In today’s Bulldog wrapup of technology news:

  • IBM’s BlueMix and Watson analytics are analyzing Twitter
  • Cree boosts its commitment to Habitat for Humanity
  • T-Mobile targets small businesses
  • Yahoo exits China
  • Watch our for lots more from those Line app emoticons

The details:

  • IBM analytics target Twitter

IBM is boosti9ng its partnership with Twitter, offering BlueMix and Watson analytics to help customers make more sense of data produced in social media. BlueMix is IBM’s emerging developer platform.

“Twitter is now fully available as one of those services so if you have a desire to build an application that integrates and works around Twitter data you can now do that in a very contemporary environment,” IBM general manager for analytics, Alistair Rennie, told Techworld.

​Read more at: http://www.channelworld.in/news/ibm-boosts-bluemix-and-watson-analytics-with-twitter-integration#sthash.BjUgFTQe.dpuf

  • Cree expands Habitat for Humanity commitment

Durham-based Cree is boosting its commitment to Habitat for Humanity by offering Cree LED bulbs for Habitat-built homes in the U.S. Cree offered downlights to Habitat beginning in 2010.

“As part of our mission to drive 100 percent adoption of energy-efficient LED lighting, Cree’s goal has always been to deliver LED solutions that save energy and fundamentally improve the overall lighting environment,” said Betty Noonan, Cree chief marketing officer. “The addition of the Cree LED Bulb portfolio to our collaboration further supports Habitat’s efforts to create affordable, sustainable homes, while enabling homeowners to greatly reduce their energy usage for decades without sacrificing the light quality.”

More than 3,000 Habitat-built homes have Cree dowlights,

“We are grateful to partner with companies like Cree that are helping Habitat serve families in need of affordable housing through product donations that can lower homeowners’ daily living expenses,” said Jonathan Reckford, CEO, Habitat for Humanity International. “Extending Cree’s current commitment to include the Cree® LED Bulb furthers our efforts to build sustainable communities across the country.”

  • T-Mobile turns its focus to small businesses with new offers

​T-Mobile wants to change how businesses buy phones and wireless services — two years after it changed how consumers do so.

T-Mobile says its new business plans are about simplicity, with rates based solely on how many lines and how much data the company needs. The company believes its new plans will be particularly attractive to smaller businesses without staff trained to negotiate rates with larger carriers.

“Anybody can figure out the cost,” John Legere, T-Mobile’s CEO, told The Associated Press. “At the counter, on the phone, in two minutes, we can tell you exactly how much.”

T-Mobile is also offering new deals for the families of those who use its business plans, along with a pledge to pay the balance of phone-installment plans for those switching from other rivals.

Two years ago this month, the Bellevue, Washington, company shattered a long-standing industry practice of tying consumers to two-year service contracts in exchange for phone discounts. Customers now pay full price for phones in installments, and the company no longer inflates rates for voice, text and data services to make up for those phone discounts. Verizon, AT&T and Sprint now have no-contract plans, too.

Since then, T-Mobile also has introduced free data roaming abroad and programs for upgrading phones more frequently.

The programs have helped T-Mobile US Inc., the nation’s No. 4 wireless carrier, gain more than 4 million phone customers in the lucrative “postpaid” plans last year. Postpaid customers tend to have better credit and pay for service at the end of the billing cycle rather than in advance.

  • Yahoo closing last China operation in Beijing

Yahoo Inc. is closing its Beijing research and development center and leaving China in a new cost-cutting move.

The company said Thursday the Beijing office’s functions would be consolidated in other locations. It gave no details of how many people would lose their jobs but said they would be “treated with respect and fairness.”

The Sunnyvale, California-based company has cut jobs elsewhere in a sweeping corporate overhaul as it tries to catch up with Internet users who have shifted to using smartphones and tablets instead of laptop and desktop computers.

Yahoo turned over control of its China operations to its partner Alibaba Group in 2005 as part of a corporate tie-up. Yahoo stopped offering services in China in 2013.

  • Big in Asia, Line app hopes cute factor will win worldwide

Mickey Mouse, Hello Kitty: Move over. And make way for laidback Brown bear and his irrepressible girlfriend Cony the bunny.

Once just digital stickers that users of mobile messaging app Line send to each other like emoticons, the bear, the bunny and their seven friends will soon be unleashed through stores, virtual reality and possibly an animated film.

For smartphone users in Asia where most of Line’s 181 million monthly users are located, the characters are as familiar as old school icons such as Hello Kitty and Disney’s animated stars. They are not well known in America or Europe but owner LineCorp. hopes to change that.

It plans to open 100 stores selling Brown dolls and other cute “Line Friends” paraphernalia worldwide over the next three years. It has already opened two stores in Seoul and its first Shanghai and New York stores will open this year.