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Economy

Europe’s Best-Kept Secret: A Tax Haven For Rock Stars And Starbucks To Stash Earnings

Bono, Bowie, and the Rolling Stones, not to mention Apple, Google and Microsoft keep an address in the Netherlands, which doesn’t tax profits by foreigners. What do locals say?

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In The News

Google Glass, Chinese-Style: Here Comes ‘Baidu Eye’

SINA (China) MASHABLE (US) Worldcrunch BEIJING – Internet giant Baidu has made billions following in Google’s footsteps in China’s emerging online market. Now, after coming to dominate the Chinese online search business, Baidu is right on the heels of the rollout of Google Glass, with its own interactive eyewear, reports Sina Tech. Though still in […]

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Society

April Fool’s Day – Be Forewarned, Especially Online

Welcome to the international day of distrust for everything and everyone you know. As we are coming to discover, April Fool’s Day was both made for the Internet — and made for the Internet to eventually destroy. Here are some of this year’s early entries: 1) Google Nose Pick your smell, get your nose against […]

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Geopolitics

Deadly Sectarian Clashes In Burma Coincide With Visit By Google’s Schmidt

AFP, BBC, IRRAWADDY (Burma), REUTERS Worldcrunch MEIKTILA– Burmese sectarian violence has turned deadly, as angry mobs rioted in the streets and at least five people have been reported killed in the central city of Meiktila. The BBC cites a death toll of 20 by Friday morning, though the Myanmar government has only confirmed five fatalities […]

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Future

Today’s Top Stories As Told By GIFs – Thank You Google!

Worldcrunch MOUNTAIN VIEW – Google has made it easier to search for GIFs and other animations on their Google image search engine. Enter your search term into Google images, click the search tools button and under Any Type, click animations on the drop down menu – voilà! In celebration of this, here are some of […]

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Future

European Academics Launch Petition To Protect Personal Data From “Huge Lobby”

LES ECHOS (France), EU OBSERVER (Belgium), BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP (USA), WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM, DATA PROTECTION IN EUROPE Worldcrunch BRUSSELS – This week, more than 90 leading academics across Europe launched a petition to support the European Commission’s draft data protection regulation, reports the EU Observer. The online petition, entitled Data Protection in Europe, says “huge […]

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Economy

Fair-Trade Smartphones For The Geek With A Conscience

BARCELONA – Bas van Abel brought a novel idea to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The 35-year-old Dutch entrepreneur is currently at work, with ten others, on the first “FairTrade” smartphone – a phone that will contain no gold mined in war zones, will not be assembled in a soulless Chinese factory, and will […]

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Future

Hackers Black Market: Selling System Flaws And Fixes To The Highest Bidder

PARIS – In 140 characters of hacker jargon, French security company Vupen tweeted on Oct. 30, 2012 that they had discovered a security flaw in Windows 8 and that they were selling it to the highest bidder. Our first 0day for Win8+IE10 with HiASLR/AntiROP/DEP & Prot Mode sandbox bypass (Flash not needed) is ready for […]

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Geopolitics

Meet The German Jazz Pianist Selling Spy Software To Totalitarian Regimes

MUNICH – It’s all so simple in the 1998 Disney movie Mulan. The heroine disguised as a boy joins the Chinese military to fight the enemy – armies of shadowy, faceless Huns that darken the horizon. Classic good versus evil. Martin Münch says he knows who the bad guys are, and that he’s one of […]

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Society

Literary Revolutionary – Get Paid For Finishing An E-Book

PARIS – Kevin Kelly is a stimulating iconoclast. How many books are bought but not read? Probably many more than we think. Hence the idea of paying readers who read a book from the beginning to the end. Kevin Kelly thought about patenting his idea, but, since ideas don’t necessarily make a project, he decided […]

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Future

Facebook v. Google – A New Edge In All-Out War For Digital Advertising

Facebook is the upstart, Google is the grizzled veteran — and still the powerhouse — in the massive battle for online advertising dollars. But when the cash register rings, who gets the credit? That is the billion-dollar question in advertising these days—particularly in Internet advertising, where it’s easy to track clicks and links, but often […]

Categories
Economy

Irish Trade Minister: Internet Giants “Not Ethical” In Seeking Tax Havens

THE IRISH TIMES (Ireland), LA STAMPA (Italy), THE NEW YORK TIMES (U.S.A.) Worldcrunch DUBLIN – It’s such a simple system. You buy something and it is sent to you. What you don’t know is that the transaction is done through a company in Luxembourg that pays very little to the Grand Duchy and almost nothing […]

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Future

Welcome To “Silicon Prairie” – Google Ultra High-Speed Broadband Shakes Up Kansas City

KANSAS CITY- It looks like the typical American neighborhood home: a flag out front, a terrace with a rocking chair and a barbecue in the backyard. But this ordinary Kansas City street contains a hidden treasure. It’s one of the first places to have access to “Google Fiber,” the super-fast broadband that is 100 times […]

Categories
Future

Mobile-Ready: How Google Has Again Cornered The Market On Search

Thanks to Android boom and strategic mistakes at Microsoft, Bing search is even further behind Google on mobile devices.

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Geopolitics

Google’s Schmidt Tells North Korea Open Internet Is Key To Economy

THE GUARDIAN (UK), CBS NEWS (US) Worldcrunch After wrapping up an unusual and notably tight-lipped visit to North Korea, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt urged the Pyongyang regime on Thursday to open up to the Internet or risk the further economic consequences of isolation. “As the world is becoming increasingly connected, their decision to be virtually […]

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Geopolitics

Joining Richardson, Google’s Schmidt Begins “Personal” Visit To North Korea

ASSOCIATED PRESS, REUTERS, YONHAP NEWS (South Korea) Worldcrunch PYONGYANG – Google Chairman Eric Schmidt became the highest profile American corporate executive ever to visit North Korea, arriving Monday on a mission led by former US Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson, the Associated Press reports. Richardson, also a former governor of the state of […]

Categories
Economy

A Recipe For Old-World Publishers To Respond To Rise Of The E-Book

-Analysis- PARIS – Whether or not they pose a real threat to the traditional book publishing industry, e-books are indisputably the talk of the town. Still, few in the sector are able to fathom the full extent of the ongoing digital transformation, which is both far-reaching, yet still largely invisible. From booksellers to printers, everybody […]

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