Mojang, to reconsider their projects for the platform. But others are doubling down on their Oculus investment, including Technology Transfer Services (TTS), a company that designs training software for workforce education. This is another story today where I had to check to make sure it wasn’t an early April Fools’ joke,…

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Business

How Dropbox Knows When You’re Sharing Copyrighted Stuff (Without Actually Looking At Your Stuff)

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Greg Kumparak Late last night, a tweet was spread far and wide showing that a DMCA notice had blocked a file from being shared on a Dropbox user’s account.As of this afternoon, it’s seen just shy of 3 thousand retweets. What was going on? Was Dropbox suddenly doing something sketchy? Were they suddenly lurking around their users folders, digging for copyrighted material hiding amongst personal files? Nope. The system is neither…

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Business

Facebook Buys A Virtual World

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Matthew Panzarino Today, in a somewhat surprising move, Facebook purchased virtual reality company Oculus VR. The buy elicited visceral reactions from people dismayed that Oculus sold out so early to snarky comments about what Facebook might do with it. First of all, any talk about the Facebook news feed appearing in virtual form is far too short-sighted. Will someone port the feed over to Oculus? Probably. But that’s not even close to the endgame here.…

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Business

SF Is Actually The New Palo Alto

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Alexia Tsotsis Lots of pretty writing in New York Magazine writer Kevin Roose’s “Is San Francisco New York” and New York Times writer Nick Bilton’s response “Why San Francisco Is Not New York,” so you should read them both. But before you can cry “East Coast, West Coast” or, probably in this case, “West Coast is the new East Coast is the new West Coast is the new East Coast,” remember that pretty writing is pretty writing.…

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