Chinese Currency Falls to Lowest Level in Nearly a Year

SHANGHAI — The value of China’s currency, the renminbi, continued to slide against the United States dollar on Friday, rattling investors by falling to its lowest level in nearly a year.
With a drop of 0.3 percent, the renminbi hit 6.145 to the dollar in Friday trading, helping reverse a long running trend of gradual, incremental appreciation against the dollar and other major currencies during the last eight years. The intraday drop of almost 1 percent Friday was the biggest in years.

Analysts believe China’s central bank is intervening in the currency markets, intentionally engineering a slide in the value of the Chinese currency to punish speculators and prevent huge capital flows, or so-called hot money, from entering the country.
The authorities worry that the large inflows could generate inflationary pressure and complicate the central government’s effort to restructure China’s economy and eventually free up interest rates and improve the banking system.

Still, few analysts expect China’s currency to continue to weaken against the dollar. Many economists are forecasting the renminbi to end 2014 just about where it began, about 6 yuan to the dollar, or slight stronger, at about 5.9.

Google Pays for the Ride

           

Google, which has been at the center of a controversy in San Francisco over tech company shuttles using public infrastructure, is giving $6.8 million to fund a city transit program.

The program, whose city funding runs out in June, provides monthly bus and streetcar passes to 31,000 low-income San Francisco youths ages 5 to 17. It began last year after the San Francisco school system reduced the use of buses transporting students to and from school. The program gets youths to school, after-school programs and jobs.

Mayor Ed Lee’s office called the gift “one of the largest private contributions towards direct City services in San Francisco history.” Google will fund the program for two years.

Protests against Google began with anti-eviction activists, angered by the increasing gentrification of San Francisco, blocking its commuter shuttles that run down to the valley. The private shuttles use city bus stops to load and unload their passengers, which prompted lots of ire among less privileged residents. A resolution worked out with the city means Google and other tech companies will pay $1 per stop.

On Feb. 15, members of Heart of the City interrupted the Wisdom 2.0 conference. As three Google speakers introduced a presentation on “Three Steps to Build Corporate Mindfulness the Google Way,” demonstrators rushed the stage with an “Eviction-Free San Francisco” banner.

“San Francisco residents are rightly frustrated that we don’t pay more to use city bus stops,” said Meghan Casserly, a Google spokeswoman. “So we’ll continue to work with the city on these fees, and in the meantime will fund Muni passes for low-income students for the next two years.”

BA and Iberia owner swings back into profit in 2013

                      

                       Willie Walsh said BA had solid revenues

British Airways owner IAG bounced back into profit in 2013, fuelled by BA and Spanish budget airline Vueling.

The group posted a profit of 527m euros (£433m) in 2013, compared with losses of 613m euros the previous year.

Although Spanish carrier Iberia, it had made "huge progress" because of restructuring, the group said.

British Airways had solid revenues and benefited from extra slots at Heathrow and the integration of BMI, group chief executive Willie Walsh said.

"In 2013, we strengthened the group by acquiring Vueling, embarking on Iberia's transformation and enhancing British Airways' revenue performance," he said.

"This has led to a strong financial recovery and return to profitability, with a turnaround of nearly 800m euros."

Key trends from the world's biggest mobile technology show!

  

Trend 1: Getting the whole world connnected
Mark Zuckerberg used his keynote address to wax lyrical aboutInternet.org, "a global partnership dedicated to making internet access available to the two-thirds of the world not yet connected."

By striking deals with telecommunications companies in emerging markets, Internet.org plans to get basic web services - weather reports, Wikipedia, messaging and Facebook (naturally,) to people at no cost, in the hope that it will inspire them to explore the rest of the web and reap the benefits that it can provide. And there was plenty of hardware at MWC that should help along the way.

Given the deep relationship with Microsoft, many were surprised to see Nokia's mobile division adopt Android for its new devices, but Android is a platform more suited to the emerging markets at which these three devices are aimed. The X series lacks superstar specifications but do feature dual SIM slots, expandable memory and swappable cases, all of which Nokia's Windows Phone devices lack, and all of which it says the developing world wants.

Mozilla's Firefox OS might not be making huge waves in the developed world, but it could be the platform that helps spread smartphone use through emerging markets.

Key could be the Flame, a handset that costs next to nothing yet features all the traits of a smartphone: Firefox OS, a dual-core processor, 3G, Wi-Fi and a 4.5in touchscreen. It can run a selection of HTML5 apps and will cost just U.S. $25.
Mozilla suggests that people think of the Flame as a more powerful feature phone than a full-on smartphone, but as Firefox OS expands there will be access to more and more apps.

Trend 2: Wellness and wearables
The recent trend for the use of fitness trackers looks set to go into overdrive as vendors add features that allow them to harvest even more data about how we go about our daily lives. All for our own good, of course.

Samsung's flagship Galaxy S range is second only to Apple's iPhone in the popularity stakes, but it has been accused of peddling gimmicks in place of meaningful innovations. This year's device majors on robustness, and its ability to get to know you better than you know yourself.

It is water resistant, and round the back is a heart rate sensor that in conjunction with the S Health app can help build a more complete picture of your fitness. Like the iPhone 5S, it'll also scan your fingertips via its home button to provide an extra layer of security, and it can be used to seamlessly authorise PayPal payments.

It is also a powerhouse device with a 4K video-recording, 16 megapixel camera, super-fast quad-core processor, next-generation 802.11ac Wi-Fi and a vast 5.1-inch 1080 pixel screen. Despite that, Samsung reckons its new Ultra Power Saving mode can give 24 hours of standby from a 10% battery charge.

Sony's take on the fitness band takes a few cues from smartwatches, providing notifications via haptic feedback and allowing control over the music you're playing on a connected Android device. However, it's the Lifelog companion app thats the big news - it doesn't just track your activity, but it measures how you sleep, where you've been (and how fast you went there), how much you browse, play music, watch movies and game, and even more besides. Could be a bit of a wake-up call (it'll do that too.)
Samsung introduced three wearable devices, the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo smartwatches (the latter minus a camera,) and the Gear Fit fitness band. Like the Galaxy S5 smartphone, all three came with the new ability to constantly monitor your heart rate, making them far more useful as training aids.

Trend 3: Go big or go home
Smartphone screens get bigger every year, but the new normal is now so big that the "phablet" category seems obsolete. From now on, if your device doesn't have a 5-inch screen (or bigger), you're out of date. And the trend will only continue as companion devices such as smartwatches give us fewer reasons to fish the whopping gadgets out of our pockets.

The LG G Pro 2 has a 5.9-incn 1080-pixel screen, a 13 megapixel 4K video-recording camera and huge power, making it an intriguing (and very, very big) gadget - but its key innovation is how it reacts when you wrap your knuckles on it. A custom combination of taps to lock and unlock the device, replacing Android's standard PIN and Pattern unlock. Combinations with up to 8 taps can be created, and there are 80,000 possible combinations of knock according to LG. Crucially, it works when the screen is off - no need to seek out the power button.

The LG G Pro 2 has a 5.9-incn 1080-pixel screen, a 13 megapixel 4K video-recording camera and huge power, making it an intriguing (and very, very big) gadget - but its key innovation is how it reacts when you wrap your knuckles on it. A custom combination of taps to lock and unlock the device, replacing Android's standard PIN and Pattern unlock. Combinations with up to 8 taps can be created, and there are 80,000 possible combinations of knock according to LG. Crucially, it works when the screen is off - no need to seek out the power button.

Trend 4: The future
Tech shows are always a good opportunity to find out what's on the horizon, and MWC 2014 didn't disappoint. The best technology demonstration at the show came courtesy of Fujitsu. The prototype Sensory tablet has ultrasonic inducers on its screen that allow it to vibrate at different frequencies, creating an almost magical level of tactile feedback - it mimics different levels of friction and even creates the illusion of raised surfaces. It works wonderfully, and it should come to market in 2015. Imagine the difference it could make to mobile gaming.

Blippar is a British company that's been working on augmented reality technology in smartphones for years, but using Google's smart eyewear, it can now provide real-time recognition of objects and faces in the real world, and display relevant data to the wearer in real time. This could give rise to an "annotated world" - pass a landmark and immediately be furnished with its history, look at a restaurant and immediately access relevant reviews. But it could also allow rich media marketing to be pumped directly into your eye.

Like the one before it, the second generation phone from Russian smartphone maker Yota has two screens. At the front is the usual color LCD touchscreen, but at the back is a secondary E-ink display (similar to that on an Amazon Kindle) that only uses power when it refreshes.
Via an app, you tell the secondary display what you want it to show you -- a book, a Twitter feed, notifications -- and it sits there updating from time to time without you needing to waste time and energy switching your phone back on. It's ingenious, and this year, it's a good deal slicker than it was.

Telkom Kenya Imposes Recruitment Freeze to Bring Down Wage Bill

                                    

Struggling Telkom Kenya has imposed a recruitment freeze to try and hold down its wage bill as the company looks at cost cutting measure to turn its performance around.

The former state-monopoly employs 1,700 staff and has a wage bill that eats into 22 percent of its revenue, which is about 7 percent higher than industry averages.

That is even after the company laid off a staggering 16,000 staff over the past 7 years.

The company's CEO, Mickael Ghossein said that staff leaving the company will only be replaced on an as-needs basis and each new appointment will need to be approved by senior management.

"We have frozen our recruitment for new employees as our head count does not match our revenue," Mr Ghossein said.

Telkom Kenya is majority owned by France's Orange, with 70% stake. The rest is owned by the government.

Boeing makes 'self-destruct' top secret smartphone!

                                            

A smartphone designed for handling top secret communications has been developed by Boeing.

If the phone is tampered with, it automatically deletes any data and renders itself inoperable.

Better known for its aeroplanes, the firm said it needed to help organisations get "trusted access to data to accomplish their missions".

The device, named Black, joins a growing range of high-security smartphones entering the market.

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, a similarly-titled Blackphone was announced, aimed more at businesses and consumers worried about private data.

Boeing already provides secure communications for US government officials - including the president.

Expandable

Boeing's Black is not intended for mainstream use - and does not yet have a price or release date.

The device took 36 months to produce, the company said, and has drawn on expertise from recent acquisitions of companies specialising in mobile technologies.

Product specifications posted on Boeing's website state that the device contains two SIM cards to allow switching between government and commercial networks.

The smartphone runs a heavily-customised version of Google's Android operating system and Boeing has added its own branded security apps.

But where Black goes beyond typical mobile security is in physical enhancements to the hardware itself.

"There are no serviceable parts on Boeing's Black phone and any attempted servicing or replacing of parts would destroy the product," the company explained in documents sent to the Federal Communications Commission.

"The Boeing Black phone is manufactured as a sealed device both with [extremely strong glue] epoxy around the casing and with screws, the heads of which are covered with tamper-proof covering to identify attempted disassembly.

"Any attempt to break open the casing of the device would trigger functions that would delete the data and software contained within the device and make the device inoperable."

Furthermore, the phone's hardware can be expanded to include biometric sensors, satellite receivers or solar panels.

'Risk off' in markets as Ukraine tensions heighten

                

Tensions in Ukraine and muscle flexing by Russia accentuated risk aversion in global markets on Thursday, with investors once again rushing for safe havens.

European markets were firmly "risk off" on Thursday, closing lower. Investors instead opted for safe havens like sovereign bonds and the U.S. dollar. The yield on the 10-year benchmark German bund has fallen to 1.563 percent this week from 1.688 percent. The greenback held near a two-week high against a basket of major currencies on Thursday, weighing on commodities such as oil. Wall Streetopened higher and U.S. Treasury yields also ticked lower.

Heightening tensions in Ukraine are seen as the key driver, with the focus now turning to Crimea, a peninsula in the south of the country home to an ethnic Russian majority.

Tensions in the Ukraine have increased in the area after fierce battles in Kiev last week. The capital has fallen into the hands of various pro-European opposition parties, with a new government pieced together on Wednesday evening. Former economy minister Arseny Yatseniuk was appointed the country's new prime minister on Thursday afternoon.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin dispatched the Russian army to Ukraine's borders for a military exercise and Reuters reported on Thursday, citing Interfax, that fighter jets along Russia's western borders have been put on high alert.

Ukraine's interim leader responded by calling on Moscow to keep its troops confined to their Crimean naval base.

Russia's rouble fell to a five year-low on Thursday amid this defiant response by Moscow. Stocks on Russia's MICEX 10 Index, which were trading higher earlier on Thursday fell sharply following the news. At around 2:30 p.m. local time they traded 2 percent lower.

Russia's Foreign Ministry has said that it will defend the rights of its compatriots in Crimea in a "strong and uncompromising" manner, according to Reuters. The United States has warned Russia that it would be a "grave mistake" to intervene militarily and has issued plans to provide Ukraine with $1 billion in loan guarantees.

Qantas to cut 5,000 jobs

Calling recent financial losses "an unacceptable and unsustainable result," Qantas CEO Alan Joyce announced Wednesday the airline will cut 5,000 positions over the next three years.

Joyce also said the Australian-based carrier would sell or defer the order of 50 planes as it tried to realize $2 billion Australian in savings by 2017.

About 1,500 of the job reductions will be in management and nonoperational roles. Other cuts will come as the result of changes to the fleet of airplanes and as some routes are taken off the schedule.
"We have already made tough decisions and nobody should doubt that there are more ahead," Joyce said.

The CEO put some of the blame on Virgin Australia, which has increased its flights in Australia since 2011 and has the advantage of an "uneven playing field."

"The Australian domestic market has been distorted by current Australian aviation policy," he said.He also cited record fuel costs and economic volatility.

Joyce told investors that Qantas lost $252 million Australian in six months. The airline employs 33,000 people, according to the company website. About 93% of them are based in Australia.

Spain's Yoigo Signs Up 4 Millionth Customer

                                        

TeliaSonera's subsidiary in Spain Yoigo says that it has reached 4 million subscribers.

Yoigo was launched in December 2006 and became cash flow positive in 2012. At year end 2013 Yoigo reached 3.89 million subscribers, a 5 percent increase on year end 2012.

In a challenging economic climate Yoigo also surpassed the billion euro sales mark, billing 1.095 million euros, an increase of 12 percent compared to 2012.

"Yoigo has challenged the large players in the Spanish market and has established its brand well. It has great potential for further development," says Johan Dennelind, president and CEO of TeliaSonera.

TeliaSonera had tried selling the company, but a lack of suitable bids meant the company decided to cancel the sale last April. More recently, France's Orange was suggested to be eyeing the company as a possible acquisition target

Russia's MTS Gets Ratings Outlook Upgrade

                                   

Fitch Ratings has revised the outlook on Russia's Mobile Telesystems' MTS Long Term debt rating to Positive from Stable and affirmed the rating at 'BB '. The improvement reflects the revision of the outlook on its controlling shareholder Sistema to Positive.

Fitch noted that MTS is a leading Russian and CIS mobile operator with modest leverage and strong free cash flow generation. It is the largest operator in Russia and the second-largest in Ukraine by subscribers.

On a standalone basis, MTS's credit profile is commensurate with a low investment grade rating. MTS's ratings are notched down for the negative influence of Sistema, MTS's majority shareholder. Under Fitch's methodology, a subsidiary can be generally rated maximum two notches above its parent if the parent-subsidiary linkage is weak.

Robust FCF Generation

MTS sustainably generates positive free cash flow (FCF). Capex as a percentage of revenue has been high (well above 20%) inflated by 3G, and more recently, LTE spending in Russia. Fitch expects this ratio to drop in the medium to long term, but stabilise at a higher level than MTS's European peers, due to lower ARPU.

MNP Not A Threat

The introduction of mobile number portability (MNP) in Russia in 2014 is unlikely to put MTS in a disadvantaged position. Fitch said that it believes that the hardest hit will be operators in the middle, with the lowest priced and market leaders including MTS potentially benefiting from the regulatory change.

Telefonica Beats Expectations with Strong Fourth-Quarter Financials (Spain)

                                                

Spain's Telefonica has reported its fourth quarter financial results as the company topped analyst expectations thanks to cost cutting efforts and debt reduction.

Fourth quarter profits more than tripled over the past year, although that was mainly due to write-offs last year not being repeated again.

The company posted net profits of EUR1.45 billion (US$1.98 billion) as compared to a profit of EUR473 million a year ago. Analysts had expected a profit of around EUR1.2 billion.

Revenues however fell by just under 9 percent to EUR14.43 billion, mainly due to currency fluctuations. Sales at its Latin American division would have risen by 10 percent without the currency changes.

Net debt also fell to EUR45.4 billion, below its self-imposed target of cutting it to EUR47 billion. The company also said that it would now slow down the debt repayment to EUR43 billion this year, which indicates that it might be looking at some acquisitions in the expected consolidation of the European telecoms market.

Yesterday, the company said it would cut costs by another EUR1.5 billion, although the timeframe for that was not specified.

Telefónica's Chairman, César Alierta, pointed out that the Company will accelerate its transformation in 2014: "Among our targets, we will continue accelerating revenue growth and, at the same time, we will increase investments to anticipate to the growing demand from the increasingly intensive data service usage, as well as the recovery of demand expected in some of our main markets".

Telefonica ended the year with a global customer base of 323.1 million, up by 2% over the year. Of the total, 254.7 million are mobile subscribers.

The company has a stock market market capitalization of around EUR52 billion.

Hong Kong's Three to Test Split Billing for BYOD Users

                                               

Hong Kong based mobile network operator Three is to offer a split billing service that can separate personal from business usage when made using Samsung smartphones.

The service is a tie in with Samsung's Knox platform.

Enterprises will be able to remotely configure and manage split billing of their employees' Samsung Galaxy devices. They can also choose which applications they want to include into their billing. This allows them to seamlessly enable and operate split billing without the need for end-user intervention.

"We are delighted to support the Samsung Knox platform and that 3 Hong Kong is proposed to be the first operator in the world to conduct Proof of Concept (PoC) and trials to develop 'split billing management' to cater for customer needs," said Daniel Chung, Chief Technology Officer of 3 Hong Kong. 

The Split Billing Solution of Samsung Knox will send out two bills, one on corporate usage and one on personal usage, to 3 Hong Kong enterprise customers who have subscribed to Knox services with supporting Samsung devices.

Samsung and 3 Hong Kong are starting a pilot programme to put the systems needed into place for end-to-end integration and interoperability. With this feature, Samsung and 3 Hong Kong are providing enterprises with a key piece of the puzzle needed to implement and manage an effective Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy.

Ukrainian currency hits 10-year low!

Ukraine's currency, the hryvnia, has fallen to a new low of 10 to the US dollar.

The currency's decline reflects political upheavals and longer-term persistent economic weakness.

But it is also likely to aggravate those underlying problems and adds to Ukraine's need for international financial assistance.

The pressure is on the West and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help, as Russia seems unlikely to.

Even before the recent political upheavals, Ukraine's economic performance was dismal. The economy is still smaller than it was in 1992, in the early days of post-Soviet independence.

'Currency slide'

But the political crisis has aggravated the country's long standing problems and the falling value of the currency is one of the consequences.

And it has been a sharp fall, 18% so far this month alone. The central bank has been making some efforts to stem the decline, by using its foreign exchange reserves to buy hryvnia.

At best, it has slowed the loss of value, but at the expense of running those reserves down to dangerously low levels.

One rough and ready rule sometimes used is that a country should have enough reserves to pay for three months of imports.

Airbus to step up A320 plane production

Europe's largest aerospace group, Airbus, has announced a rise in full-year profits and says it will increase output of its A320 jets.

Net income rose 21% to 3.6bn euros ($5bn; £3bn) in 2013, a year when Airbus delivered a record 626 planes. Revenues rose 5% to 59.3bn euros.

Airbus said it expected to deliver a similar number of planes this year.

It also announced it would increase production of its A320 jets to 46 planes a month from 42 by 2016.

"Based on the healthy market outlook for our best-selling A320 family and following a comprehensive assessment of our supply chain's readiness to ramp-up, we are ready to go to rate 46 by Q2 2016," said Tom Williams of Airbus.

"With a record backlog of over 4,200 A320 family aircraft... we have a solid case to increase our monthly output to satisfy our customers' requirement for more of our fuel efficient aircraft."

Airbus also said it would deliver its first A350 jet to Qatar Airways before the end of the year.

It predicted that commercial aircraft orders would remain above delivery levels, and said it expected group revenues to remain stable.

Last month, Airbus's main rival Boeing said that it expected to deliver 715-725 aircraft this year, which would be an increase of at least 10% from 2013.

But at the same time, the US aerospace giant warned that future revenues and profits would be lower than analysts had forecast.

Aggressive T-Mobile losing money, adding customers

                             
                                      T-Mobile President and CEO John Legere speaks at the 2013 International Consumer 
                                      Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

T-Mobile got aggressive in 2013, positioning itself as the "UnCarrier" and actively courting customers of other mobile providers to switch.
According to the company, it's working -- at least in terms of adding new customers.The fourth-largest mobile carrier in the United States was also the fastest-growing in 2013, adding 4.4 million customers, T-Mobile said Tuesday during a quarterly call with investors.
"What a year it's been," CEO John Legere said. "We've been extremely busy."

More than 1.6 million of those new customers arrived in the last three months of the 2013 fiscal year, marking the third quarter in a row that T-Mobile added more than 1 million paying users.But it was also the third quarter in a row that the company lost money: $20 million, this time. That reflects the money T-Mobile is spending to attract new users and expand its network, as well as some of the less-expensive plans it's offering to lure all those new customers.

Not surprisingly, Legere and other T-Mobile brass weren't emphasizing that part on Tuesday. Instead, they cited the growth numbers again and again. And they do mark a turnaround from the 256,000 customers T-Mobile lost in 2012.

Under Legere's brash leadership, the company has taken some unconventional tacks to lure business.In January, T-Mobile offered to pay up to $650 towards customers' early termination fees with other carriers if they switch. (Of course, that was a response to AT&T targeting T-Mobile customers with a similar deal).

It rolled out Jump, a program that lets customers upgrade phones twice a year for a small monthly fee, and announced new plans that don't require an annual contract.

And it didn't hurt that, last March, T-Mobile became an approved carrier for the iPhone for the first time."We changed the way this industry operates and customers responded," Legere said.While acknowledging that the highest number of customer defections came from AT&T, the No.1 carrier in the United States, T-Mobile declined to give more detailed figures."We're not trying to be too cute about where the customers are coming from," Legere said. "That's not something we're going to get into anymore. As (mobile carriers) are all getting highly competitive, we're not going to give a further road map of where they're coming from."

T-Mobile also expanded its 4G LTE network in 2013. It now covers 209 million people and is in 95 of the top 100 metro areas in the U.S. The company has plans to further expand in 2014, eventually covering more than 250 million potential customers.

PayPal to Enable Fingerprint Authorisation for Payments Using Samsung Smartphone

                           

Paypal has announced that Samsung's Galaxy S5 smartphone will be the first to be able to login and shop at any merchant that accepts PayPal on mobile and in stores with only their fingerprint The new secure biometric feature means Galaxy S5 users will no longer need to remember passwords or login details across millions of PayPal merchants

PayPal will be the first global payments company to support Samsung's mobile fingerprint authentication technology.

"We spearheaded the Fast IDentity Online Alliance last year and predicted that the industry would soon move beyond passwords, and this announcement brings us one step closer to that reality," said Hill Ferguson, Chief Product Officer for PayPal. "With a simple swipe of a finger, consumers can still securely log into their PayPal account to shop and pay with the convenience that mobile devices afford."

PayPal provides a secure wallet in the cloud and doesn't store personal information on the device. Customers can use their finger to pay with PayPal from their new Galaxy S5 because the FIDO Ready software on the device securely communicates between the fingerprint sensor on their device and PayPal's service in the cloud.

The only information the device shares with PayPal is a unique encrypted key that allows PayPal to verify the identity of the customer without having to store any biometric information on PayPal's servers.

Starting in April, PayPal fingerprint authentication on theSamsung Galaxy S5 will be available in 26 markets globally, including Australia, Brazil, Hong Kong, Russia, UK and USA