Business, Financial & Legal - Page 129

Apple has been sued over allegations that the power flex cable in the iPhone 4 was defective. According to the lawsuit, Apple decided not to disclose this defect in order to sell more units. Debra Hilton has filed a class action lawsuit in San Jose, California on behalf of iPhone 4 purchasers. The lawsuit demands over $5 million from Apple.

As evidence for the lawsuit, Hilton cites posts on Apple's own forums, in which users have complained about the power button. Hilton also provides a YouTube video explaining how to repair the button and comments made by a self-described iPhone repairman that assert the power button is a common issue on the iPhone 4.

Apple has not yet commented on the lawsuit.

During Activision's recent earnings call, CEO Bobby Kotick warned that the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 might suffer slow sales, much like the Wii U has been experiencing since its launch last November. Kotick adds that new competition from smartphones and tablets could play into customer demand.

It's worth noting that NVIDIA's upcoming Tegra 4 is capable of running games with graphics similar to those that the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 launched with. And with NVIDIA's Grid technology, those graphics can be improved to levels higher than the next-generation consoles are believed to be capable of.

Ultimately, the consoles' success depends on launch games and customer reception. Sony and Microsoft need to provide features that aren't available on alternatives at a price where consumers don't have to think too much about their budget.

NVIDIA has announced its first-quarter earnings. The earnings ended up beating out expectations, but still aren't as good as last quarters. NVIDIA pulled in a total of $77.9 million in profit, which is down 55 percent from last quarter. It is, however, up 29 percent year-over-year.

Revenue came in at a total of $954.7 million. This follows the same trend as the profit: down from last quarter, up year-over-year. Tegra sales were down as NVIDIA works to transition to the newer Tegra 4. NVIDIA hopes Tegra 4 will power growth for the company this year.

Investors are happy with how NVIDIA is performing, along with their $1 billion buyback and dividend program. In after-hours trading, NVIDIA's stock has risen one percent to $14.05.

Sony has said that it doesn't expect to lose money when it launches the PlayStation 4. Unlike the PlayStation 3, the new next-generation console features mostly standard PC hardware, making it both cheaper and more readily available. Additionally, Sony didn't have to spend money developing the hardware as someone already did that for them.

According to Sony CFO Masaru Kato, Sony expects to not incur a major loss at launch. On the conference call held earlier today when they announced a profit for the first time in five years, Kato said, "Unlike PS3, we are not planning a major loss to be incurred with the launch of PS4."

We are still waiting on actual pictures of the console, but from what Ubisoft developers are saying, the console is quite the capable machine. We have yet to see what Microsoft has in store for the next Xbox, but we believe from rumors that it will feature a similar PC-like hardware scheme.

The New Zealand government has passed a bill that prevents software from being patented in the country any more. The New Zealand Institute of IT Professionals praised the decision saying that it would lead to innovation on a large scale.

The new policy was part of an amendment to the existing patent bill, which redefines three basic principles:

I see this as a major step forward and I am sure that the folks over at the Electronic Frontier Foundation are ecstatic this morning. However, not all is as it seems.

This morning T-Mobile posted its Q1 earnings report and things looked about par for the course for the pre-merger T-Mobile. The company saw a revenue loss of about seven percent. The company did, however, gain subscribers to the tune of over half a million new users closing out the quarter with about 34 million subscribers in total.

The no contract giant was also quick to note that it had sold more than 500,000 iPhone's since it began carrying them on April 12th. While that number pales in comparison to ATT or Verizon, the iPhone's coming out of T-Mobile are not tied to a two year agreement like other retailers.

T-Mobile CEO John Legere had the following to say about the Q1 results:

Every now and again you have to take a step back and go, "Do I really belong on this planet?" This is certainly one of those moments. Police in Michigan say a woman set up a fake Facebook account so she could stalk...herself. That's right, she stalked herself and sent herself nasty messages. Better yet, she blamed them on her ex's new girlfriend.

The ABC report, embedded above, does a great job of explaining the story, but I'll add some details. According to Kent Country Sheriff's Detective Jason Russo, police investigated where the messages were coming from and it led back to her computer. She also confessed that she resorted to these actions because she couldn't get over the relationship.

This is the world we live in, folks.

This afternoon The Next Web is reporting that Aaron Greenspan has filed suit against not only Mark Zuckerberg, but a handful of other tech giants over so-called "money services businesses." The documents were filed on May 6th making this the latest in a long line of lawsuits filed by Greenspan.

Think Computer, Greenspan's company, is behind the lawsuit that is targeting some of Silicon Valley's more prominent investors and entrepreneurs. More specifically, the lawsuits target those who have invested in, or started up companies who deal with "money services businesses".

The list of defendants include such big names as Facebook, Airbnb, Y Combinator, Square, Sequoia Capital, as well as individuals like Mark Zuckerberg, PayPal founder Max Levchin, Brian Chesky of Airbnb fame, and Reddit CEO Yishan Wong.

We've followed the Aereo legal battles for several weeks now, mainly because we feel it's an interesting new service that can bridge the gap between Hulu and Netflix and TV. CBS alleges that Aereo is infringing on their copyright by illegally rebroadcasting their signal. Courts in New York have ruled that this isn't the case.

Ahead of Aereo's launch in Boston, the company has filed a complaint against CBS to keep it from filing lawsuit in the new market. CBS has vowed to file another lawsuit in Boston, saying "we will sue, and stealing our signal will be found to be illegal in Boston, just as it will be everywhere else." Unfortunately for CBS, this hasn't been the case.

Aereo's spokeswoman Virginia Lam:

The two popular internet memes, Keyboard Cat and Nyan Cat, are both making even more internet headlines this morning after word that their trademark holder has filed suit against Warner Bros for unauthorized use. The memes were featured in the popular online children's game Scribblenauts.

Scribblenauts is developed by 5th Cell Media, which is a subsidiary of Warner Bros, and is said to have used the memes without any permission from the trademark holder. While this is a very serious matter, one cannot help but sit back and laugh as they watch Warner Bros get a taste of their own copyright lawsuit medicine.

Since it is Friday, I have included a video below of the original Keyboard Cat below for your enjoyment!

The FBI thought they had another Chinese spy on their hands when they boarded a plane at Dulles International Airport to arrest Bo Jiang, a Chinese national with a doctorate in electrical engineering from Old Dominion University.

Jiang was a former contractor with NASA at their Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and was fired because of pressure from Republican congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia. Wolf claimed that Jiang and other Chinese engineers employed by NASA contrators were a security risk, and the day of his flight back to China, he had a NASA-owned laptop in his possession.

All that Jiang did wrong, was violate NASA policies, as there was no evidence of any sensitive material on his laptop, and Jiang had not had clearance to the secret projects at Langley as an employee of the National Institute of Aerospace. Investigators did find the laptop filled to the brim with porn and pirated movies. There was a press release issued by Wolf after the arrest, with a copy of Jiang's arrest warrant disappearing off the congressman's website. It was cached by Google though, where Wolf said:

Ted Sarandos, Netflix's Chief Content Officer, recently completed an interview with Stuff.tv. Most of the information was rather boring, though you can read the full interview at Source #1 below. The one interesting piece, at least to me, is that Sarandos says piracy drops in a region shortly after Netflix launches.

It does make quite a bit of sense. Often times people are forced to turn to BitTorrent to get the content they want to watch. However, most people are willing to pay for that content if the content providers would just license it to the region. This is similar to what has been seen with Spotify and other offerings. People are willing to pay as long as they can get the content they want.

We've reported on the rather slow sales of the Nintendo Wii U, but the cause of these slow sales has been a bit more elusive. Nintendo apparently thinks they know why sales are slow and are attempting to fix the problem...by sending out a message to all Internet-connected Wii consoles.

Apparently Nintendo believes that Wii owners think the Wii U is just a Wii with a GamePad. We obviously know the difference, but for the less technically inclined, I can see where the problem may be. For instance, they have extremely similar names. However, whether or not this message will help clear up confusion and drive Wii U sales remains to be seen.

AT&T has announced a new program in which you can receive a credit for trading in one of your old smartphones when you upgrade. The program officially starts tomorrow, May 1 and AT&T says that this is a limited time promotion, so you might want to take advantage of it early on.

To read more and find out all of the details--the devil is always in the details!--you can visit AT&T's announcement page here. You might be better off selling your device on Ebay or through other services, but none come with the simplicity of this AT&T promotion.

Things aren't looking so bright for Facebook ahead of their first-quarter earnings announcement. According to several different groups tracking Facebook usage, numbers are down in some of the most lucrative markets. SocialBakers estimates that Facebook has lost around 6m US-based users in the past month alone.

Further losses have been incurred around the world, with SocialBakers estimating Facebook has lost 1.4m UK users in the past month. Over the past six months, they estimate Facebook has lost around nine million monthly visitors in the US and two million in the UK.

New media specialist Ian Maude at Enders Analysis:

Trond Werner Hansen, a former Opera employee, has been sued by the company who alleges that he took trade secrets and gave them to Mozilla. Opera is looking to receive damages of 20 million kroner, or about $3.4 million US. Of course, Hansen denies that allegations, saying he has been "wrongly accused."

Opera's lawyer Ole E. Tokvam:

Hansen has been forced to return to Norway for a hearing in late August. "The lawsuit caused me to have to return to Norway, instead of pursuing my album release and other art projects in New York," Hansen said. Hansen has provided a lot of background information in this blog post about his employment and a "green browser" project that Opera failed to become interested in.

Corsair has just communicated information to us that states that Corsair is not being bought out by Francisco Partners (as previously reported), a private equity (PE) company based in the San Francisco Bay Area, which specializes in tech companies.

Corsair, however, has confirmed that it is in active talks with Francisco Partners for an injection of funds to the tune of $75 million to settle in a few weeks. Corsair explains that it won't change the management of the company or its direction that targets the gaming and enthusiast market, one which Corsair says is "growing and shows no signs of stopping".

It's little secret now that Corsair had plans to go public last year, but it was around the time that Facebook launched and saw less than stellar results. This caused Corsair to re-think its plans and come up with something new. The result, it seems, is working with Francisco Partners.

A regulatory filing shows that Francsico Partners is currently in talks with Corsair Componenets over a possible buyout. Corsair had previously indefinitely postponed an IPO after the IPO flop that befell Facebook. At the time, they said they would "relaunch when equity conditions are more favorable."

It now appears that they are choosing a buyout over an IPO. Corsair could be heavily affected the current downturn in the PC market, resulting in the need for a cash infusion. As an interesting aside, Francisco Partners was part of the Blackstone Group-led consortium that decided to not make a formal buyout offer for Dell.

It's very possible nothing could come of these talks. On the other hand, Corsair could end up being bought out. This could result in changes in the company or products that they make and sell. For now, nothing has changed. We'll be sure to report if or when a buyout agreement is reached.

After Apple released their Q2 2013 earnings yesterday, market research firms have dived head first into the numbers, churning out some interesting facts. Strategy Analytics were one of the first to start shoving numbers out, with a report released late last night.

Apple sold 19.5 million iPads in the three-month period, taking 48.2% of the global tablet market. This may sound impressive, nearly 50% of the global tablet sales are iPads - but let's rewind twelve months and look at the same quarter of 2012. Apple were enjoying a huge 63.1% of the market, meaning that we've seen a gigantic drop in Apple's dominance of the global tablet market.

If we look at Android in the same way, last year they took 34.2% of the global table market, but now they've jetted up to 43.4%. What is Apple's loss, is Google's gain, in more ways than one. We do have Windows, which isn't actually doing too badly, jumping from 0% last year to 7.5%, so Microsoft are even benefiting from Apple's slide.

Despite claimed inventory shortages, US Cellular has announced that they will be getting the latest Samsung smartphone come April 30. The Samsung Galaxy S4, originally announced back in March, will be coming to US Cellular. The 16GB version will be available in either black or white for $199, provided you sign a two-year contract.