Business, Financial & Legal - Page 101

Anonymous source and The Internet Association have both revealed that T-Mobile's Binge On program actually throttles data and reduces quality in order to serve up content.

T-Mobile shocked the world when the released their Binge On program, that allowed users to stream video and audio from various online services without having it count against your monthly data-caps. On the surface it seemed like a splendid deal, but there's always a catch.

That catch is that your content is served to you in lower quality, without you knowing and without giving you a choice. The Internet Association has been keen to point out the poor and sneaky business practices by T-Mobile, noting that providing Binge On is a boon to many customers, though even if it does happen to be throttled, proper notice or even a choice whether it should count against your data at the cost of high quality content, should be mandatory. The FCC is currently investigating the matter.

AMD has seen a staggering 90.65% stock price drop over the last decade, but things are looking up in recent times. In the past 24 hours, following the news Samsung is said to be partnering with AMD to help produce its upcoming Greenland GPU and Zen CPU chips, stock has risen 3.25% as of press time, and 21.19% over the past five days. Looking at the bigger picture, it's seen a 28.83% hike over the past month, and a 68.24% hike over the past three months.

Looking at the news in those time periods, we can see things were going mostly wrong for AMD up until about a week into October with layoffs, failed investment deals, the departure of Jim Keller, reduced spending, market share drops, and more.

But then, it began to turn around. Though there was still some bad news (Phil Rogers heading over to NVIDIA, decreased revenue over last year), there was much more to be excited about: a Fury X2 rumor, a partnership with Oculus and Alienware, the 8-core Hierofalcon CPU, rumors of strong performing GPUs on the horizon, and then, a flood of information about Zen, the forthcoming CPU architecture that was said to finally make AMD a contender in the CPU game again, and assurance the company was committed to still offering great GPUs, too. This assurance was later backed up with specific efficiency claims, the release of Crimson Edition drivers and the new Radeon Settings (which replaced the slightly clunky Catalyst Control Center), and the announcement of GPUOpen, its open source answer to NVIDIA's GameWorks.

With the debut of Adam Sandler's first show on Netflix, 'Ridiculous 6', the comedian is back in the headlines in a very big way. Something we seemed to have missed when the deal went through between Sandler and Netflix, is the reason why he signed with the content streaming giant.

Back in October 2014, Sandler said that when Netflix called him up with the deal, he "immediately said yes for one reason and one reason only. Netflix rhymes with Wet Chicks". Interesting reason, Mr. Sandler. The full statement from Sandler was "When these fine people came to me with an offer to make four movies for them, I immediately said yes for one reason and one reason only. Netflix rhymes with Wet Chicks. Let the streaming begin!!!!"

Netflix Chief Content Officer, Ted Sarandos, said "People love Adam's films on Netflix and often watch them again and again. His appeal spans across viewers of all ages - everybody has a favorite movie, everyone has a favourite line - not just in the US but all over the world. Sandler also reportedly makes $80 million per movie in Hollywood, and Netflix has pockets deep enough to keep handing over servers full of money to the creator of huge hits like Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore.

While we reported that Toshiba are looking at a hefty $60m fine thanks to some 'creative' accounting mishaps, the aftermath of this massive blowout has resulted in 6800 staff being let go.

The cuts are happening within the consumer electronics division only and are set to be part of a Toshiba HQ reconstruction. In addition to this, reports claim that Toshiba is also looking to offload its television and washing machine manufacturing facilities in Indonesia, while this tech giant is also looking at investors to assist with healthcare ventures.

With Sony purchasing Toshiba's sensory fab for $155m and board resignations happening due to this accounting scandal, there's no saying what the next step will be.

Amazon's reach is about to get a whole lot bigger, with the company reportedly in talks with Boeing over leasing a fleet of 767s for Amazon's air cargo duties, according to The Seattle Times.

The company wants to not go through the troubles UPS and other carriers did, with Amazon already using trailers on the road to get its goods to their distribution centers. Amazon is reportedly looking at leasing 20 Boeing 767s, and if it does get its hands-on the planes, Amazon will have a better handle on delivery times. Not only that, but Amazon could eventually not need the cargo services from companies like UPS, FedEx, and the USPS. The Seattle Times also notes that Amazon could open up extra space on its jets to other companies, providing a nice income stream, which would have it competing directly against UPS, FedEx, and others.

While The Mercury explains that it has been 3865 says since the last Star Wars cinema showing, we're here to give you a look into some Star Wars fan history, via Gizmodo.

The images in this article showcase Star Wars fans throughout different eras, including sequels and prequels alike, giving us a look at some favorite characters, cosplayers, and hairstyles of the ages. While the internet is a fairly new invention in terms of the history of mankind, some of these poor souls were lining up for days or weeks in order to get tickets for their Star Wars fix.

After 10 years with 2K International, Neil Ralley has stepped down from his position as General Manager. Replacing Ralley is Murray Pannell, who up until now served as PlayStation UK's Marketing Director, and previously he served Senior Marketing roles with Ubisoft, Xbox and EA.

2K President Christoph Hartmann said in a statement: "During his tenure, Neil helped grow our market share and distribution across Europe and beyond, led our international teams in reaching our 10-year milestone as a label, and helped us achieve our recent historic financial results. We are very grateful for his role in the successful launches of our many franchises and the overall growth of our label. Neil has graciously offered to stay on through the end of our fiscal year on March 31st, and to assist with the onboarding of our new VP of Publishing, Murray Pannell.

He continued: "Murray joined on December 17th and comes to us from Sony PlayStation, where he served as marketing director for UK and Ireland. Murray is a proven leader with a wealth of experience at major publishers like Ubisoft and EA, as well as further first party experience at Microsoft Xbox. We are sad to see Neil go, but we are pleased to formally welcome Murray into our management team in time for what we believe will be another stellar year for 2K in 2016".

Australia's big banks are backing the launch of Android Pay in the land down under, with ANZ, Westpacm St George, Bank of Melbourne, Bank of South Australia, Bendigo Bank, Cuscal, ING Direct, and Macquarie Bank signing up their full support for 2016, ZDNet reported.

As announced in a Google blog post, this new service is set to be released in Australia "in the first half of 2016," with Android Pay gaining access to girft card storage, loyalty card intergration and select special offers.

Available for phones running Android 4.4 or later, customers will now gain the ability to pay for purchases in brick-and-mortar stores by using their increasingly-hand smartphone, working thanks to NFC. The service will require users to unlock their phone (due to safety concerns) and simply hold it near any contactless payment device, in what Google hopes will be a method to remove the need of plastic credit card payments in the future.

Well, this came out of nowhere - Chinese gaming giant Tencent has just secured the remaining equity in Riot Games - the creators of League of Legends. Riot Games very quietly made the announcement earlier today.

Riot Games said in an update: "Our majority investor, Tencent, recently purchased the remaining equity of Riot Games. This allows us to move away from a Riot equity program towards a cash based incentive program that allows Rioters to share in Riot's success". Riot continued: "Riot's approach to compensation has always been about aligning the incentives of the company with Rioters, and also about ensuring that we compensate our talented team of professionals well".

Back in 2011, Tencent secured a majority stake in Riot Games, buying out their other investors for a rumored $400 million deal. Tencent has been a long-time investor in the League of Legends developer, investing in Riot back in 2009, and then signing a Chinese distribution deal for League of Legends back in November 2008. Riot Games added: "We're excited about the flexibility of this new approach to comp and believe it'll help us continue to ensure Riot remains a great place to work".

Google Head of Product Marketing Jeremiah Dillon recently sent out an e-mail to his co-workers in an effort to improve the use of everyone's time in the office. It's a pretty inspired way of thinking about our collective workday, and as such has garnered quite a strong response from employees at Google and beyond. Some even created a concise video version. You can see that below, as well as the full email.

While Samsung had been ordered to pay Apple a large sum in damages due to multiple patent claims, this company has once again entered an appeal process, asking the US Supreme Court to address its rules based around design patents, said to be created 120 years prior.

The case was originally placed due to an alleged breach by Samsung of three design patents, involving the face and rounded bezel of an iPhone and the iPhone home screen's 16 icon design. Found guilty, Samsung was ordered to pay all profit earned by phones relating to this lawsuit, with this company stating in a release that they are "escalating this case because it believes that the way the laws were interpreted is not in line with modern times."

Believing these old laws to be out of touch, Samsung's appeal was expected to take place, as explained by the tech giant previously in 2015.

If you live in the UK, you might want to be careful of what photos you take... inside of your own house. Thanks to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 ready to roll through, it will include an extended form of copyright for designer objects - you know, like furniture - for 70 years after the designer has died. This means you'll need a license to post photographs of your own belongings.

We shouldn't see the average UK citizen being affected, because a large portion of Britons would be thrown in court straight away. As BoingBoing reports, it's "law that everyone is guilty of is a law that is ripe for abuse, because it allows rightsholders' estates -- often capricious corporate entities -- the right to ruin the lives of anyone they dislike, for any reason".

Who is the law being targeted at? It looks like it'll hit commercial photographers, of which the UK government seems to have "no sympathy for", reports BoingBoing, adding: "The Government considers that photographers and image libraries already bear costs for time and administration when assessing whether they need to obtain clearance when photographing". But more people will be hit by the law, with publishers of books with pictures of design objects, will feel the pain. The Digital Reader had a chat with Natalie Kontarsky, an Associate Director for Legal and Business Affairs at Thames & Hudson, a popular art publisher, where she said: "The government has actually said 'you are collateral damage' in a very sanguine, offhand way. The dark end of the spectrum would be to take books out of circulation and have to pulp. Obviously no one wants to look at that".

Borderlands series developer Gearbox Software has opened a new studio in Canada's Quebec City, an increasingly tantalizing and popular destination for publishers and developers (high tax breaks and a strong talent pool tend to have that effect).

Gearbox has been headquartered in Texas for more than 16 years, and now, following the construction a new home base in Frisco, has decided it wants to expand out of the country. In doing so, it's appointing former business development director at Quebec Media Sebastien Caisse, Ph.D. as Co-Studio Head and Director of Operations at the new location. Meanwhile, former Art Director at Activision Pierre-Andre Dery will serve as Co-Studio Head and Studio Creative Director.

The new studio -- Gearbox Studio Quebec -- is now hiring, with the aim of developing AAA titles starting through 2016 and beyond.

Magic Leap has reportedly secured another $827 million in Series C funding, according to sources of Forbes. If the report is true, it means Magic Leap has raised over $1.4 billion in total. What is Magic Leap? Its a new form of augmented reality that blends real life with holograms. Take a look below.

The augmented reality start-up kicked off its funding rounds in February 2014, where it raised over $50 million to work on its "Cinematic Reality" platform. Later in the year, it raised $542 million in Series B financing. The company hasn't announced its Series C funding, but Forbes said it had filings that it secured through private market data tracker VC Experts.

As for the dynamics of Magic Leap, MIT Review's Rachel Metz discusses how the new tech will work. "Essentially, [Magic Leap] has developed an itty-bitty projector that shines light into your eyes-light that blends in extremely well with the light you're receiving from the real-world," Metz said after trying a live demo test of Magic Leap tech.

eSports giant Azubu has just secured another $60 million in a new round of funding, with their viewership increasing by 1200% in the last 12 months alone.

The new funding was led by London-based Sapinda Group, with a contribution also coming in from Sallfort Privatbank of Switzerland. Azubu will use the money to expand into new global territories, as well as grow its next-gen platform, Azubu 3.0. Azubu CEO Ian Sharpe said: "We believe that the global eSports community deserves a broadcast and viewing platform that's designed specifically for their businesses. We are developing our technology in direct collaboration with the community and brand partners in order to provide the best possible, and crucially, most monetizable streaming experience".

Jason Katz, COO of Azubu said: "We are expanding operations in a number of new regions around the world and creating bigger and more content partnerships and corporate relationships, which we're looking forward to announcing in the near future. This latest round of financing will support our global growth and expansion into 2016 and beyond".

Due to an accounting violation, the Japanese securities watchdog has requested that Toshiba be sent a massive $60 million (7.37 billion yen) fine, being described by iTnews as; in a bid "to rebuild a corporate image shattered by a series of high-profile wrongdoing".

Surrounding this news, 50 shareholders have also taken pitchforks to this giant company, requesting around $2.4 million in damages due to stock losses. With Toshiba's stock falling approximately 40 percent since the breaking announcement of this saga in April 2015, this accounting shambles is sending the company towards ruin in its current state.

The watchdog seems to be setting out to show Toshiba as an example towards other companies, strengthening its investigations due to Toshiba being such a large Japanese brand name and global company, aiming to make an example out of these illegal blunders.

Bitcoin is an online currency that saw an enormous rise in recent times, with the growth of this currency seeing some people buy houses for previous investments of $25 and the invention of 'Dogecoin' alongside it. While no one is sure exactly where the 'inventor' of this currency is from, Wired believes that an Australian was at the heart of this online phenomena.

Stated to be a 44-year old Aussie by the name of Craig Steven Wright, this man is said to go by the online alias of Satoshi Nakamoto. Not only is Wright theorized to be the creator of this crypto-currency, but he also owned 1.1 million bitcoin which is worth just over $396 million today.

In the referenced article, our news source stated; "In the last weeks, WIRED has obtained the strongest evidence yet of Satoshi Nakamoto's true identity. The signs point to Craig Steven Wright, a man who never even made it onto any Nakamoto hunters' public list of candidates, yet fits the cryptocurrency creator's profile in nearly every detail. And despite a massive trove of evidence, we still can't say with absolute certainty that the mystery is solved. But two possibilities outweigh all others: Either Wright invented bitcoin, or he's a brilliant hoaxer who very badly wants us to believe he did."

It wasn't too long ago when Turing Pharmaceuticals' CEO cranked up the price on off-patent drug Daraprim, mostly used for people with AIDS and cancer, by a huge 5000%. Now, Martin Shkreli has said he wishes he raised it higher.

Shkreli said: "I could have raised it higher and made more profits for our shareholders, which is my primary duty". During the Thanksgiving holiday, Turing released a press release saying the company had seen the error in its ways, and would be reducing the cost of Daraprim. But, it won't be doing that at all. Turing has said it will offer hospitals a 50% discount on the medicine (still up 2500%).

This is where it gets worse, with Shkreli adding: "My shareholders expect me to make the most profit. That's the ugly, dirty truth. I'm going to maximize profits. That's what people [in healthcare] are afraid to say".

It looks like AMD will be hitting a brick wall with the sales of its Radeon R9 Fury X, as Asetek has sent both AMD and GIGABYTE cease and desist letters over the watercooling on their video cards. GIGABYTE's GTX 980 Waterforce cards are also set to see sales stopped.

Asetek has been in a long battle with Cooler Master, a legal battle which kicked off in 2014. Asetek said that it had won an injunction against Cooler Master over patent infringement claims that went to court late last year. Fast forward to now, GamersNexus received the following statement from Asetek: "Asetek's attorneys have recently sent cease and desist letters to GIGABYTE, demanding that it cease selling Giga-Byte's GEFORCE GTX 980 Water Force (sold under at least model number GV-N980WAOC-4GD) because it contains the Seidon 120M found by the court to infringe Asetek's patents".

Asetek continued: "Asetek's attorneys have also written a cease and desist letter to AMD, demanding that it stop selling its Radeon R9 Fury X product, because it infringes Asetek's patents. Our attorneys have had some difficulty obtaining a GIGABYTE GV-N98TXTREME W-6GD, but we expect to receive and analyze one very soon for infringement".

Amid recent financial woes and scandals, Japanese electronics company Toshiba today announced that it has sold its image sensor business to Sony for 19 billion yen ($155 million).

Starting in April 2016, Sony will take over Toshiba's semiconductor fabrication facility in Oita, Japan, which can ship up to 12,500 300mm wafers a month. Along with the Oita facility, Sony will take in all equipment and 1,100 employees who will now operate under Sony's own Semiconductor Corporation. The facility will focus "primarily for manufacturing CMOS image sensors."

This move sees Toshiba effectively pull out of the image sensor market. Negotiations for the takeover started back in October, and Nikkei notes that Toshiba turned right to Sony due to past business.