May 19 2013 18:59 BST Apple faces grilling over US tax rateApple would have paid a tax rate of about 15 per cent last year, far below the 25.2 per cent it reported, had it not used a form of reserve accounting that sets it apart from other big US technology companies. The rare accounting treatment has helped to distract attentionBy Richard Waters in San Francisco |
May 19 2013 04:28 BST Pimco shuns 'grim' high yield sectorsInvestors should avoid US shares offering high levels of dividend income because valuations have reached risky levels, says Pimco's equity income team. Raji Manasseh, senior vice-president for dividend strategies at the California-based investment giant, says the team fears the prospects for many high-yielding sectors are grim. "Financial repression has drivenBy Nick Reeve |
May 17 2013 11:37 BST Barnes Noble: a real page-turnerThe continuing melodrama at Barnes & Noble is a page-turner. But wise readers will keep Leonard Riggio, founder, chairman and largest shareholder of the US bookseller, in mind even while the Microsoft rumours percolate. A report last week had Microsoft - already an investor in Nook (Pearson, parent of FT, |
May 16 2013 00:08 BST Google chief touts utopian ambitionsGoogle I/O is the search company's annual opportunity to flaunt its scale and ambitions. While last year its sci-fi headset Google Glass took centre stage at the San Francisco event, this year's attempt to bring forward the future included a voice-activated search engine that can understand pronouns and other nuancesBy Tim Bradshaw in San Francisco |
May 14 2013 18:43 BST Grand illusions of France's 'iTax'In the early 1990s France took decisive steps to protect its treasured cultural industry. L'exception culturelle meant that the products of creative industries, such as music and cinema, were excluded from free-trade agreements. Since then, television companies have been obliged to invest portions of their sales revenues into French film |
May 14 2013 18:23 BST BlackBerry messenger to go on iPhone, AndroidBlackBerry will open up its free BlackBerry Messenger service to Apple iPhone and Android-based smartphone owners, marking the latest effort by the Canadian handset maker to further rehabilitate its brand. The move will position the service, which claims 60m BlackBerry users daily and is marketed for its security and reliability,By Paul Taylor in Orland Florida |
May 13 2013 00:11 BST Silicon Valley immigration lobby group loses backersAn alliance of prominent technology industry leaders that has been promoting US immigration reform has lost two of its early backers, after its controversial tactics stirred up anger among environmental and progressive organisations. The departures follow a decision by the group, called Fwd.us, to fund TV adverts supporting issues likeBy Richard Waters in San Francisco |
May 12 2013 18:50 BST The best computer I have ever usedFrom Miss Clodagh Bottomley. Sir, I was surprised by the opinions expressed by John Gapper ("Microsoft has just blown its oldest trick", May 9). My grandmother gave me a Windows 8 computer for Christmas and it is the best computer that I have ever used. I can write and do |
May 10 2013 20:02 BST Apple should learn from Microsoft's broken WindowsWhen the geniuses in Apple's design department started thinking about how to make a phone, the first thing they came up with was the scroll wheel. This, after all, was the invention that had made the iPod great: you could swirl through long lists of songs or artists with aBy Richard Waters |
May 10 2013 19:52 BST Dell and Icahn: emphasis addedOne of the nice things about capital markets - when they are working well - is their cool rationality. You want it for $1? Well, this $2 says it's mine instead. Have a nice day. Neither Carl Icahn nor his allies at Southeastern Asset Management embrace this notion. In their |
