You only thought hotels in Las Vegas were extravagantwait until you see the new $8 billion CityCenter resort that opens next autumn on the city's world-famous Strip.

        CES 2010 can be your first excuse to visit their anchor storea new Apple wunder-store (two levels and 20,000+ square-feet) housed in The Crystals retail section of the project, on the Las Vegas Blvd. side.
         Developed by Mirage MGM and Continue reading...

DSGI faces the perfect storm: 30% drop in profits, share prices at record lows and the Americas No. 1 chain Best Buy coming into Europe via Carphone Warehouse.
        The future now rests with the implementation of CEO John Browett's 5-point plan. 

1. Focus on the customer
2. Focus the portfolio on winning positions
3. Transform the business
4. Win in the internet market
5. Reduce cost base

While the media focuses on the delivery of the iPhone (and activation issues), the real story is the App Store.

Like iTunes did for iPod, the App Store will allow users to easily buy and download content, applications and games from publishers. It puts Apple into gaming: developers are providing trailers, user-generated reviews and free game demos. There are already over 175 games available. Its all about software and SaaS, folks.

Go App Store

Citing Shreks Law as the motivation, DreamWorks Animation will now partner with Intel to revamp its animation hardware for a push into 3-D.

DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenbergs posits that processing power must double every time DreamWorks makes a "Shrek" film and he calls this "Shrek's Law."

Intel will provide both hardware and software for the Hollywood giant (pushing out AMD after a 3-year deal) as the shift to a new 3-D format begins with next year's "Monsters vs. Aliens" release.

The alliance Continue reading...

What do you do when sweet-talk doesn’t work in an acquisition? If you are Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, you issue an ultimatum.

The man famous for hopping like a lunatic on stage to motivate staff and partners fails to find new ways to motivate Yahoo execs to come to the table.

Two days after Yahoo reluctantly responded to the Microsoft ultimatum (“OK, we don’t like it but we are open to a deal, but not at the price you’re proposing…”), Yahoo will begin a limited test of Google Search service. T Continue reading...

1. The digital world will converge with the physical world: Starting in about 1995, the mantra was, “Everything is virtual. Geography is irrelevant”. But from 2008, factors such as your physical location will mean a lot. Cloud services will be increasingly aware of context, down to details such as time, weather, where a user is headed, and which friends or business colleagues are nearby.

2. The era of device-centric computing is over. Connectivity-centric computing will take centre stage. Continue reading...

Place fewer, bigger bets. Or is it just fewer bets? Our IT industry R&D is not even growing by 1% a year.

HP calls it “laser focus;” IBM says “a realignment of research priorities;” and Sun just calls it “trimming.”

HPLabs shifts funding from 150 projects to 20-30 bigger projects. Prith Banerjee, director, says: “If you have limited resources, having a ‘let 1,000 flowers bloom’ approach doesn’t give enough resources to any one idea”. Continue reading...