PROVEN RESULTS

Dick Costolo’s credibility is on the line.

Twitter Inc.’s chief executive officer failed to foresee a slowdown that forced the social-media company to miss analysts’ first-quarter revenue estimates and cut its 2015 sales forecast, and the stock slumped 18 percent.

While this isn’t the first time Twitter has fallen short on promised results, investors had been told that new features and services, as well as a management overhaul, were starting to pay off. Now, with results missing projections and executives warning of a “slow start” to April user additions, analysts are asking whether Twitter’s potential market is limited and about management’s ability to lure more users and advertisers.

“Management will again have to address credibility concerns,” Mark Mahaney, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, wrote in a note to investors. The quarter’s performance “raises the question of how much visibility into advertiser and consumer demand for its offerings Twitter really has,” he said.

Even after introducing new products and features to attract more people, growth in the number of monthly active members decelerated as the number of users rose 18 percent to 302 million in the latest quarter, compared with 20 percent in the prior period, Twitter said in a statement Tuesday.

Twitter fell $9.39 to $42.27 at the close in New York. The stock traded at the equivalent of $41.90 as of 8:35 a.m. in Frankfurt.

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Apple sold 61.2m iPhones in first three months of 2015, reporting revenues of $58bn as strong sales from China propelled the tech company to another record quarter.

The Californian tech giant was aided by strong sales of the new iPhone 6 and the larger iPhone 6 Plus in China during February’s Chinese New Year. Analysts polled by Bloomberg had expected Apple to sell 58.1m iPhones and for the company to report revenues of $56bn. The number far exceeded the 43.7m iPhones that Apple sold in the same period a year ago.

Revenue from China rose 71% to $16.82bn. That compares with $21.3bn in the Americas region, which was up 19%. Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, has previously predicted that China will become Apple’s largest market.

“We are thrilled by the continued strength of iPhone, Mac and the App Store, which drove our best March quarter results ever,” said Cook, announcing the company’s latest quarterly results after US stock markets had closed. “We’re seeing a higher rate of people switching to iPhone than we’ve experienced in previous cycles, and we’re off to an exciting start to the June quarter with the launch of Apple Watch.”

On a call with analysts Cook said the company had an “incredible quarter” in China driven in large part by iPhone sales. Sales of Macs rose 31% in China. Cook said the company had benefitted from an expansion its physical retail and online presence in the country.

“I’ve never seen as many people coming into the middle class as I have in China and that is where the bulk of our sales are going,” he said.

With a net operating profit of $13.6bn, a 33% increase, the only fly in the ointment is the continued decline of iPad sales, off year-over-year for the second quarter running as smartphones with larger screens – including the 6 Plus – become more widely adopted.

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Android Lollipop 5.0 was supposed to change everything. It was supposed to inspire a revolution, a better—and better looking—Android. Instead it was a little disappointing, starting with a slow rollout, and followed by a motley parade of bugs.

At least now there's Android 5.1, and it’s so much better—at least, according to the lucky few users who have it on their devices. Google fixed a ton of bugs, and it also pushed through a few new helpful features that should have been bundled with Lollipop from the start. Here are five best new features of Lollipop 5.1.

Better WiFi and Bluetooth controls

When Lollipop first arrived on the scene, the Quick Settings in the Notifications shade were limited. You had to tap to navigate away to the Settings panel to get anything done, even if you simply wanted to switch Wi-Fi networks.

But with Android 5.1, you can now choose a wireless network or Bluetooth profile right from within the drop-down panel. All you have to do is tap an arrow to expand the listing.

Better Sound profiles

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve overslept because of Lollipop’s ridiculously limited sound profiles. Android 5.1 now lets you set your phone to silent—or the "None" setting—until your next alarm, so you don’t have to worry about missing a meeting the next morning. The only caveat is that the alarm has to be set for no more than 12 hours ahead of time, otherwise Lollipop won’t offer the option.

Better device protection

Phone theft is still a rampant issue, so Android 5.1 has a few new device protection features. The most powerful of the bunch prevents a thief from factory-resetting the phone without the password for the Google profile used previously on the device.

Note that this feature is available only on the Nexus 6, Nexus 9, and new Android 5.1 devices.

Notifications can be flicked away

Lollipop’s little drop-down Notifications are nice at times, but the options to dismiss them were limiting. You could either wait until it disappeared, tap on it to launch the app, or swipe it away and dismiss it entirely. Now you can flick it up to shoo the notification back to the Notification drawer without dismissing it entirely. It’s a minor touch, but it makes managing your notifications much easier.

No more crappy Wi-Fi connections

This is our favorite new feature of Android 5.1: if your device connects to a Wi-Fi network with poor or no Internet access, it'll remember that and never connect to it again. This is great if you’re traveling or you’re trying to leech off of free Wi-Fi connections.

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The economic costs of Nepal's devastating earthquake, which has claimed the lives of at least 3,200 people so far and injured thousands more, could exceed $5 billion, equivalent to 20 percent of the impoverished nation's gross domestic product (GDP), says IHS.

"With the death toll and total casualty estimates from the Nepal earthquake rising rapidly, the economic impact on the nation is severe," said Rajiv Biswas, chief economist, Asia-Pacific at IHS wrote in a note.

"The total long-term cost of reconstruction in Nepal using appropriate building standards for regions vulnerable to severe earthquakes could exceed $5 billion," he said.

A powerful earthquake measuring 7.8-magnitude struck an area between the capital, Kathmandu, and the city of Pokhara, around midday on Saturday, collapsing buildings and homes, toppling centuries-old cultural monuments, severely cracking roads and damaging communications infrastructure.

"The standard of housing construction in Nepal is extremely low, which is why the damage to buildings has been extremely severe," Biswas noted.

As a poverty-stricken nation, Nepal's capacity to fund disaster relief and long-term reconstruction efforts is extremely limited, said Biswas.

Nepal's per capita GDP stood at $694 in 2013, according to the World Bank, compared with $1,497 in neighboring India and $ 6,807 in China.

"A coordinated international disaster relief and long-term reconstruction program will need to be funded by bilateral assistance from donor nations and development financing agencies under the coordinated management of multilateral institutions such as the United Nations," he said.

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