TC Roundup: Amazon opens store on Alibaba's online marketplace Tmall

Amazon opens store on Alibaba's online marketplace Tmall: Amazon has opened an online store on Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's fast-growing online marketplace, Tmall.com, as it seeks to expand in China, an Alibaba spokesman said.

Alibaba's Tmall offers virtual storefronts and payment portals to merchants. Several western retailers, including Zara owner Inditex, Britain's Burberry and ASOS, have joined Tmall this year as they look to boost their presence in China. (Recode)

What bubble? The U.S. IPO market has completely collapsed so far this year: Staring ever deeper into its own navel, Silicon Valley just can't stop talking about whether it's in a bubble.

If you're on the ground there, it can certainly seem that way. There's the endless parades of gigantic corporate shuttles clogging the roads, hiring at a frenzied pitch, partiespartiesparties, and venture capital flowing like vodka down a giant ice luge. (Venture Beat)

Is Apple Watch the Timex digital watch of the Internet era?: The 1970s were all about how disappointing the future could be.

Science fiction really started to find its way in the 1930s, and by the 1950s and early 1960s the world was starting to look like a futuristic comic book. Everything from roadside eateries to motor homes took on flowing shapes in burnished chrome.

Stanley Kubrick's 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey made space look both unbearably cool and unremarkably mundane. Going to travel to a space station? You fly Pan Am, just the way you always have. Time to call home to wish your kid a happy birthday, pop into the nearest video phone booth — AT&T, of course. (Reuters)

Tech startups bloom in Gulf as states try diversifying from oil: By day, Farah Al Qaissieh is employed at a government agency in the United Arab Emirates. By night, she works as chief executive officer of her fledging company, Xenia. (Bloomberg)

Xiaomi plans to sell 100 million smartphones in 2015: Xiaomi may not be planning to sell smartphones in the US this year, but that doesn't mean the company lacks for ambition on the mobile phone front. In fact, it's just the opposite. At a press event related to China's National People's Congress (of which he is a member), Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun told reporters that in 2015 Xiaomi plans to sell between 80 and 100 million smartphones. He also said the company is hoping to do between RMB 100 and 200 billion (US$16-32 billion) in total revenue this year. (UPDATE: Lei Jun first gave this goal for unit sales in March 2014.) (Tech in Asia)