Brussels unveils ‘smart cities’ innovation scheme

The European Commission has announced a new €365 million a year innovation partnership scheme aimed at boosting the development of ‘smart’ technologies in cities, EU officials told the press on Tuesday (10 July).  For 2013, €365 million in EU funds have been earmarked for the development of urban technology.  The European Innovation Partnership (EIP) will see private business and the EU executive pool research from energy, transport and ICT to develop a limited number of approved projects.  Examples of mooted projects included silent electric city buses that use digital technology, satellite technology aimed at improving traffic flow, a smartphone applications for reserving alternative fuel rental vehicles,...

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Posted in: ICT,smart city

Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Executive E-mails and Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant

Analyzing one of American corporate history’s greatest mysteries—the lost decade of Microsoft—two-time George Polk Award winner (and V.F.’s newest contributing editor) Kurt Eichenwald traces the “astonishingly foolish management decisions” at the company that “could serve as a business-school case study on the pitfalls of success.” Relying on dozens of interviews and internal corporate records—including e-mails between executives at the company’s highest ranks—Eichenwald offers an unprecedented view of life inside Microsoft during the reign of its current chief executive, Steve Ballmer, in the August issue. Today, a single Apple product—the iPhone—generates more revenue than all of Microsoft’s wares combined. Eichenwald’s conversations...

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Posted in: ICT

Twitter’s Pitch Deck for Big Advertisers

Twitter’s ad business is looking less like an experiment and more like a real business, one that could generate $1 billion a year in the not-too-distant future. If Twitter ads really take off, it will be because CEO Dick Costolo will have figured out how to sell lots of little ads to small marketers, in the same way Google did more than a decade ago. In the meantime, the company seems to be succeeding with the other end of the spectrum: Big marketers interested in experimenting with a brand-new format. Last year, Twitter ad boss Adam Bain made a point of targeting big brands like Pepsi and American Express. And this year he’s seeing some of that work pay off, as some of them are committing to campaigns that will run for much of 2012. Twitter...

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Posted in: ICT