Business, Financial & Legal - Page 152

Want a GEFORCE GTX 680? Well, line up behind the eleventy million other people who want one, but things are set to change. The relationship between NVIDIA and its principal foundry partner, TSMC, has been rocky for quite sometime now. Team Green were also not happy with TSMC's 28nm manufacturing capacity, but then give them praise in other areas.

NVIDIA have threatened to break up with TSMC find another foundry partner for bulk manufacturing, with reports pointing to Samsung preparing qualification samples for it, TSMC had a change of heart and have promised NVIDIA a priority over their other clients such as Qualcomm and AMD for the manufacturing of their 28nm chips.

NVIDIA were not quiet on being unhappy with TSMC's output, and its new policy of charging for wafers rather than working chips yielded, NVIDIA refuted rumors of it seeking other foundry partners such as Global Foundaries and Samsung. Now NVIDIA are on high-priority, TSMC will make sure to see a speedy launch of new NVIDIA GEFORCE SKUs toward the end of Q2, 2012. TSMC in the past have given other companies priority, such as when Qualcomm threatened to switch allocations to other foundries.

I will work off the assumption that all of my readers are on the up and up and don't pirate music and videos. Yes, I have high standards for my readers, but it's for the best. Since none of us pirate music or movies, it always annoys me to see the anti-piracy fear campaign before the start of a movie. Apparently it wasn't enough, though, because two new propaganda slides are being added.

The one above is the traditional fear-based warning. It offers the standard "you could be fined or go to jail if you download this movie illegally" routine. Of course, a $250,000 fine and 5 years in jail is a bit excessive and scary, but at the same time, I don't pirate, so I don't want to see the warning! This one has been brought to you courtesy of the FBI and the HSI.

It reads "The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by federal law enforcement agencies and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000."

In EA's earning call, it was made clear that the company intends to compete in the next-gen console market and is planning to invest $80 million in next-gen game consoles. This $80 million is only over the fiscal year 2013, so likely most of this money will go towards WiiU games as the WiiU is rumored to release around Christmas this year.

"We intend to invest $80 million in gen-4 console development in fiscal 2013," said EA CEO John Riccitiello in his prepared remarks. "We are strong believers that console will return to strong growth, representing great opportunity, one that is in lockstep with our digital plan."

This commitment comes at a time when EA saw, and is predicting, a decline in packaged good sales. At the same time, however, they are expecting to see an increase of 40% in digital revenue for the year. Of course, $80 million wouldn't even cover the development costs of one top AAA title, so it's unclear exactly how many titles will be coming from this investment.

In what I can only call a hilarious turn of events, two of Romania's most renowned fortune-tellers have been accused of using Google, rather than the spirits, to con clients into doing some outlandish things and forking over cash for the services. One client was encouraged to throw her money into a lake to rid herself of her troubles.

With the internet around, it's so much easier for people to collect information on other people. As such, it was just a matter of time before a fortune-teller put it to use. The fortune-tellers are accused of using their Wi-Fi connections to Google clients and their loved ones. I guess that sort of counts, since after all, Wi-Fi is kind of magical.

But, their misdeeds didn't stop there. According to the allegations, the fortune-tellers trawled their clients' social networks and even used electronic surveillance equipment on those who would pay large sums of money. In a bit of irony, these fortune-tellers couldn't foresee their future in that the prosecutor they tried to bribe was also under electronic surveillance.

Lenovo are planning big investments in China over the next 18 or so months, where they'll be investing $800 million in a new mobile products plant in Wuhan, one of the largest cities in China. The Lenovo Industrial Base will cover research & development, production and sales of smartphones and tablets, with a target opening date of October 2013.

The new plant will service both local and global markets, and is expected to generate around $1.5 billion in revenue by 2014, and the company are hoping to hit $8 billion within five years. Job creation numbers are great, with around 10,000 jobs created over the coming years thanks to the new Wuhan facility.

Lenovo are wanting to grab more mobile market share, and this move will surely help them do so. Lenovo have said in their press release that they are already a top-three smartphone maker in China. Lenovo's K800 smartphone was one of the first devices to feature Intel's Medfield-based processor, which should be the start of something new for Lenovo. On top of this, they're preparing the IdeaTab S2109 with an unspecified processor, a 9.7-inch display, and 1GB of RAM.

Minnesota Senator Al Franken believes that Comcast is breaking its net neutrality agreement that it had to sign to gain approval to merge with NBC Universal. The fear that Franken has resides in the fact that Comcast will not count any direct-to-Xbox streaming against customers' 250GB monthly data cap.

Obviously, Netflix and other internet video providers are upset by this and see it as unfair. They believe it gives Comcast's service an unfair advantage to their own services and that it violates the Net neutrality rules that they had to sign to. These rules prohibit broadband providers from favoring their own content on the open internet over that of their competitors.

But of course, Comcast believes that they are complying and actually exceeding the requirements:

Ah, yes, that legal battle between Oracle and Google is still going on. In fact, it's only in its first stages. The copyright phase of the trial ended Friday with the jury stating they couldn't reach a unanimous decision on one of the four questions it needed to. Judge Alsup told the jurors to think about it over the weekend.

Unfortunately, this did not help as the jury as it told the court that an "impasse has been reached." The jury then turned in its partial verdict on the three questions that they were able to agree upon. The jury has found that Google did in fact infringe on Oracle's copyrights by copying the structure, sequence, and organization of the code.

They were unable to decide if this use would be covered by fair use. The jury found that Google had not unfairly taken from the documentation associated with the 37 APIs. The jury found Google guilty of infringing by actually copying some specific code from the Java programming language. They were only found guilty on one of the three they were charged with.

"Like, OMG, I need help NOW!!1!" In a move that the FCC chairman praised, Verizon has selected a vendor to help it implement its first-in-the-nation "text-to-911" service. The "text-to-911" service would allow people to contact emergency services (911) via text message. This opens the doors to providing better access to those with speaking or hearing disabilities.

"Verizon is at the forefront of 911 public-safety innovations, and today's announcement is another step in making SMS-to-911 service available to those who cannot make a voice call to 911," said Marjorie Hsu, Verizon Wireless vice president of technology. "Our company is continuing its long-standing commitment to address the needs of public safety and our customers by offering another way to get help in an emergency by using wireless technology."

Verizon is looking to deploy the new feature in select markets early next year. The option will be available to anyone who has a text-messaging-capable phone. FCC spokesperson Tammy Sun said Genachowski "commended the company for offering consumers another way to reach 911 that is consistent with how millions of consumers already use mobile devices in their daily lives."

It what can only be described as the legal system actually working, a judge has used common sense and ruled that an IP address is not enough to incriminate a pirate. Judge Gary Brown, a federally-appointed magistrate judge of the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of New York, delivered the ruling in a fresh round of lawsuits launched by Voltage Pictures.

The case in question is one in which Voltage Pictures has sued 2,500 BitTorrent users who have been accused of illegally downloading The Hurt Locker. The movie didn't exactly perform as expected when it hit theaters and the studio is blaming that on piracy and an early leak of the film. Judge Brown spells out his feelings in a 26-page ruling located here.

Voltage Pictures had previously sued 24,583 people back in 2011 for pirating the video. Each person was sued for $2500-3000, which would have totaled the studio somewhere in the neighborhood of $70 million. That kind of money would have made up for the underwhelming performance at the box office. Fortunately, Voltage Pictures couldn't produce enough evidence in the 120 day time period allotted, so the case was dismissed.

Google has never really released any sort of data about the financials of Android. People have been forced to take educated guesses about whether or not Android is making money for Google. Well thanks to the ongoing battle between Oracle and Google, we finally have some hard numbers to go off of, and it's a somewhat bleak picture.

Currently, the lawsuit is in jury deliberations and those deliberations are currently locked. The judge and jury are trying to work out what sort of damages may be due to Oracle, hence the hard financial data that has become available. Judge William Alsup, yesterday, read excerpts from some court documents which showed that Android had a net loss every quarter in 2010.

This resulted in a "big loss for the whole year." He also made note that Android only had a revenue figure of $97.7 million for the first quarter in 2010. These figures are important because they go into figuring out how much money Oracle could be due in damages. If Google hasn't made money, they are on the hook, conceivably, for less money. At the same time, one would have to question why they would continue with a platform that isn't making money.

According to the latest reports and numbers from Jon Peddie Research, predictions are being made for PC gaming hardware sales, where the research group are predicting total sales of $23.6 billion and by the end of 2015, this should grow to $32 billion.

They cite strong demand which will fuel growth over the coming years, especially in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries where systems, accessories and upgrades are expected to get close to $4.7 billion this year, and $7.7 billion by 2015.

JPR also expects to see the average selling price for some components to drop in 2013, as competition heats up. This is always good news for end users, with unit shipments expected to rise, which will smash any dip that would otherwise show up as a result of the lowered prices. These numbers should have confidence in them, as this year we're expecting some truly kick-ass titles such as Diablo III, Max Payne 3, and more.

Microsoft scooped up well-known social network researcher Duncan Watts over the weekend, but he wasn't the only one Microsoft had their sights on. Microsoft have scooped up 13 other Yahoo researchers to kick-start a new New York research lab.

From these 13 people Microsoft have acquired brings David Pennock who is an algorithmic economist and will over see day-to-day lab operations. Microsoft also scored machine learning expert John Langford. Microsoft aren't new to research organizations, where they have budgets in the billions, and 850 PhDs. NYC will be Microsoft's 13th global office according to Jennifer Chayes, who manages Microsoft Research New England, as well as the New York Group.

Microsoft were fortunate enough to grab these people as Yahoo made cuts to their research organization last month. Chayes adds that the Yahoo researchers didn't necessarily come as a package, where she elaborates:

In what can only be seen as a major ruling, German courts have told Microsoft to stop selling its Windows 7 and Xbox 360 products, apparently due to patent infringement. The judgement comes from a lawsuit in which Motorola Mobility alleged that Microsoft's products infringed upon two patents regarding H.264 video coding and playback.

The court has found that Microsoft has used some of Motorola's intellectual property and found that a sales ban will be set in place until the matter can be settled. A settlement in this instant would require vast sums of money to change hands. How perfect for Google who just acquired Motorola Mobility!

It's unlikely that Microsoft will pull its products from store shelves just yet as Microsoft has said they will carry on as normal until an appeal of the decision can be made. The ban also includes Internet Explorer and Windows Media player. Microsoft also has the support of the US where a court has ruled a ban of the ban.

Google and its partner Onix Networking have just won a $35 million contract to run a new cloud-based e-mail and collaboration system for the US Department of the Interior. Incredibly, this wasn't always a definite thing for Google and its partner. Previously in 2010, a contract for the same thing had been awarded to Microsoft for $59.3 million.

Of course, because of the litigious society that we live in, Google and its partner quickly filed suit to block the contract. Google claimed that the selection process for the contract unfairly favored Microsoft and didn't give Google a chance. The lawsuit was withdrawn last September after the Department canceled its plans to use Microsoft due to the fact its original decision was "now stale in light of new developments in technology and entrants into the market."

Microsoft is obviously not the happiest with this decision. As such they have issued a statement:

Mobile gaming outfit GREE has acquired US-based social game developer Funzio for a cool $210 million in a bid to increase their appeal in Western countries, and to produce more of their own titles. The Japanese firm who provides both a mobile social gaming platform and developers titles itself, is looking at the North American market and other new growth opportunities as they've already established themselves quite well in their homeland.

The deal is expected to be done by the end of May, with founder Yoshikazu Tanaka saying that it "means a lot to enhancing our global expansion". The mobile gaming scene is heating up, with just weeks ago Zynga purchasing OMGPOP, the guys and gals behind Draw Something. GREE may be a smaller player, but competition is always a good thing.

GREE isn't new to big acquisitions, where back in 2010 they acquired Openfeint for $109 million. That deal boosted their platform, and the new Funzio deal with strengthen its capability to produce titles, and, appeal more to Western gamers. This isn't the end of the good news for FREE, where they're set to unveil their new global gaming platform, which will integrate Openfeint, all within the next few months.

It's been everywhere, and I was even sitting down this morning playing with my gorgeous 13-month-old daughter this morning when I saw people standing behind the Sunrise crew on Channel 7 here in Australia, with black cardboard signs in their hand stating "WAKE UP".

We've heard it was Samsung behind this, as a campaign for their GALAXY S III possibly... but it's not. Research in Motion (RIM) have admitted that they're the company behind the controversial anti-Apple 'Wake Up' campaign. RIM issued a statement this morning through its PR firm, where they've said:

The campaign caught the eyes and ears of people last week when a flashmob of 'protesters' took to an Australian Apple Store to protest the use of the company's products. The group chanted "wake up", held placards that said the same message, where other protesters dressed as a sheep as another dig at Apple, popular products and cult following. The reason behind the campaign is due to be unveiled at 3:00pm on May 6, but what to expect, we don't know.

Researcher Newzoo has gathered some very specific figures in a new study that included the top 200 grossing mobile games and survey results from 17,000 respondents. The study found that the US mobile gaming market has grown considerably, from 75 million to 101 million mobile gamers. Of these 101 million, 69-percent of them play games on smartphones, with 21-percent gaming on a tablet.

While there are many more players, and increasing amount of them are willing to pay for in-game content. The number of paying players has grown 35-percent to 37 million Americans, or 36-percent of all mobile gamers. Splitting these numbers up, we have 19 million American gamers on an iPhone, 18 million on an iPod touch, and 12.7 million on an iPad, keeping in mind that many people use multiple iOS-based devices.

As of last month, Apple's mobile devices combined were generating 84-percent of the revenue by the top 200 grossing games, which left Android with 16-percent of the US pie. The best bit of this, is that a majority of this money is generated from in-game microtransactions, and not titles bought outright. Newzoo CEO Peter Warman does have something to say about this, as there is one big difference between iOS and Android, that could explain the revenue discrepancy: Apple requires users to link credit card information to their accounts, with Warman adding:

Not everyone is exactly ecstatic about Blizzard offering real money auctions in the upcoming Diablo III game. I, too, see some issues with it, but that is for another article. Claims that Blizzard is trying to cash in on the game's second hand digital market have run rampant since its announcement of the plan last summer.

Blizzard will charge a flat $1 fee (or a rough local equivalent) for unique equipment like armor, weapons, or accessories. For common "stackable" commodities, Blizzard will charge 15%. This 15% charge even applies for strictly in-game gold transactions. The hope behind that is that it will stem inflation in the in-game economy.

Players will also get hit with another 15% fee when they try to transfer their funds from their Battle.net account to a third party service such as PayPal. The only way to avoid this is to spend the money on other Blizzard items such as a WoW subscription. The move of Blizzard allowing real money trading and taking a part in it will help stem the grey market of other companies doing the exact same thing. It should improve customer service and reduce scams. More information is available at today's announcement.

Microsoft have just splashed out $300 million on an investment in Barnes & Noble's Nook digital-book business and college-text unit. This investment will see the Redmond-based company take a 17.6-percent stake in a new subsidiary temporarily known as Newco, with Barnes & Noble getting the remaining 82.4-percent while all pending litigation related to Android will be put to rest.

This new deal gives Barnes & Noble more power to fight off shareholders who have agitated for a sale of the Nook e-book business, or the entire company, in addition to relieving concerts that it doesn't have the capital to compete in the e-book business with heavy weight Amazon.com.

At the moment, Barnes & Nobile relies on a customized version of Google's Android OS for products such as the Nook Color and offers Nook reader apps for Android, iOS, OS X and Windows. The deal doesn't state whether this would change, but one of the first things to change would most likely be a Metro-style Nook e-reader app for Windows 8 available to users across the world. At the moment there's also no suggestion on whether we'll end up seeing a future Nook app on Windows Phone.

Both Apple and Motorola have filed motions with the court in Wisconsin asking for a summary judgement in a Apple's lawsuit against Motorola. Apple accuses Motorola of violating FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) patent licensing. The motions filed Friday would have Apple try to have some of its patent claims validated.

On the other hand, Motorola wants most of Apple's patent arguments ruled invalid. Full details of the lawsuit are unknown as the court documents remain sealed. What we gather is that Apple would like to use a summary judgement to solidify its claims of Motorola breaking the FRAND license agreement.

A summary judgement could either find Motorola mostly innocent, which would leave Apple's claims hard to prove in court, or find Motorola guilty, which would make it harder for Motorola, should the case go to trial. Motorola has based large portions of its lawsuits against Apple on standards based patents. While this has worked at the ITC, it hasn't worked in civil trials. Apple denies this and continues to fight it in court. More as it comes.