Corporate and legal

Google drops cash into Lending Club for minority interest

Google has dropped a significant investment into loan-pairing company Lending Club, the companies announced today.

Lending Club announced today that Google has invested in its operation to take a minority stake in the company. Lending Club didn't say exactly how much Google invested, but did say that it was part of a $125 million round of financing. Google and another investor, Foundation Capital, acquired shares from existing investors.

Since its founding in 2007, Lending Club has been growing significantly. The company facilitates loan transactions between those who need cash and those who are willing to dole it out. Lending … Read more

Intel's next CEO: Manufacturing chief Brian Krzanich

Intel has named Chief Operating Officer Brian Krzanich as its next CEO to succeed Paul Otellini as head of the chip giant in a couple weeks.

In addition, Intel appointed Renee James to the role of president. She previously served as the executive vice president overseeing Intel's software and services group.

Krzanich joined the Santa Clara, Calif., company in 1982 and has worked in many different technical areas since that time. He now runs the company's manufacturing operations and also oversees supply chain, human resources, and information technology operations following his appointment as chief operating officer in January … Read more

J.C. Penney apologizes for former Apple exec's moves

J.C. Penney has launched a new ad campaign apologizing for the decisions made under Ron Johnson, its former chief executive and Apple's one-time retail chief.

The new ad, posted to YouTube, focuses people in different locations as a narrator acknowledges the company's recent mistakes that left customers unhappy and pushed revenue down billions of dollars.

"It's no secret, recently J.C. Penney changed," the narrator says over the ad. "Some changes you liked and some you didn't, but what matters from mistakes is what we learn. We learned a very simple thing: … Read more

Comeback kid? LG eyes break in U.S. with Optimus G Pro

When LG was developing its first phablet, known globally as the Optimus Vu but in the U.S. as the Intuition, the head of the mobile division, J.S. Park, supposedly obsessed over the slide-top mechanism that covered the charging port, sending back prototype after prototype to his designers.

One was too fast, one was too loose, and another was too slow, according to a story related by James Fishler, head of marketing for LG's U.S. division, one he characterized as LG folklore. Park was convinced that the little detail was an important detail that consumers would focus … Read more

HTC Q1 profit plunges 98 percent, despite HTC One launch

The HTC One launched too late to save the Taiwanese company's first-quarter results.

Net profit for the handset maker tumbled to NT$85 million ($2.85 million) from NT$4.5 billion ($152 million) a year ago, a drop of 98 percent.

It's the company's lowest quarterly profit since 2004. Revenue plunged too, to NT$42.8 billion from NT$67.8 billion, the company confirmed in Thursday's earnings call.

The company did not reveal how many units of the HTC One it has so far sold, but said it expected revenues to jump in the … Read more

Dish chairman slams SoftBank over Sprint takeover comments

Dish Network Chairman Charlie Ergen is ratcheting up the war of words with SoftBank over who is the better suitor for Sprint Nextel.

After SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son referred to Dish's unsolicited $25.5 billion bid to buy Sprint from under the Japanese carrier as "incomplete and illusory," Ergen reiterated earlier arguments that a U.S. buyer would be best for the troubled wireless carrier.

"We're offering a higher price. That's just math," he told USA Today on Wednesday. "We are an American company, and the modernization of Sprint's network will … Read more

Google Glass reportedly says no way to cussing

Cursing, swearing, profanity, bad words, expletives, four-letter words... Google Glass reportedly doesn't want any part of it.

Apparently, if users say any of this foul language while wearing the Google's augmented reality headset, the device simply won't recognize those words, according to Geekwire. And, there's reportedly no way to turn this filter off at this time.

This isn't Google's first foray into censoring swear words. In fact, according to Geekwire, the no-profanity policy reaches throughout most all of Google's products and software that use the voice-to-text translation engine.

When the tech giant debuted … Read more

Yahoo acquires to-do app Astrid

Yahoo's app spending spree continued Thursday with the acquisition of to-do app Astrid.

The to-do-list and task management app "will continue to work as is" for the next 90 days but will not accept new premium subscriptions, Astrid CEO Jon Paris said in a company blog post announcing the acquisition. Terms of the acquisition were not revealed.

"To make future changes as easy as possible, we'll be in touch with users shortly to share how to download data," Paris wrote in the blog, adding that Yahoo would issue refunds to eligible users who have … Read more

T-Mobile-compatible phones coming to MetroPCS stores

T-Mobile will begin selling phones compatible with its network at MetroPCS stores later this quarter, according to T-Mobile Chief Marketing Officer Mike Sievert.

The goal is to sell only T-Mobile-compatible phones at MetroPCS stores by the end of the year. The move will help accelerate the migration of customers from the MetroPCS network to that of T-Mobile, Sievert told CNET on Wednesday.

T-Mobile was reborn today, appearing for the first time under the ticker TMUS as an independent and U.S.-based publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. This follows the company's merger with MetroPCS. The … Read more