China: Lhasa tourism booms in 2013

 Lhasa, capital of Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, received nearly eight million tourists in 2013, regional tourism authorities revealed on Sunday.

Renowned as the "sun city," Lhasa saw a 22.76 percent year-on-year increase in tourist arrivals from China and overseas last year, said Dong Tianlin, an official with the local tourism bureau.

In 2013, tourism revenues in the city exceeded 8.2 billion yuan (about 1.34 billion U.S. dollars), up 25.47 percent on the previous year.

Dong said tourism has become one of the leading economic growth engines for the region.

Local tourism authorities and companies have figured out various ways to attract travellers in off-peak season, such as offering lower prices during the winter.

"For example, the ticket price for Potala Palace in the heart of Lhasa was cut by half to 100 yuan per person in winter," Dong said.

He added that another attraction might be special tourist itineraries, especially during important Tibetan festivals.

As Tibetan New Year or "Losar" approaches, falling on March 2 this year, tourists carrying cameras have begun to flock to the streets of  Lhasa.

In order to help more tourists know Tibetan culture, major travel agencies in Lhasa said they are selling some specially designed packages for the new year, giving tourists a chance to visit Tibetan families, taste the new year feast, worship the sacred Jokhang Temple and attend a Sutra chanting ceremony.

"I have better understood Tibetan people by tasting their cuisine and sharing their festive mood," said tourist Li Daiyun from central China's Hunan Province as she tried on traditional Tibetan clothing in one of the city's streets.

Source: Chinadaily

Private cars remain popular in Beijing despite heavy smog

Despite the appeal of public transportation in the Chinese capital, private vehicles remain many residents' first choice for getting around.

"It's horribly crowded in the subway and hard to be on time when taking the bus," said Hu Yanrong, a 32-year-old consultant who drives 18 kilometers to her office every day. "We all know car exhaust contributes to the haze, but it's too exhausting to take a bus to work every day.

"No one wants to make the pollution worse, but you can't sacrifice your career either."

Hu said the government is neglecting its responsibilities by making it the obligation of residents to improve air quality while depriving them of the right to drive.

On Monday, the capital maintained its orange pollution alert, the second-highest level, and severe smog is forecast to linger in Beijing until Thursday.

The concentration of PM2.5 in Beijing soared on Sunday night, the government said. PM2.5 is particulate matter with a diameter less than 2.5 micrometers, a major contributor to the smog.

Beijing Commission of Transport data put this weekend's traffic index at the second-lowest of the past 10 weekends, showing that traffic congestion — or the amount of private vehicles on the road — was significantly reduced.

The commission said the index is based on the average speed of the city's more than 60,000 taxis. An index of 0 to 4 suggests smooth traffic, 4 to 6 reflects slight congestion, 6 to 8 severe congestion, and 8 to 10 the highest congestion.

The real-time traffic index reached no higher than 3.9 last weekend, while most other weekends reached no lower than 5.

But the index increased sharply on Monday to 6.1 during rush hour at about 8 am, making it the third-most-crowded Monday this year.

A commission insider said the reduced traffic over the weekend and increased traffic on Monday indicate that when people need to get around, private vehicles remain their first choice.

"Most people stayed away from the outdoors last weekend because smog clung to the city for days in a row, but when people need to get to work, most still use their own vehicles," Hu said.

The commission said the government will further enlarge the city's public transportation system to attract more commuters and reduce the amount of exhaust emissions from private vehicles.

Stay inside

In response to the lingering smog, the government has advised children and the elderly to stay indoors and wear masks when outside. Kindergartens and primary and middle schools were advised to reduce outdoor activities.

The city has ordered 36 companies to halt production and another 75 to reduce it as part an emergency response plan.

Meanwhile, subway Line 5 broke down on Monday morning because of signal failure, making many commuters late for work.

It is not the first time the city's subway system has broken down. Heavy passenger volume has caused signal failures in the past year, which in turn have forced the subway to suspend operation, delaying thousands of commuters.

The city aims to have the subway cover more of the capital to further ease the demand for public transportation.

Beijing will also unveil its first monorail this year to ease traffic in the southwestern part of the city.

The 24-km Yuquanlu Line, with 21 stations, is undergoing an environmental impact assessment, and will attract more passengers from crowded subway lines in the main urban area, the China Academy of Railway Sciences said.

Source: Chinadaily

China. International energy experts attend academic conference

The International Conference on Power Engineering (ICOPE) 2013, jointly organized by theChinese Society of Power Engineering, School of Energy and Power Engineering, China-EUInstitute for Clean and Renewable Energy and State Key Lab of Coal Combustion at HuazhongUniversity of Science and Technology, opened in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, on Oct 24.

More than 300 energy experts, scholars and entrepreneurs from countries and regionsincluding the United States, Japan, the EU, Australia, South Africa, Thailand, Nigeria, the UnitedArab Emirates and China are attending the three-day academic conference on the world'senergy problems.

Professor Zheng Chuguang, from the School of Energy and Power Engineering at HuazhongUniversity of Science and Technology, gave a speech on the development of oxy-fuelcombustion technology in China, and said that solving the issue of cost is a top priority.

George Saxon, vice-president of Conco Systems Inc, headquartered in Verona, US, presenteda report on the topic of Energy Engineer to Shape the Future. He said that the company'sresearch and innovation are of great significance for the future and already contribute toreducing costs and improving efficiency.

Professor Didier Mayer from the Ecole des Mines de Paris, France, spoke about "Wind EnergyR&D Line Based on the Global Renewable Energy Status", and Professor Yasuo Koizumi ofShinshu University in Japan and Li Chun-Zhu of Curtin University of Technology in Australiaalso gave speeches at the conference.

The academic seminars are expected to cover topics including steam generators, heatexchangers, cooling systems, steam turbines, generators and auxiliary equipment, plantoperations and maintenance, wind energy, solar energy, and geothermal energy.

In addition, the participants will discuss the most advanced academic research around theworld, the latest progress and development trends in the various fields. The conference hasattracted 232 academic papers, with 176 papers from China, and 56 from abroad.

Source: Chinadaily

CHINA; Social security tops public's concerns: survey

Social security and the country's anti-corruption drive have topped a list of social and political issues concerning respondents to an online poll prior to the annual sessions of China's parliament and top advisory body.

As of Monday, more than 3,320,000 Internet users had responded to the poll since it was launched on February 10 on People.com.cn, a major news portal operated by the People's Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Social security tops the list for the fifth consecutive time since 2010. It has attracted more than 517,500 votes this year.

Among those who voted for social security, 84.62 percent support the abolition of China's current multi-track pension system, which allocates pensions according to people's workplace and their professional rank. Generally, people from the private sector are paid less than those from government departments and state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

Guan Xinping, a professor on social policy with Nankai University, said the result has "showed the urgency of the social security issue, and China needs to make up shortfalls of the past."

"Social security is closely connected with people's livelihood and it is reasonable for people to attach the most importance to it," he added.

The National People's Congress, the top legislature, and the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the political advisory body, will convene their annual sessions next month.

NPC deputies have the right to address questions to the State Council or the ministries and commissions under it, and they must answer the questions in a responsible manner, according to China's Constitution.

Of the list of issues of most concern, China's fight against corruption came in second, earning more than 453,000 votes.

Most respondents praised the efficiency of the anti-graft measures launched by the CPC.

China's step-up in anti-corruption efforts in 2013 helps explain why people's expectations have been raised as they hope to see further systemic measures to curb official extravagance and corruption, said Yan Jirong, professor with the school of government under Peking University.

More than 30,000 pollees think inspections of provincial governments, SOEs and public institutions have generated tangible results in discovering malpractice and harmful work styles.

Project bidding, election of government officials and land projects are sectors prone to corrupt practices, according to the survey.

Other top concerns mentioned include food safety, income distribution, housing, the ecosystem and education.

"Many of the issues of concern are similar to those of previous years," said Yan. "That shows the difficulty in finding an ultimate solution."

Source;  Xinhua

China; Three Gorges corrects wrongdoing in anti-graft campaign

The leaders of China Three Gorges Corporation (CTGC), which runs the world's largest hydropower project, are adopting smaller offices and cheaper cars in response to graft inspections by the Communist Party of China's discipline watchdog.

The move, announced on Monday, came days after discipline inspectors sent by China's central authorities uncovered "clues" related to wrongdoing in CTGC after concluding a two-month inspection.

Power abuse in the bidding and contracting of projects, seizure of multiple apartments, and extravagant official receptions were problems revealed during the inspection, according to a report posted on the CTGC's website.

Discipline inspectors also detected irregularities and a lack of transparency in the corporation's decision-making, as well as communication inefficiencies among officials holding important posts.

As part of the correction efforts, company chiefs have moved to temporary offices to let construction firms downgrade their offices, which were either too big or excessively decorated, said the company.

Cars for use by the company's top two executives have also been changed from Audi 2.8L to 2.4L, it added.

The company promised to further reduce its expenditure on government-funded vehicles, overseas trips and receptions, traditionally held to be the three biggest sources of corruption and waste, by another 10 percent in 2014 after cutting such spending in 2013 by 52.49 million yuan (about $8.58 million).

CTGC chairman Cao Guangjing said the company would take a zero-tolerance attitude toward corruption and severely punish those implicated in the corruption cases.

Source: ChinaDaily

Public lauds disclosure of government 'power lists'

Ministries' approvals to be published online to encourage entrepreneurs

China's public and media are praising the central government's recent order to its departments to disclose their "power lists" — registers of their administrative approvals.

All central ministries, commissions and administrations should publish their administrative approvals on their official websites in a bid to boost transparency, the State Council, China's Cabinet, said in a circular issued on Thursday.

The government should reform its administration, and the central departments will not be allowed to interfere in the approval of items not included in their own registers, the circular said.

As of Sunday afternoon, most of the State Council's departments have put their power lists on the front pages of their official websites. The departments also publicized their telephone numbers to solicit public opinion.

Among the departments, the State Administration of Taxation ranked highest with 87 administrative approvals, while some departments have only one, such as the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

The move to publicize power lists has won applause from the media as well as the people, the central government said on its website on Saturday.

Zhou Zhiren, a professor of public administration with Peking University, told Beijing Business Today that by disclosing power lists, the public will be able to supervise the government more effectively.

Xu Binxiong, an employee at an enterprise financed by Taiwan businesspeople in Anshan, Liaoning province, told Xinhua News Agency that it used to take him a year to have a project approved by the government, and now it takes him only a month.

Putting the power lists in the spotlight is the first step for the government to improve its system of administrative approval, and it is also a standard international practice, China Business News said in an editorial.

The practice of disclosing power lists comes amid the central authorities' drive to slash red tape. The central government has cut or delegated to lower governments nearly 400 administrative approval items since the new leadership was elected during the session of the National People's Congress in March 2013.

The National Railway Administration said on its website that it canceled 11 approval items last year and kept only eight, including naming a railway station and approving a railway route.

The Ministry of Culture said that it has kept only four approval items from the previous 13, with three approval items canceled and six others delegated to provincial culture authorities.

On Feb 18, Premier Li Keqiang said at a seminar attended by leading provincial and ministerial officials that all levels of government should gradually establish the mechanism of disclosing their power lists.

The government of Zhejiang province has announced that it will promote a "government power menu" system this year. The Anhui provincial government has asked local departments to "draw a diagram displaying the operation of power" in a pilot reform program.

"Reform of administrative approval items is crucial to the central government's ongoing reform package," said Wang Yukai, a professor of public administration with the Chinese Academy of Governance.

Canceling administrative approval items is expected to encourage entrepreneurship and prevent the government from interference in the market, he said.

SourceÑ Chinadaily

Li urges stronger S. China Sea ties

Premier Li Keqiang said on Monday he wants cooperation with Vietnam in the South China Sea to expand to "a larger scale of joint development", during his meeting with a visiting Vietnamese senior official.

Nguyen Thien Nhan, president of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee, vowed to seek more tangible achievements in maritime, infrastructure and financial cooperation with China.

During Li's visit to Hanoi in October, the two nations established three working groups to discuss maritime, infrastructure and financial cooperation. Chinese analysts said the agreement was a "breakthrough" for both countries in how they would jointly handle territorial disputes and implement cooperation.

Li said at the meeting with Nhan that the two nations should properly handle differences through negotiations to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea, according to an official statement.

Qi Jianguo, former Chinese ambassador to Vietnam, said pushing for maritime, land and financial cooperation is among Nhan's priorities during his visit.

"Smooth development of bilateral relations carries great significance," Li said on Monday.

The premier said Beijing is willing to work with Vietnam to advance relations. He also noted "positive progress" in bilateral relations and applauded the frequency of high-level exchanges between the two nations.

Li's visit to Vietnam in October followed visits to China by Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung earlier in 2013.

Last month, President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, agreed to deepen bilateral cooperation during a phone conversation with Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam.

China's top political adviser Yu Zhengsheng told Nhan when they met on Sunday that Xi's phone conversation has shaped the development of China-Vietnam ties.

For Nhan, this is his second visit to China in three months. He visited Nanning, in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, in late November to attend the second China-Vietnam Youth Gala, where he met Vice-President Li Yuanchao.

As a child, the Vietnamese leader attended school in the region, where he learned Chinese.

Xu Liping, a Southeast Asian studies researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said despite overlapping claims in the South China Sea, China's relations with Vietnam are still positive. Frequent high-level exchanges can serve as a useful way to help the two persevere in regional tests, he said.

"Now China and Vietnam are trying to solve territorial disputes in the South China Sea and dissipate their misunderstandings through maritime cooperation. They have signed many agreements. It's a good sign," Xu said.

Still, Xu warned that both countries must watch out for external forces that can sabotage their relations.

The Vietnam Fatherland Front, formerly known as the Vietnam National United Front, was established in 1930 to strengthen Vietnam's national solidarity.

Source: ChinaDaily

China: Guangzhou to increase land supplies: mayor

The capital city of Guangdong province will increase land supplies this year with most of the revenue being used to repay debts, the Guangzhou mayor said.

"The money raised from land sales will also be used to further improve the city's infrastructure facilities," Chen Jianhua told reporters at a news conference over the weekend.

The southern metropolis has owed heavy debts after it hosted the 16th Asian Games in November 2010. Most of the money Guangzhou borrowed was invested to help curb pollution and construct infrastructure projects, he said.

"Guangzhou plans to offer 6.66 square kilometers of land for property development this year, and the figure was 6.49 square kilometers last year," Chen said.

Last year, Guangzhou earned as much as 83.8 billion yuan ($13.75 billion) from land sales. That figure represented about one-third of the city's total financial revenue.

Source: ChinaDaily

U.S. stocks jump; S&P 500 ends just shy of record

 U.S. stocks ramped higher on Monday, boosted by M&A activity, an upbeat German confidence report and bets that the S&P 500's foray into new high ground could spur further buying. The main indexes finished with solid gains, but ended well off their session highs as the S&P 500 SPX +0.62% failed to score a record closing high. The benchmark index rose 11.46 points, or 0.6%, to finish at 1,847.71 -- just below its Jan. 15 record close at 1,848.38. It had been up more than 22 points intraday. The Dow Jones Industrial AverageDJIA +0.65% gained 105.83 points, or 0.7%, to end at 16,209.13. The Nasdaq COMP +0.69% added 29.56 points, or 0.7%, to close at 4,292.97. 

Source: Marketwatch

WSJ: China's Sina Plans U.S. IPO for Weibo

             The Wall Street Journal reports,"China's Weibo social-media service has transformed discourse in the world's second-largest economy, giving a generation of young Chinese a way to reach millions outside traditional government-controlled media channels.

Now its owner hopes to take it public in the U.S.—at the same time that Weibo faces its biggest challenge to its four-year reign as China's top online forum".

Sina Corp.  is aiming to raise roughly $500 million in a second-quarter U.S. initial public offering of the Twitter -like service, according to two people with direct knowledge of the deal. Sina—which is already listed in the U.S.—has hired Credit Suisse AG and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.  to handle the U.S. listing, one person said. The Financial Times reported the Weibo IPO plans earlier Monday.

Along with the U.S. listing, Weibo could get a further boost from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., the Chinese e-commerce company. People familiar with the plans of the companies told The Wall Street Journal that Alibaba is likely to increase its stake in Weibo to 30% from 18% if an IPO takes place. In April, Alibaba bought the 18% stake in Weibo from Sina for $586 million as it moved to broaden its mobile offerings.

Details of a Weibo IPO weren't clear, but the value of Alibaba's purchase suggests it would represent a minority stake in the business.

Alibaba's interest in potentially raising its stake in Weibo comes as it also considers its own IPO, in either Hong Kong or the U.S.

Alibaba's move to invest in Weibo last year was part of a brewing competition among Chinese Internet giants to capture the increasing number of Chinese tapping the Internet through mobile phones and gadgets.

Its main competition is Tencent Holdings Ltd.  , which owns the popular WeChat instant-messaging app and poses an increasing threat to Weibo. Sina has said that online Chinese are spending more time on WeChat at the expense of Weibo. Tencent declined to comment.

Weibo faces pressure on the political front, too. The Chinese government last year cracked down on some of Weibo's biggest personalities and launched what it called an antirumor campaign, which raised concerns among analysts that the service's popularity would erode. Chinese authorities arrested a high-profile commentator on charges of soliciting a prostitute, warned others and expanded criminal laws that make it easier to prosecute people for their online activity.

How Japan’s Terra Motors wants to plug developing nations into e-bikes

Japan-based electric motorbike startup Terra Motors has been a pretty busy company over the past year, with branches opened in Vietnam, the Philippines, and India. In addition to those, the company is partnering with dealers all around the world, just last week announcing a big partnership to sell its e-bikes in Nepal. Admittedly Nepal isn’t the biggest of markets. But when I visited Terra’s office earlier this week, overseas sales director Koshi Kuwahara told me why it is an ideal market for an electric vehicle company. He explained:

 

There are several aspects to deciding whether or not to enter a market, whether or not to set up the company or a factory. Yes, there is a big market in China. Yes, there is a big market in Indonesia. But we have to consider the competition, how eager partners are, and we also have to consider the government. In the country’s where we have our own branches, local governments are very eager about electric vehicles. In Nepal, the reason they are so interested in EVs, is because Nepal has the highest petrol price in Asia.

From a Western point of view, the decision to go electric is often made with consideration to the environment. But Kuwahara showed me a list of countries, along with corresponding fuel prices and GDP per capita, noting that in places where gas prices are relatively high and GDP relatively low, it really has nothing to do with saving the earth

It’s all about saving money.

A huge gap in import duties for conventional versus electric bikes means that Terra Motors can sell for about $100 cheaper than their gas-guzzling competition. For example, Terra’s A4000i e-scooter sells for a mere Php 8,030 (US$180) in the Philippines. And the startup is very optimistic about prospects in Nepal, where gas and diesel prices have spiked in recent years [1]. The press conference for their opening in Kathmandu attracted about 150 people from most major media, a reflection of that optimism and enthusiasm.

Kathmandu is a small city spanning about 15 kilometers edge to edge, says Kuwahara, so a Terra Motors e-bike, which can get about 45 kilometers from a full charge, is more than adequate for getting around. And the city’s notorious air pollution, which is among the worst of all the world’s cities, means that they will be very much welcome by the local government.

The startup is aiming to sell about 1,000 bikes in the next year, and has already sold 500 from this new dealership. While most of the market conditions are great for Nepal, it is still a pretty tiny market with about 200,000 motorcycles sold per year. But at this early stage for Terra Motors, it’s a perfect place to expand without overextending.

Currently the company’s headcount sits at 27, but they are hiring staff for local offices.

Chewse’s One-Click Catering Grows Recurring Revenue By 10X In Six Months

Chewse is focusing on the enterprise market. They handle one-click catering for offices throughout Los Angeles and San Francisco. Their meal ordering platform lets office managers quickly pick and pay for meals for an entire company of people, whether they are paleo, vegan, lactose intolerant, or you know, allergic to lima beans.

Started by Tracy Lawrence out of her dorm room at USC, the company has grown recurring revenue by tenfold in the last six months. They just passed 50,000 meals and are growing 50 percent month-over-month. The whole meal delivery space has become increasingly competitive in recent months with direct-to-consumer models like Munchery and DoorDash. But Chewse is specifically focused on the business-to-business space.

A lifelong foodie, Lawrence got the idea after working as an event planner in college. She saw how difficult it was to coordinate payments, people’s meal preferences and pick-up for large groups of people. It helped that she caught the entrepreneurial bug from her parents, who also ran their own business.

Lawrence says even though the Grubhub-Seamless IPO is getting a lot of attention, the company only has 0.8 percent of the $43 billion catering market. (The company made a confidential filing, so we don’t know their actual revenue figures for 2013.)

“There’s an insanely large market for growth,” she said, adding that Grubhub-Seamless will get distracted by the process of going public.

Chewse has been working on a model to scale remotely, so they can add new markets without having people on the ground. They grew Los Angeles, with a full-time team based in San Francisco, and currently service companies like Activision, DocVacay and others down there.

They face a number of competitors with different models. The Grubhub-Seamless approach is to partner with restaurants who use the service as lead generation even though they have to deal with the cost of delivery.

Meanwhile, Postmates, which isn’t explicitly for meals, is actually mostly in the food space. They make anything available on demand and they don’t need to directly partner with restaurants because they catalogue restaurant menus on their own.

Then there is a hybrid model with companies like Caviar. They partner with restaurants andprovide logistics and delivery for them while taking a cut of sales.

Then the last model is more verticalized. Direct-to-consumer companies like Spoonrocket,Sprig and Munchery have a limited daily menu and bypass the need for a ton of restaurant partnerships. They make money by pushing a larger volume of one or two dishes, which are generally pre-prepared.

Source: TechCrunch

Google Acquires Spider.io To Help Spot And Stop Online Ad Fraud

London-based Spider.io has been acquired by Google, the company’s DoubleClick advertising blog announced today (via Re/Code). Spider.io is a startup that specialized in weeding out fraudulent clicks around online ads. The three-year old company has tech that will help Google identify bad behavior around their content in video and display ads on the web, to help them get a more accurate picture of what is and isn’t succeeding.

From Google’s official blogpost on the deal:

Advertising helps fund the digital world we love today — inspiring videos, informative websites, entertaining apps and services that connect us with friends around the world. But this vibrant ecosystem only flourishes if marketers can buy media online with the confidence that their ads are reaching real people, that results they see are based on actual interest. To grow the pie for everyone, we need to take head on the issue of online fraud.

Google isn’t revealing the terms of the deal, but the small London company is only seven strong, and this is a fairly specialized niche product so it’s unlikely to have been a huge exit. Still, the Spider.io team brings some impressive talent to Google’s ranks, including three PhDs and a an ex-Yahoo natural language processing and artificial intelligence expert.

Spider.io’s tech is designed specifically to detect attacks originating from PCs infected by malware. Often these hijacked computers are programmed by their attackers to place a high volume of ad requests, thus skewing the numbers and defrauding online advertisers out of millions of dollars. An FT article from last year revealed that one botnet last year managed to falsify billions of web-based ad clicks, sometimes accounting for as much as two-thirds of the sum total of visits to some websites.

Source: TechCrunch

Amazon Said To Be Looking At March For Streaming TV Box Launch

A new report pegs Amazon’s potential TV set-top box launch for March. Re/Code reports that the e-commerce and digital media giant is indeed still hard at work on a streaming TV device, which has been reported previously, and which was supposedly arriving in time for the holidays last year before those plans were pushed back.

Amazon’s streaming box should provide access to its content library of digital media, including titles from Amazon Instant Video and stuff that’s made available to Amazon Prime members in the U.S. for free. Amazon also has an extensive music catalog that would play well on a home theater device.

Re/Code also says that the Amazon gadget will run Android, albeit a forked version of the same, similar to the OS that powers Amazon’s Kindle Fire line of tablets. The report doesn’t offer any information about whether Amazon’s set-top box will also be a games machine, but we’ve heard from sources close to the matter previously that it will indeed feature game support, and based on what I’ve heard recently from industry sources, that’s likely still the case despite the missed holiday shopping season window.

Source: TechCrunch

Amazon entering the streaming media center realm makes a lot of sense, and if it’s running Android and has access to the Amazon Appstore, there’s a lot of potential for it to leapfrog some of its competitors, which have been slower moving at providing access to a truly open library of apps. The most interesting aspect still up in the air is what Amazon will charge for such a device, and whether or not it might even become a free perk for Amazon Prime members, especially considering rumors that Amazon will increase the price of Prime subscriptions by between $20 and $40, which could be to help account for the cost of hardware.

Facebook Is Finally Moving Into AOL’s Building In New York

After almost a year of construction and renovation, Facebook NY has announced that it will be moving its NYC location from Madison Ave in midtown to a building in downtown Manhattan, at 770 Broadway.

Coincidentally enough, this also happens to be the same building where AOL (and TechCrunch NY) are headquartered, as well as other media and advertising companies such as Billboard, Adweek, and Backstage.

Right now, Facebook has more than 100 engineers in the New York offices working on Pages, Location, Newsfeed, mobile, AI, and infrastructure, but 2014 represents a growth year in terms of NYC hires. More than 320 people work in FBNY overall. With more space in the office, and plans to hire more engineers, that number should rapidly grow throughout the next year.

The move will also put Facebook much closer to the center of NYC’s burgeoning tech scene. Most startups, and tech-related businesses, line the streets of Broadway from Madison Square Park to deep in Soho. Though I personally hate any moniker that piggy backs off of Silicon Valley, many have lovingly nicknamed the stretch of road “Silicon Alley.”

Facebook’s new office is squarely in the middle of that stretch of Broadway, rather than in stuffy Midtown where Grand Central pours out thousands of commuters each day.

“New York has always attracted some of the best creative minds in arts and culture, fashion, finance, academics, and Tech,” said Carolyn Everson, VP of Global Marketing Solutions. “So, it’s only fitting that we continue to invest in our presence here. There’s no better place for a company with the tireless mission of connecting the world than the city that never sleeps.”

Today will be the first day of business in the new office, but construction is still underway.

Here’s what Serkan Piantino (NY Site Director and head of engineering) had to say in a blog post:

Being a part of the tech community in NYC and its expansion over the past 2 years has been a humbling experience. I’ve seen the energy in our office compound as we grow in size, take on bigger challenges and prototype the next Facebook products. The city has done the same, emerging as a center where new ideas are realized and people build great teams and fulfilling careers.

Today, Facebook New York begins our first day of business at our new offices at 770 Broadway. We’re excited to join the Astor Place neighborhood and continue to invest in the great tech community here. Finding this space took months of searching and design, and even now it’s still being built around us. We have plenty of work ahead as we continue to grow.

Today is our first day at new desks and with a new view of the city. There’s a lot of history around us: John Jacob Astor sailed here from England after the American Revolution and built an empire selling beaver pelts and other fur. You can see the ceramic beaver plaques in the subway station that commemorate his trade. Astor bought huge parcels of land in Manhattan because he was convinced it would become a key port and metropolis. Not long after, Peter Cooper believed in education for everyone and made his college available free of charge to anyone with a willingness to learn. My father studied architecture there.

We are really looking forward to being part of the neighborhood. We plan to host tech meetups and share what we’re working on here in NYC. We’ll even throw a party now and then. We’ll bring talent to the city and partner with other industries that live here.

Indonesia: The Government Insist to Apply Progressive Export Duty

JAKARTA—The government insisted will apply progressive export duty for mineral exports although the employers protest because it’s considered violate the contract work terms.

Deputy Finance Minister Bambang P.S. Brodjonegoro said progressive export duty of 20% -60% by 2016 is a disincentive for mining sector businesses that are reluctant to conduct refining activity.

“It’s a government’s decision. Amendment plan (Finance Minister Regulations which set out the mineral export duty) does not mean terminate export duty and that even if there is a revision,” he said, Friday (1/24).

Last week, mining employers protested over the imposition of the progressive export duty which regulate in Finance Minister Regulation (PMK) O No.6 / PMK.011 / 2014 on Second Amendment PMK No. 75 / PMK.011 / 2012 of Imposed Export Duty and Export Duty Tariff.

The objection based on lack of duty clause in the contract of work (COW). The Law No. 25/2007 regarding Foreign Investment Law No. 11/1967 on Mining Provision and PP No. 75/2001 on the Implementation of Law No. 11/1967.

Furthermore, the Indonesian Mineral Entrepreneur Association (Apemindo) intended to submit reconsideration of the beleid to the Supreme Court. They also refused to discuss mineral benchmark price, which will become benchmark reference prices for export duty.

“We are still open the dialogue. However, the government stick to the PP No.1/2004 and relevant ministerial regulation, including PMK,” he said.

On the other hand, Indonesian largest copper mining company PT Freeport Indonesia came to Finance Ministry. Unfortunately, President Director of PT Freeport Indonesia Rozik Boedioro Soetjipto was reluctant to disclose about the purpose of his arrival.

However, as cited Acting Head of Fiscal Policy Agency (BKF) Andin Hadiyanto, Freeport arrival aimed to clarify regarding the export duty provisions, the regulatory mission and its implementation in the field.

Benchmark Price

On the hand, Director General of Mineral and Coal, Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources R. Sukhyar mining entrepreneurs ask the duty to comply with it, and conducting down streaming seriously.

Related to mineral benchmark price (HPM) failed to agreed, he said the government is still waiting contract of work (KK) holders through the work of plan.

Namun, kalaupun pelaku tetap tidak menggubris usulan harga tersebut, “Ya tinggal saja.” Direktur Pengusahaan dan Pembinaan Mineral Ditjen Mineral dan Batu bara Dede

However, even if the employers remains ignored the proposal price, "Yes live alone." Director of Mineral Exploitation and Development Directorate General of Mineral and Coal Dede I say Suhendra questioned the premise that contract law higher than the law of mineral and coal mining business requires a down streaming in 2014.

Meanwhile, Chairman of the Indonesian Association of Copper Gold (ATEI) Mansour Natsir assumed government should respect the KK that do not include the export duty provision. Finance Minister also needs to look to international regulations before deciding export duty.

He said, IUP holder mind about the export duty imposition of copper concentrate for 25%. He considered that a realistic figure for 2014 was 2%, 4% for 2015 and 6% for 2016. "Not because of the budget deficit of US$ 5 billion, then the government could apply export duty without calculate it," he said.

He also said IUP holders have not agreed on the copper minerals price offered by the government at 0.60. Because entrepreneurs assumed HPM can afford only 0.48 with calculation using the London Metal Ex - changes.

Source: Bisnis.com

Third-party Services for WeChat Official Accounts Now Have An Official Cloud Service to Opt in

As you may know, WeChat has released APIs that official accounts are able to have sophisticated features and then work like web apps. A couple of months ago Tencent launched Fengling, a set of tools for building WeChat Official Account apps. But it’s not that every official account owner is capable of developing those features. Accounts with cool features may want to reach more WeChat users.

Dozens of third-party services have emerged to meet the two needs of WeChat Official Accounts’. Now Tencent released WeChat Cloud for those third-party businesses.

Services like Weigouyi — a solution for mobile shopping services, Weimob — a WeChat-based CRM solution provider, Weixin Kaka — a WeChat marketing service, and a couple of others have joined WeChat Cloud.

WeChat Cloud, actually, isn’t developed by the 300+ person team but the Cloud division of Tencent — it won’t be surprising that eventually every division of Tencent’s will build custom services of the existing services for WeChat. Tenpay, Tencent’s online payment service, has helped build WeChat Payment. Fengling was also built by a division outside WeChat.

 Source: TechNode

Dropbox Has Raised $350M In New Funding At A $10B Valuation

A regulatory filing seems to confirm reports from the past couple of months that Dropbox has raised a large round of additional funding.

Back in January, the Wall Street Journal said that the cloud storage and sharing company had raised an additional $250 million at a $10 billion valuation. Then, in February, it updated that number to $350 million (at the same valuation) from investors including BlackRock, T. Rowe Price, and Morgan Stanley. However, Dropbox did not confirm the stories.

The filing says that the round could be up to $450 million, with $325 million raised so far. It seems that $350 million is a likely number, since that’s what Fortune has heard, too.

Dropbox had previously raised a little more than $250 million. I’ve reached out to the company and will update if I hear back.

By the way, Dropbox co-founders Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi won the founder of the year award at the Crunchies this year, presented by myself and Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom. (I cropped myself out of the picture above because otherwise it just felt weird.)

Update: Yep, it was $350 million. A source with knowledge of the funding has confirmed to me as well that Dropbox has indeed raised a Series C of that amount from existing investors and major mutual funds at a $10 billion valuation.

Source: TechCrunch

Watch Samsung’s ‘Unpacked5′ Galaxy S5 Announcement Live

http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/24/watch-samsungs-unpacked5-galaxy-s5-announcement-live/

Alibaba Launched Tmall International, an E-commerce Site for Overseas Products

Source:TechNode

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group recently launched Tmall International, a site dedicated for business entities outside China, where overseas brands and merchants can sell their products directly to Chinese online shoppers.

The newly launched international platform provides genuine products that are produced or sold in overseas markets. In addition, the platform offers a direct delivery service. Merchants on the platform also offer Chinese language customer service through Alibaba’s instant messaging platform Alitalk, as well as 72-hour shipping, and product return facilities in mainland China.

More than 140 foreign merchants from the U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, etc. have settled on the platform, including B2C sites like Bonjour, Strawberrynet, Etmall, Kenko, as well as premium brands, such as Anna Sui and NYR. To prepare for the launch, Tmall International has been recruiting international businesses since July last year.

International merchants who want to join the platform have to pay an initial deposit of $25,000 and a yearly fee based on the types of goods they sell. TMall International will also collect a service fee of either 5% or 6% per transaction, depending on the product, according therequirements released by the site.

At the current stage, online shoppers can purchase baby products, healthcare products, beauty products and apparel on the site.

Tmall International will run independently as a subsidiary of Alibaba, affiliating to the newly established International B2C Department, which also oversees Alibaba’s global shopping arm AliExpress and Taobao Overseas, a unit focused on Southeast Asian market.

Chinese online shoppers’ demands to purchase cheaper and better products outside China surged in recent years, mainly focused on the fields of infant formula and maternal products, foreign-branded cosmetics and luxury goods, among others.

The market size for Chinese online Daigou industry, which means buying via overseas contacts through Taobao or other professional buyer agencies and websites, surpassed 70 billion yuan ($11.49 billion) in 2013, according to data released by Alibaba.

image credit: Tmall

Samsung’s Dust- And Water Resistant Galaxy S5 Gets Official With Heart Rate Monitor, Fingerprint Scanner

Source: TechCrunch

The Samsung Galaxy S5 is here, and now we know everything about the 2014 flagship from the Korean smartphone maker. It’s pushing into phablet territory with a 5.1-inch, 1920×1080 display, and it comes with a fingerprint reader on the home button, as well as a heart rate monitor around back near the camera flash. The Galaxy S5 is also dust and water resistant, which may be the most useful new feature to ship on the phone.

Samsung’s Android 4.4-powered flagship doesn’t deviate that far from its predecessors in terms of case design, packing the larger screen into a larger chassis but sticking with a plastic (though there is a higher end metal variant) backing, rounded corners and a pill-shaped home button, but the fingerprint scanner and heart-rate sensor are significant hardware additions. The Galaxy S5 also seems to have a significant focus on health and fitness with this update, which could preface a similar move with the next generation of iOS software and hardware.

On the new Samsung phone, the heart rate monitor will track your pulse and provide that info in S Health 3.0, Samsung’s fitness monitoring app, which already tracks steps taken and calories burnt. An optical heart rate monitor that works with your fingertip also appears on the new Galaxy Gear 2 smartwatches. For those who are curious about the inclusion of such a feature, Withings ships a step counter with a built-in monitor, which adds another dimension to health tracking and can be used in combination with other data to give a clearer picture of overall health.

The other big new hardware feature here is the fingerprint sensor. Many will no doubt accuse Samsung of copying Apple once again, but the fingerprint sensor here is quite different from Apple’s on the iPhone 5s. It can register three separate fingerprints, and registration takes eight swipes (it’s swipe-based, rather than asking you to hold your fingerprint down as with Apple’s). You can unlock the phone using fingerprint recognition, but also use it to authorize PayPal to make payments online – for anything. That’s much wider-reaching than Apple’s usage of fingerprints, which is limited to unlocking and to finalizing purchases made via iTunes.

Since it’s using PayPal, that means this could be used to pay for physical goods at retail, too, which potentially opens up a lot of mobile payments options for Samsung. All will depend on how easy the fingerprint tech is to use in practice, however, and how resistant it is to attempts to foil or dupe the security system.

The finger swipe can also unlock Private Mode on the Galaxy S5, which provides access to content that a user would rather keep hidden from anyone else who might gain access to their phone, like kids and strangers. It’s a handy and much-needed addition to mobile, which so far hasn’t had any really easy way to limit access to on-device media and content selectively.

Another highlight of the Galaxy S5 is the new camera, which now offers 16 megpixels on the rear – and video capture of 4k resolution (even though the screen on the device itself can only manage 1080p, or one quarter of that). The Galaxy S5 isn’t the first phone announced to have 4K video capture capabilities, but it is part of a limited early group, and that’s something that might be more appealing to consumers now that 4K TVs are becoming more affordable and consumers are looking around for content sources: at this rate, home videos could beat broadcast TV to the punch.