Peter Löscher, Siemens’ CEO and president, said at a press briefing earlier this month that his company is investing €40 million in Russia with plans to set up as many as 90 different R&D centers in tight cooperation with Skolkovo. It is the first German company to put up a sizable amount of funds to …
Siemens unveils €40 million investment strategy for Russia Read More
The Internet Society (ISOC), a US-based non-profit organization that promotes Internet-related standards, education and policy, has opened its Russia Chapter to guide experts in the development and implementation of problem-solving strategies for the Russian Internet. In an interview with the news agency RIA Novosti, Sergei Sharikov, the CEO of Webnames.ru, a Russian domain name registry …
Internet Society’s Russia Chapter opened to promote free and useful Internet Read More
Facebook has augmented its base of mobile game developers by a hearty 17 times over the past six months, and the social network spends “more time with app developers in Russia than in any other country,” said Julien Codorniou, the head of partnerships at Facebook EMEA (Emerging Markets in Europe and Asia). In an exchange …
Facebook’s Codorniou: Russia’s mobile game advance “is virtually a tsunami” Read More
“Coercion to innovation” – a term coined by the Russian business media for the Medvedev cabinet’s policy of incentivizing Russian state-controlled businesses and overcoming their general non-receptiveness to modernization – has produced little result, and it is government coffers, not corporate ones, that have paid for most revamping. This is how Mikhail Gershman, a senior …
Russia’s state-controlled companies shy away from investing in R&D Read More
In a bid to promote legislative ideas and suggestions from Russian citizens, the Information Democracy Foundation (IDF), a government sponsored non-profit, last week launched the beta version of the Russian Public Initiative (RPI), a web platform inspired by the US “We the People” online petition system. “The implementation of RPI is the next step in …
E-democracy à la russe: Russians now have their own ‘We the People’ platform Read More
Russia’s leading social network, Vkontakte.ru (also known as VK.com), has cooperated with the FSB – the post-Soviet successor to the KGB – in manipulating user trust and disregarding its own privacy rules, charged opposition-minded daily Novaya Gazeta. In a denunciation that has galvanized opinions in Russia’s digital domain for the last ten days, Novaya accused …
VTB Capital, the investment arm of Russia’s VTB Group, has acquired a minority holding in National Satellite Company, Russia’s largest satellite TV operator working under the Tricolor TV brand name. While announcing the partnership this past Tuesday, the partners in the deal provided no financials, but said that with its growing Russian subscriber base of …
VTB Capital acquires minority stake in satellite TV operator Tricolor TV; IPO idea floated Read More
Last week Microsoft started the Russian rollout of Surface RT – which it describes as “a tablet with some laptop capabilities” – almost six months after the inaugural tablet premiered on its home turf and more than a month since the plans were first floated. Coming in 32GB and 64GB storage options with or without …
Surface RT debuts in Russia: high price, modest sales Read More
Russia’s central government has been the main promoter of the satellite-based GLONASS geolocation technology across the country, but local realities sometimes contradict Moscow’s spectacular nationwide plans. Transportation companies operating in Saratov, in the Lower Volga area, came across this duality recently when attempting the introduction of ERA-GLONASS, a real-time satellite-based service for reporting and responding …
Petr Mitrichev, a Russian programmer with a clutch of major global IT competition wins already under his belt, came out on top earlier this week at Facebook’s 3rd annual Hacker Cup international programming contest, notching his second personal Cup win and making the competition’s first prize Russian-only for a third year running. Mitrichev, a 28 …
Russian programmer wins Facebook Hacker Cup – again Read More
Mail.ru Group, a leading Russian Internet group, announced this past Friday the winners of its annual Best Gadget of the Year Award. The award event was hosted by Hi-Tech Mail.Ru, the group’s media project which collected users’ opinions on new tech solutions across digital sectors. With more than 2.3 million votes taken into account – …
Samsung’s smartphones and Apple’s tablets named “best gadgets of the year” Read More
Last week Huawei, a global China-based IT product and solution provider, inaugurated its Russian series of educational programs for telecom-related academia and markets by opening two pioneering Network Academies in Moscow and St. Petersburg, ComNews.ru reported. The new vocational training programs, hosted by Moscow’s MIREA University of Radio Engineering, Electronics and Automation and St. Petersburg’s …
