Business, Financial & Legal - Page 158

Owners of Samsung TVs filed a class-action lawsuit, which has finally reached settlement. Within the settlement, Samsung have promised to pay for the bills of owners repairs, reimburse for already-paid-for repairs, or hand out up to $300 to customers who no longer own their once-faulty TV, once they prove ownership.

The fault only affects the model numbers in the above picture, where it's possible that up to 7 million TVs were affected. The problem is related to an errant capacitor in the power circuit that stops the TV turning on, makes it slow to turn on, produces a "clicking sound" or makes it cycle on and off.

A Samsung spokesperson has said:

We've covered this story quite a bit since it broke, with an editorial, and multiple news pieces as things happened. Even when it was declared he was knocked from his No. 1 spot on COD: Modern Warfare 3. Today, marks a new direction in the case of Megaupload's founder Kim Dotcom. He has received bail, and now has some fairly strict conditions put upon him.

Within the North Shore District Court, we had Justice Dawson, Kim Dotcom, and a bunch of suits. Once it was all done and dusted, Kim Dotcom received the following conditions: he is completely banned from the Internet. Justice Dawson stated that he shouldn't have access to the Internet as he has "the ability to use it for wrong purposes".

Dotcom is now confined to his Coatesville-based mansion, where his wife and children currently reside. He also cannot travel more than 80 kilometers, or 50 miles, from his mansion, on which no helicopters are allowed.

The Windows Team Blog, and more specifically, Principal Director of User Experience for Windows, Sam Moreau, have unveiled the new redesigned logo for Windows 8. Before we get into it, check it out below:

First impressions? Personally? I love it. It looks much more professional and "now", and would look great on a new Windows 8-based device (such as the tablets, or Ultrabooks ready to hit this year). Microsoft put the call out to a few agencies to work with them on the project of redesigning their logo and ended up with Pentagram.

Pentagram were called into the conference room over at the Microsoft campus, where a meeting with Paula Scher, Michael Beirut and Daniel Weil of Pentagram attended, as well as a few designers and marketing leaders from Windows and across Microsoft. The team of people spent an entire day sharing some of the Metro style design philosophy; the Windows brand history and values as well as graphic design and technology industry trends.

Intel's upcoming 22nm-based Ivy Bridge processors are set to be delayed by a few months, because Sandy Bridge-based notebook inventories are not moving as fast as notebook makers, and Intel, want. Mass shipments of Ivy Bridge were expected in April, but may be pushed along until June, according to DigiTimes.

First-tier notebook vendors are having problems pushing their Sandy Bridge-based notebook inventories, and because of the weak global economy, this won't go away anytime soon. Intel is also troubled by it Sandy Bridge processor inventory, which means they have plans to delay the mass shipments of Ivy Bridge-based tech in order to minimize the impact.

Now that the launch schedule has changed, notebook vendors are shuffling plans for new Ivy Bridge-based products. These plans are still shaky, even with the delay, because of the impending release of Microsoft's next game-changing OS, Windows 8. The PC replacement trend won't catch on until Windows 8 is released, which is my opinion, and seems to be the opinion of notebook vendors, too.

A picture truly is worth a thousand words, and that picture is Apple being patent trolls. Not only have the Cupertino-based company gone after Samsung multiple times, and even recently against their Galaxy Nexus, but they've gone after several other companies and now the bankrupt company Kodak.

Kodak only filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy a few weeks ago now, but now Apple are seeking approval to sue Kodak in a New York court based on an alleged patent infringement. Kodak are now awaiting a decision from a bankruptcy judge who might give Apple permission to file a patent complain over technologies used in printers, digital cameras and digital picture frames.

Kodak just last week announced they would kill off their camera business to concentrate more on its core products, such as printer and picture frames. Isn't it such a kick in the guts that Apple are going after their now bread-and-butter money-makers? Really, Apple? Really?

'Oh snapz!' is something our VGA editor, Shane Baxtor likes to say when something like this happens - so, it felt oh so appropriate to use it in this news. The Pirate Bay have just posted on their blog informing their loyal users that Magnet links are now default when wanting to download something, here's the quote:

Do you know what this means? The current court proceedings against The Pirate Bay just got that much harder. This means that the 'illegal' files that are downloaded, are distributed amongst the downloaders. This makes the target turn away from The Pirate Bay and onto tens of millions of downloaders around the world.

So, unless the MPAA and RIAA want to start arresting millions of people around the world, they're kinda stuck. In shark infested waters, without a life jacket, or a flare gun, while a pirate ship sails around them, laughing manically.

Team Red have just lost another player, after a few resignations and changes within the company throughout 2011 and even this year, news has hit the Internet that AMD's Corporate Vice President & CTO, Graphics Division, Eric Demers, is leaving the company. He has hung up his Team Red shirt for good.

AnandTech have reported that he isn't leaving for Intel, or Team Green (NVIDIA), but suspect that Eric's talents will continue to be seen within the industry. Considering AMD's current success within the GPU industry, it's hard to see Eric out of work for a long period of time. An official statement has arrived from AMD, too:

Google have whipped out their [Google] wallet and are paying more than $120 million for construction projects at their Mountain View HQ, including work on a series of new or previously secret hardware testing labs, that are hinting at Google expanding interest in making consumer objects to combat rivals Apple, Microsoft, and more.

Included in these new secret labs, is a reported new secret consumer product under the brand name "@home", that is said to wireless stream music or data to other household devices. Google are also said to be modifying a lab for their "Project X", which seems to involve precision optical technology and be part of the secret technology projects that Google co-founder, Sergey Brin is heading.

The biggest project in this expansion is said to be a "Google Experience Center", which is at the core of the Googleplex. The 120,000-square-foot center is said to be a kind of private museum for Google's most importan clients and partners, where they plan to "to share visionary ideas, and explore new ways of working" with up to 900 VIPs and other important guests.

Microsoft have laid down some plans where they will open up four new retail stores over the next few months, with the first international stores opening up later this year.

This is all according to at least one person familiar with Microsoft's plans, says The Verge. The plans would see the Redmond-based company open up a brand new store in Palo Alto, California, and another in Austin, Texas. The funny thing about two of these stores? They will be opening during April, and they'll be quite close to Apple retail store locations in popular malls.

The same plans are said to include two new stores in the state of New Jersey, the first in Bridgewater, the second in Freehold. The New Jersey stores are said to be located in malls that also have Apple stores, and are expected to open up shop before the end of June.

We reported last year about the Steam hack, but it has now been reported that the hack was actually quite a lot worse than previously thought. The server hacked did contain data such as usernames, hashed passwords, game purchases, e-mail addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card numbers, but Valve didn't find any evidence that led them to believe that any personal information was stolen, until now.

Valve have completed further investigation into the matter, and have stated that their preliminary conclusion was, incorrect. Newell has now said he believes the hackers obtained a copy of a backup file with data about Steam transactions made between 2004 and 2008. This backup file is said to contain usernames, e-mail addresses, encrypted billing addresses and encrypted credit card numbers. One of the good things to come from this news is that no passwords were included in this file.

Even thought it's not guaranteed what the hackers did, or did not get from this file, Gabe Newell has come out and urged Steam customers to monitor their financial statements and make sure they use Steam Guard. Newell's full letter is below:

We've reported on the various Samsung vs. Apple lawsuits around the world, with a few successful wins for Samsung, and Apple not so happy with the outcomes. Today is a victorious day for Samsung, as a Duesseldorf court has just cleared the modified Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1N for sale in Germany.

Several rulings were against Samsung in a never-ending battle of patent suits, where Apple succeeded in blocking the original Galaxy Tab 10.1 in September, as well as the smaller 8.9-inch Galaxy Tab 8.9 in January. It was determined that they both "resembled the iPad too closely".

Samsung had prepared a tweaked version of its Galaxy Tab 10.1 dubbed Galaxy Tab 10.1N, which features a more pronounced metallic rim, relocated speakers, as well as some minor adjustments to change both the look, and feel of the device. Apple were unsurprisingly unsatisfied with the changes, and were quick to file additional injunctions to ban the updated Galaxy Tab 10.1N. Their demand? Rejected.

The world's largest BitTorrent site, The Pirate Bay, as reported previously, will stop linking to .torrent files shortly and replace them with magnet links. Magnet links have a pretty big advantage over .torrent files, where they're much more portable, and easier to copy. On top of this, a new torrent link on TPB lists all titles and magnet links, where the public can download a copy that would fit onto even the smallest USB flash drive, or if you're still rocking those floppies, a few of them, too.

TPB told TorrentFreak that one of the advantages to a "magnet site" is that it requires little bandwidth to host a proxy site. A proxy site is required as TPB is blocked in many countries, and is of course, going to increase. Think it can't happen? Well, Pirate Bay user "allisfine" was intrigued by this idea, and has decided to find out just how small a copy of TPB would be. He told TorrentFreak:

Using the following script, "allisfine" copied the title, id, file size, seeds, leechers and magnet links of 1,643,194 torrents. The end result? A full copy of all magnet links on The Pirate Bay drums up to 90MB zipped, or 164MB unzipped. A little strange however, is The Pirate Bay lists a total of 4,199,832 torrents, not the 90MB-sized zip that includes just 1,643,194 torrents. But, the latter number points to the torrents that are available on several public trackers, where TPB itself hosts just a small number of them.

Paradox CEO, Fred Wester, is a man of important words. He has revealed the amazing growth of his companies digital distribution revenue. In his own words, he has said:

Did you see that? From 1.5-percent of their revenue, to a whopping 95-percent, in just 5 short years. In these 5 years we've seen retailers go from selling tonnes of retail boxed games, to the App Store opening, the Android Market arriving and more. Steam is generating more and more income, and other digital distribution methods such as GOG, and Origin.

Customers aren't the only ones replacing the medium of retail for online, Paradox have also made a big push digitally, with their games on most platforms. Wester continues:

Motorola have been stirring up some problems for Apple in Germany, where they won an injunction on iCloud and also enforced a previous ruling where it requires Apple to pull some iPhone mobiles from stores in Germany. The sales ban last just hours, after which Apple managed to win a suspension later in the day.

New details have emerged from the battle between Motorola and Apple, where they've said that Motorola Mobility's legal complaints against Apple, want 2.25-percent of Apple's sales of wireless devices in exchange for a patent license covering Motorola's intellectual property. If Motorola wins this, they could receive $2.1 billion in retroactive fees from iPhone revenues dating back to 2007, which amount to a slither under $93 billion. This is before factoring in 3G iPad sales.

Which patent do Motorola have a grip over Apple on? Its 3G/UMTS patent, has recently been declared essential in implementing open industry standards and because of that, Motorola must license it under FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) terms to any competitor that requires it.

BTJunkie was one of top five BitTorrent sites out there, and has after 7 years in operation, decided to voluntarily shut down. This closure is sure to be in relation from the growing pressure from authorities in the U.S. and around the world, with MegaUpload taking the first big blow, as well as The Pirate Bay.

BTJunkie wasn't attacked by the authorities, so this looks like a preemptive move to avoid future legal action, and/or arrests. BTJunkie had boasted 80 million users at one point, and in its farewell message, BTJunkie wrote:

Anonymous have had an eventful 2012 thus far, with news today that they've intercepted and recorded a conference call that took place between the FBI and the British police cybercrime division of Scotland Yard on January 17.

Anonymous have now released an audio recording of the nearly 15 minutes of conversation online. During the call, the two parties discussed something quite important, a hacker plot called "Project Mayhem". What is Project Mayhem you ask? Well, it's only a strategy for bringing down Anonymous, you can now understand why this is of importance for Anonymous.

The two parties specifically talk about back arrests of members known as "Kayla" and "Tee-flow", as well as getting Ryan Cleary's indecent images which were found by the USAF who examined his hard drive and 15-year-old "Tehwongz" who has claimed to of hacked 32,000 Steam user names, logins and credit card details.

Apple don't have a TV on the market, where their biggest competitor in the smartphone market, Samsung, sure do have that market with their fist around it, tightly. The latest coming from Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, has said that the Cupertino-based company has been checking out the TV component supply chain, in preparations of entering the TV market.

Munster wrote in a note to clients today:

Now I'm beginning to wonder. A consumer walks into a store that sells a bunch of different branded TVs, as well as Apple products. Said customer sees a 50-inch Apple TV for, I'm guessing here, $3999 and sees a 55-inch Samsung OLED TV, which makes the Apple screen look like a 640x480 CRT, and is $3499. Which would the customer buy?

I've never heard of Crackle until now, so I've just pushed that rock up off my back and thrown it to the side for now. Crackle is part of Sony Picture Entertainment's video entertainment network, and now gives UK, US, Canadian, and Australians access to a bunch of TV shows and Hollywood movies, all for free.

For free! Free, as in, nothing? Well, Crackle is ad-supported, but it's not a direct competitor of paid-for video-on-demand services such as Netflix, which is also available on the Xbox Live hub, but instead Crackle offers a range of old movies, TV shows and animated series.

Phil Lynch, VP Digital Networks and Games at Sony Pictures Television says:

This has been going on for quite a while now, but just a few moments ago, Sweden's Supreme Court handed down its decision to not grant leave to appeal in the long-running Pirate Bay criminal trial. What this means is that their previously determined jail sentences and fines handed out to Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström will stand.

During the original 2009 trial, Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström all had their sentences decreased, but ordered to pay increased damages that added up to millions of dollars to be handed over to the entertainment company plaintiffs.

The three men filed for a hearing of their case at the Supreme Court, which happened today, and their request was denied. This means that the previously-given sentences now stand, and are final. Peter Sunde aka Brokep, will face 8 months in prison. Fredrik Neij aka TiAMO, is looking at 10 months. Businessman Carl Lundström has just 4 months behind bars. They are all still required to pay a combined $6.8 million in damages.

Facebook has finally, after all this time, speculation and rumors, finally reached their status of hitting an initial public offering (IPO) with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It raised $5 billion, less than the previously speculated $10 billion.

In their S-1 filing, Facebook also mentioned they would begin selling public stock as soon as possible. On top of the IPO news, they released some statistics on Facebook, which are very mind-blowing: Facebook now receives 845 million active users per month, 100 billion friendships, 2.7 billion likes and comments per day, as well as 250 million photos being uploaded every day.

We also found out that Facebook has been profitable for three years now, with revenue of $777 million on profit of $229 million in 2009 alone. Revenue grew 154-percent to $1.974 billion in 2010, and another 88-percent in 2011 to $3.711 billion. Facebook earned $1 billion last year, and are sitting on cash reserves of $3.908 billion.