Business, Financial & Legal - Page 137

Your kids are bit safer online now thanks to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. His office has removed more than 2,100 registered sex offenders from popular online games, including those from Gaia Online, NCSoft, and THQ. The removal comes as part of Operation: Game Over, a fitting title for his project.

"The Internet is the crime scene of the 21st century, and we must ensure that online video game platforms do not become a digital playground for dangerous predators," Schneiderman said today in a statement. "That means doing everything possible to block sex offenders from using gaming systems as a vehicle to prey on underage victims."

Registered sex offenders in the state of New York are required by law to hang over all electronic identities to the state. New York authorities review the list and contact game developers asking them to remove accounts that are on the lists turned in by registered offenders.

At the moment, eBay sell virtually everything - but one market they haven't gotten into is precious metals. Gold and silver are pretty much safe havens for investors, with stocks and currency constantly fluctuating, as it is easily manipulated at the top of the food chain, but precious metals are scarce.

eBay have announced a new, exclusive partnership with APMEX which will see eBay offer up the APMEX Bullion Center on eBay, which is open for business. eBay have said that there has been an increase in interest of precious metal purchases from consumers, and with APMEX being one of the world's largest precious metals retailers, it is a great partnership for the online merchant.

The Bullion Center offers 200 precious metal products, which are all backed up by eBay's Buyer Protection and APMEX's satisfaction guarantee. All of the purchases are also delivered safely to consumers in unmarked packages. Gold and silver currently sell on eBay, but it's hard to stamp the fixed-price or auction model to these items as the value of the metals are constantly changing with every passing minute. APMEX offers up-to-date pricing, right up to the minute of purchase.

Gamemaker THQ has filed for bankruptcy. Over the past year, they have had issues with cash and have finally decided they can't make it. They have sold their assets to an investor. Clearlake Capital Group purchased the assets for $60 million. The deal looks to shed "legacy obligations and emerge with the strong financial backing of a new owner with substantial experience in software and technology."

"The sale and filing are necessary next steps to complete THQ's transformation and position the company for the future, as we remain confident in our existing pipeline of games, the strength of our studios, and THQ's deep bench of talent, said Brian Farrell, chairman and chief executive of THQ, in a statement. "We are grateful to our outstanding team of employees, partners and suppliers who have worked with us through this transition. We are pleased to have attracted a strong financial partner for our business, and hope to complete the sale swiftly to make the process as seamless as possible."

The reason THQ has suffered isn't 100 percent clear, though it appears to be a victim of the quick transition from traditional games, such as Xbox 360 and PC, to mobile games, such as Temple Run on the iPhone. The business is set to keep running and customers shouldn't notice any impact during the deal.

I don't quite see what Tim Cook has done for the world to win the award "Person of the Year", but TIME have unveiled their shortlist of people up for the award. Apple CEO Tim Cook is on the list, and so is Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer.

The Person of the Year award is given to "a person, couple, group, idea, place, or machine" that has "for better or worse done the most to influence the events of the year". At the end, TIME's editorial team decide the winner. Also making the list, are Malala Yousafzai, who was the young Pakistani activist who suffered a head wound after being shot by the Taliban, second-term US president Barack Obama, Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as the three scientists behind the discovery of the Higgs Boson.

Why can't we see something different on the list? Maybe the whole 2012 Doomsday phenomenon, after all that is an "idea" of what could happen and has captured the world over the last few months as we get closer to December 21. I just think that someone who falls into a position like Cook, and has thousands of engineers, marketers and hundreds of departments under him doing most of the actual work, shouldn't win an award with a title of "Person of the Year".

Penguin, along with several other publishers, and Apple were accused of fixing prices on e-books. Penguin is the latest to join the group of publishers who have settled with the DOJ, leaving just Apple and Macmillan to fight the DOJ's allegations of price fixing. The lawsuit was originally filed last April and accuses Apple and five book publishers of conspiring to raise prices.

Penguin's statement regarding the settlement:

The agreement has yet to be approved by the courts, but the DOJ believes it will because consumers are benefiting from the other settlements already:

Apple has been refused the sales ban they were seeking on 26 of Samsung's devices. Judge Lucy Koh ruled that Apple did not prove that consumer demand for Samsung's products was directly related to the technology owned by Apple. In other words, people weren't buying Samsung's devices because of the rubber-band effect or other patents it is said to be infringing upon.

"Samsung may have cut into Apple's customer base somewhat, but there is no suggestion that Samsung will wipe out Apple's customer base, or force Apple out of the business of making smartphones," Koh said. "The present case involves lost sales -- not a lost ability to be a viable market participant."

A sales ban wouldn't have even hurt Samsung very much, since only three of the devices, out of the 26, are still being sold. A new trial, which contains updated devices, such as the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S III, is set to go in front of Judge Koh in a trial scheduled for 2014.

Sprint announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase the remaining 50% of Clearwire stock it does not own for $2.97 a share, which equates to a 2.2 billion dollar acquisition. This puts a total value of $10 billion dollars which includes a spectrum lease obligation of $5.5 billion.

Clearwire share holders have to be pretty happy this morning as the sprint acquisition nets them a 128% premium when compared to the day before the Sprint-SoftBank discussions were first confirmed on October 11, 2012.

The newly acquired spectrum will strengthen its position and greatly increase it's competitiveness in the US wireless market. Sprints Network Vision architecture will allow for better strategic alignment, and will no doubt result in improved performance for Sprint's customers.

WikiLeaks' founder, Julian Assange, has revealed his plans to run for a Senate seat in the 2013 Australian federal election. The WikiLeaks founder says that his goal for a political party has quickly gained speed and that there is tonnes of support in his home country, Australia.

Assange will be looking for a Senate seat which will be under his own, new political party named the 'WikiLeaks Party'. Assange requires 500 Australian citizens at a minimum to sign up for the new WikiLeaks Party name for it to be officially recognized. Assange feels that his WikiLeaks Party would be great for an open government and is a requirement these days when they see is an illegal government operating, and spying on citizens.

Assange feels that its his goal to keep personal privacy, personal and says its at stake all around the world right now. I can tell you this much, Assange, I'll be voting for you next year as an Australian.

The XDA Developers forums are built with some geniuses at work, where this time a user with the name of 'alephzain' who is claiming that they've discovered a hole in multiple Samsung devices that gives access to all physical memory.

This hole can be used to access devices to remotely wipe them, brick the device, or worse, access user data without the user noticing. Alephzain tested the vulnerability out on a Samsung Galaxy S III to root his device, but noticed that the flaw is also on the Galaxy S II, Galaxy Note II, the Meizu MX and other devices sporting an Exynos 4210 and 4412 processor, using Samsung kernel sources.

Samsung haven't come out and confirmed the vulnerability, but it is already being exploited. The post on the forum notes the following devices are at risk: Samsung Galaxy S2 GT-I9100, Samsung Galaxy S3 GT-I9300, Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE GT-I9305, Samsung Galaxy Note GT-N7000, Samsung Galaxy Note 2 GT-N7100, Verizon Galaxy Note 2 SCH-I605 (with locked bootloaders), Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 GT-N8000, and the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 GT-N8010.

Every season, Google performs a bit of cleaning to keep its product line sleek and efficient. Each season comes with various products being killed off and it's become a tradition that I look forward to. Which of Google's products didn't make the cut for this winter's cleaning? Read on to find out.

As posted by Google on their blog:

Apple's PR better kick into gear here soon. A Chinese woman who was attempting to buy more than the two-per-customer limit of iPhone 5s was tased outside of the store after she didn't leave the store because she didn't understand the request by the store manager, who asked her to leave.

She had apparently already bought 2 iPhone 5s last Friday and attempted to buy more. This resulted in her being told she had reached the two-per-customer limit on iPhone 5s, so she went online and ordered two. She returned to the store, where she had previously made a video of customers she believed had been sold more than two iPhones.

They, of course, wouldn't sell her the extra devices, and the store manager asked her to leave. She says she didn't understand the request, and since she didn't leave, the manager asked a police officer to escort her out. "The officer approached her, told her she wasn't welcome in the store, and she refused to leave," Nashua police captain Bruce Hansen told WCVB TV.

Close your eyes, now imagine you're sitting in a restaurant and the waiter brings you the biggest salt shaker you've ever seen. Imagine that the grains of salt are as big as your fist. That's how big this rumor is, and that's how big the salt is going to be for you to believe this.

Bright Side of News* are reporting from their latest trip to the UAE that Intel could acquire NVIDIA - yes, you read that right. This has been a rumor for quite sometime, especially over the years when AMD were acquiring ATI.

NVIDIA are a much smaller company than Intel, and Intel will struggle in the graphics department in the coming future. Sure, they'll do well, but AMD's APUs have some great graphics attached, and NVIDIA's mobile solutions in their Tegra range are also great. NVIDIA are already involved in a technology licensing deal with Intel, and the acquisition talks are just an extension of this.

Samsung isn't missing a chance to take a shot at its fierce rival, Apple. A marketing campaign has popped up in Australia, where the police have issued a warning that Apple Maps may put your life in danger, at least if you're trying to reach the city of Mildura.

Apple Maps instead leads you to the middle of a national park, which just happens to be in a really hot part of the country with limited water. With it being summer Down-Under, this is a bit of a problem. As you can see in the picture above, Samsung has placed a 4x4 SUV in Sydney, Australia, with a tent and sign next to it.

"Oops, should have got a Samsung Galaxy S III. Get navigation you can trust," the sign reads. Is this a good marketing campaign? What are your thoughts on it?

Tim Cook has said that Apple is investing $100 million to build one of its Mac lines exclusively in the US. But just which Mac line will it be? Cook didn't specify, but there are certainly some clues that lead us to a likely candidate. Apple will most likely build (drum roll please!) the Mac Pro line of Macs in the US.

First off, $100 million for a factory will yield a factory with about 200 people and be capable of building around 1 million units a year. Apple sells less than 1 million Mac minis and less than 1 million Mac Pros every year. Tim Cook et al has indicated that a new Mac Pro line is coming in 2013.

The Mac Pro is much heavier, and thus more expensive to ship, than the Mac mini. Also, the profit margin on the Mac Pro is much higher as they retail from $2,500 to $3,800. This higher profit can easily absorb the increase in costs to produce. They are also the easiest Mac to produce and customize.

Apple's patents are key to their legal successes against Samsung and other companies. But what happens when one of those patents is ruled invalid? Well, not only does Apple lose the right to sue over that patent, any patents based upon that patent could also be ruled invalid.

The patent that Steve Jobs is best known for, 7,479,949, has been preliminarily ruled invalid. The patent covers a touchscreen device and input derived from apply heuristics. The patent, if you speak legal and engineering, probably does a better job explaining than I can:

Two months ago, Apple was also told that the its patent covering the rubber-banding effect was invalid. This ruling came months after Samsung was fined $1 billion, partly on the basis of this patent. With Samsung appealing, we could see Samsung actually coming out a victor, or at least not so far behind.

This is a story that could completely wreck Yelp's business, if the company isn't careful. A women in Virginia is facing a lawsuit from a contractor over allegations that her negative Yelp review caused him to lose work. Sound a bit ridiculous? We thought so too, until we found out a bit more.

In the review, Jane Perez listed out a bunch of accusations, which included damage the contractor reportedly did to her home, an invoice for work that was reportedly not done, and missing jewelry. She finished out the post by saying, "Bottom line do not put yourself through this nightmare of a contractor."

The contractor, Christopher Dietz, has now filed a $750,000 Internet defamation lawsuit against her, claiming that the Yelp post, along with some Angi's List postings, were false and caused him to lose business. He's also seeking a preliminary injunction to keep her from writing even more reviews.

I've said that Apple should bring their production to the US, and it looks like they read my posts here at TweakTown - probably not, but this is great to see. Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the news during an interview with Rock Center, that they will be indeed bringing some Mac production to the United States:

At the moment it's not known which Mac products will be manufactured in the US, but there have been rumbles of it being the iMac as some of the current iMacs have "Assembled in USA" inscribed in the back of them.

During the interview with Brian Williams, Cook said "we've been working for years on doing more and more in the United States". Cook noted during the interview that Apple are spending around $100 million in the US production adventure:

Social networks can be dangerous for powerful people, with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings possibly facing the Securities and Exchange Commission over a statement he posted to social networking site, Facebook.

Rewinding back to July, Hastings' Facebook page announced that Netflix passed a billion hours of streaming for the month of June - the first time that Netflix has ever done that, ever. This simple post from Hastings could have violated regulations in regards to fair disclosure, the SEC has reportedly told Netflix.

Bloomberg has reported that Hastings' post could've been seen by his 200,000 followers. The SEC has said that the post could constitute selective disclosure of material information, which could justify a civil claim. Netflix said in a statement that the fact that they had previously stated they were closing in on a billion hours of streaming in June. On top of this, they've said that the billion-hour total is not "material" to investors. Netflix remains "optimistic that this can be cleared up quickly through the SEC's review process".

I'm an Australian, but keep up as much as I can with the fringe areas of US politics and the debt that the world has. We know that the US is in over their heads in debt, but just how much? Sure, $1 billion sounds like a lot - but I think most people have lost sight of just how much these billions, and trillions mean.

This could turn into a long winded whinge session about not only the state of the US political system, but the entire world's financial system. Instead, we'll show you a visualization from Demonocracyinfo of the current US debt. Currently, the money owed by the US government is larger than the size of the economy itself. The current debt ceiling is set at $16.394 trillion and the US are getting close to that mark with just a few weeks until they hit the "fiscal cliff" I'm sure you've heard about.

What did you think of the video? At first, I thought - oh that's not too bad, millions don't look like that much - then the billions begin. Once that's over and the shock sets in, you see the entire federal debt, and it's a scary number.

The FTC is widely expected to announce updates to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in the coming weeks. For those who don't know, COPPA is a law that requires online companies to gain a parent's permission before obtaining and storing personal information of his or her child.

The law was originally passed in 1998 and implemented in 2000 and the internet has advanced and changed by leaps and bounds since then. Princeton Research Associates International conducted a survey over two weeks in November. It consisted of 2,000 adults being asked questions, and the results highlight the fact that most people support laws like COPPA.

In fact, 90 percent agreed with the COPPA law, when asked. 91 percent believed that advertisers should be prevented from identifying a minor's location via their cellular device. 80 percent of adults were against websites collecting activity reports of children online, even when said reports are anonymous.