sharing

Samsung said to be eyeing $107 million investment in Sharp

As Sharp works to restructure and stay afloat, word has it that Samsung may come in to help. According to Bloomberg, Samsung is reportedly in talks to invest roughly 10 billion yen, or $107 million, in the ailing Japanese consumer-electronics maker.

People familiar with the situation told Bloomberg that details of the possible partnership could be announced as soon as today, but nothing has been confirmed yet.

Sharp has had a rough go over the past couple of years. The electronics manufacturer saw sales drop 16 percent year-over-year to 1.1 trillion yen, or $13.7 billion, in the six … Read more

Need to lend your key? E-mail it, Fraunhofer says

HANOVER, Germany--You're traveling and your coworker needs your key to get into your office. Why not just e-mail it?

That's the idea behind Fraunhofer Institute's Key2Share technology, which the German research lab is developing in partnership with Bosch and showing off here at the CeBIT show.

Key2Share uses smartphones equipped with near-field communications (NFC) short-range wireless networking abilities to unlock phones. But because approval to use the key becomes digital data, a person can e-mail that approval.

It could be useful for other situations, too, said Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi, a researcher involved with the project. For example, a … Read more

Sprint unveils shared data plans for small businesses

Sprint now offers small-business customers a way to pool their mobile data usage and trim costs.

Introduced on Friday and available only until June 13, the new plans are geared for businesses with up to 30 mobile devices. The plans cover smartphones, tablets, mobile hot spots, and USB dongles and require the standard two-year contract.

The smartphone plan allocates 20GB of shared data across 10 devices, 40GB across 20 devices, or 60GB across 30 devices. The more data and devices, the higher the cost -- ranging from $139.99 through $349.99 per month. The first device must be a … Read more

Viddy doubles length of clips, adds video enhancement tools

Social video startup video has released an updated iOS app with a bevy of new features to help people enhance their videos and to stave off Twitter's upstart video-sharing app, Vine.

Debuting this evening in Apple's App Store, the updated app doubles the length of videos that people can upload from 15 seconds to 30 seconds, as well as adding the Vine-like ability to pause recording to splice together segments into a single clip. The app also adds 15 new video filters, licensed music tracks from popular artists that can be added to videos, and stop-motion functionality that … Read more

Stock split rumor surfaces ahead of Apple investor meeting

At last year's annual shareholders meeting, Apple CEO Tim Cook knocked the idea of splitting Apple's then-soaring stock.

"A stock split isn't so clear to be honest," Cook told investors last February. Apple had charted out how stock splits worked for "many" other companies, Cook explained, and hadn't come up with a clear answer on what to do. "There might be a short-term pop, but for a lot it does nothing," Cook said.

A lot can change in a year though.

The day before Apple shareholders descend on the company's Cupertino, Calif., campus, … Read more

Social video startup Viddy lays off a third of its staff

Social video startup Viddy has laid off a dozen employees, or about a third of its work force, as it faces competition from a Twitter app.

The cuts come less than a month after the firing of co-founder and CEO Brett O'Brien, who was rumored to have turned down a buyout offer from Twitter. In a statement, Viddy's board confirmed the staff reductions, which will reportedly focus on marketing and operations:

As the board continues to review Viddy's business, we've identified specific ways to streamline costs which include eliminating some positions. These changes will allow the … Read more

Apple stock drop blamed on huge hedge funds

Hedge funds that drove up the price of Apple's stock were also responsible for driving it down, Reuters reported yesterday.

After reaching a high of $705 in September, shares of Apple started getting battered in the fourth quarter.

The stock was especially hit hard after Apple revealed its fiscal first-quarter results last month, numbers that disappointed Wall Street. The company achieved record revenues. But some analysts and investors worried that higher competition and lower profit margins mean that Apple's best days are behind it.

As a result, many of the hedge funds with huge positions in Apple dumped … Read more

SlideShare targets marketers with presentation-tracking tool

SlideShare, the online presentation property of professional social network LinkedIn, today released a new feature called Send Tracker to help presentation makers determine which of their slides are the most effective.

LinkedIn purchased SlideShare in May 2012. The online deck-hosting tool, only partially integrated with LinkedIn, accounts for 39 million monthly unique visitors, or 25 percent of LinkedIn's total monthly unique audience. SlideShare is also at the center of the public company's strategy to become a hub for professional content.

Send Tracker, a new tool for users who pay to use SlideShare, is specifically tailored toward marketers, salespeople, … Read more

Share photos and accompanying audio with PhotoBlab

If Instagram and Vine had a baby, they'd name it PhotoBlab. This free iPhone app lets you create and share short photo slideshows with audio.

After launching the app and signing up for an account with an e-mail address, the app will ask you to add a profile picture or you can choose to do this later via settings. At the bottom of the app are four buttons: Create Blab, Blab Feed, Popular Blabs, and Settings.

You can get some PhotoBlabbing ideas by browsing the Popular feed, while the Blab Feed lets you view so-called Blabs you've sent … Read more