Business, Financial & Legal - Page 250

Samsung is quite the player in the mobile phone market, with an estimated 420 million devices shipped this year. Next year, it's looking to do even better by aiming to move a record 510 million mobile handsets. If Samsung manages this, they will further separate themselves from their bitter rival Apple.

"Of the 510 million handsets it plans to sell, 390 million are slated as smartphones and 120 million, feature and budget phones," according to an executive from one of Samsung's key suppliers.

"There are some possibilities that smartphone demand will slow in general. But we are seeing new demand for devices using Long Term Evolution (LTE)," said Kim Hyun-joon, an executive at Samsung's telecommunications division.

Google have slapped Universal, Sony and other music labels on the wrist by stripping them of around 2 billion fake views form their YouTube channels. The groups hit include Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG, RCA records and a few others.

The hit has been called a 'black hat', as the companies were using programs or paying a third-party that would manipulate view counts on their respective YouTube videos, which are pretty much just robotic views of their videos. The purpose? To make their songs look much, much more popular than they really were, in order to entice real clicks and views onto their videos.

This ended with over two billion views combined being removed from the companies' videos. Universal was hit the most, seeing more than one billion in views stripped away from them, from a former seven billion views taken down to six billion. Sony/BMG placed second with a loss of 850 million views, bringing their total down to just 2.3 million.

Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, has introduced a bill that would regulate data caps imposed by ISPs and would only allow data caps to be instituted to alleviate network congestion. It would prevent ISPs from arbitrarily applying a data cap just because they can.

"Data caps create challenges for consumers and run the risk of undermining innovation in the digital economy if they are imposed bluntly and not designed to truly manage network congestion," Wyden said in an e-mail statement.

Not only does he want to regulate data caps, he wants to provide more accurate and granular information to consumers. His bill authorizes the FCC to regulate ISPs' methods of measuring bandwidth usage so that they will be as accurate as possible.

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:

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.