Tablets with paper-thin screens that can be folded and tucked into your back pocket, artificial intelligence and augmented reality — the stuff of science fiction may be coming to a store near you.
Some researchers are experimenting with wearable devices, such as Google Glass, a stamp-sized electronic screen mounted on eyeglass frames to record video, access email and surf the Web. Others, like Microsoft, are investigating the use of 3-D cameras to create images that pop up when a person calls. Samsung has a concept video that shows a bendable, transparent 3-D smartphone-hybrid tablet that can also be used as a real-time interpreter.
Few of these new technologies will hit store shelves any time soon - companies and researchers are more actively working on touchscreen innovations in the near term.
Why did Facebook buy Instagram for $1 billion?
The price was stunning for an apps-maker without any significant revenue, even when measured by the lofty standards of Silicon Valley, where startup valuations have soared in recent years. It highlights the rising stakes in the social networking market in which services such as Facebook need to constantly excite consumers with new features and mobile applications.
By acquiring Instagram - in a deal announced days after the startup closed a funding round that valued it at $500 million - Facebook may also have sought to absorb a potential rival or at least prevent it from falling into the hands of a major competitor like Twitter or Google Inc.
“Anytime you see a social platform that’s growing that quickly, that’s got to be cause to be nervous,” said Paul Buchheit, a partner at the start-up incubator program Y Combinator and a co-founder of FriendFeed, which Facebook acquired in 2009.
“It would be better to have bought Twitter at this stage,” he said of Facebook. “So if you’re thinking this could be the next Twitter, it could be a smart thing to do.”
READ MORE: Facebook acquires two-year-old app Instagram
PHOTOS: Inside Facebook’s new Menlo Park, California HQ
REUTERS TV: Instagram may not be Facebook’s last big purchase
Josh Buckley, chief executive of an online gaming start-up, is looking forward to next month’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, particularly for the parties and the accompanying schmoozing with industry A-listers.
There’s one problem: Buckley, who will turn 20 this week on February 22, may be turned away from many of the parties because he is not old enough to drink. His fake ID was recently confiscated, and the two new ones he ordered from a company in China have not yet arrived.
Such are the dilemmas facing the ever-younger entrepreneurs that Silicon Valley investors are backing these days. While little data on the phenomenon exists, venture capitalists say they are funding more chief executives under age 21 than ever before.
Read more: Meet the adolescent CEOs of Silicon Valley
Silicon Alley in New York City has experienced a boom even as economic worries persist.
Reuters Social Media Editor Anthony De Rosa heads into the heart of Silicon Alley to unearth the secrets to success of three of the hottest young tech companies.
Graphic: Who has the most stake in Facebook.
Analysis: A sobering look at Facebook
Facebook unveiled plans for the biggest ever Internet IPO that could raise as much as $10 billion, but made it clear CEO Mark Zuckerberg will exercise almost complete control over the company, leaving investors with little say.
The Harvard dropout, who launched the social networking phenomenon from his dorm room, will control 56.9 percent of the voting shares in a company expected to be valued at up to $100 billion when it goes public. Facebook says it has 845 million active monthly users.
Read more: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to keep iron grip after IPO
Facebook filed for its hotly anticipated initial public offering on Wednesday, setting the stage for Silicon Valley’s largest-ever IPO.
The world’s largest social network, a dorm room project for Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg that exploded in popularity and vaulted to Silicon Valley’s top tier within 8 years , submitted preliminary IPO documents to the Securities Exchange Commission after weeks of frenzied speculation.
Read more: Facebook files for mega-IPO
Apple’s Steve Jobs directly asked former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt in 2007 to stop trying to recruit an Apple engineer, according to a court filing.
In 2010, Google, Apple, Adobe Systems, Intel, Intuit Inc and Walt Disney Co’s Pixar unit agreed to a settlement of a Justice Department probe that bars them from agreeing to refrain from poaching each other’s employees.
Silicon Valley calls the help desk on Volcker rule
Dave Clarke for Reuters - Silicon Valley Bank is warning that the Volcker rule could hit the venture capital community it serves and deal a blow to startup companies critical to innovation and job creation.
“People can quibble about what’s the right amount of capital flowing into startups but we would say let investors decide that, and policies shouldn’t artificially get in the way,” said Mary Dent, SVB’s general counsel.
