Business, Financial & Legal - Page 252

The Megaupload saga continues, this time with Megaupload complaining that the US government lied in order to get a search warrant. According to the motion, a recently unsealed search warrant shows that the US Department of Justice asked Megaupload to keep 39 copies of copyrighted movies on its servers for an investigation.

The part they didn't mention? It was an investigation into Megaupload. They then used the fact that the files were still on Megaupload's servers as primary proof that the company knowingling harbored copyrighted content:

The on-going anti-trust investigation into Google has finally been completed with a 4-1 ruling that Google must stop excluding competitors from using standards essential patents owned by subsidiary Motorola. These patents are what the FTC call the "cornerstone of the interoperability standards that we have taken for granted."

Google is also making two voluntary changes to the way some of its products work:

"The changes Google has agreed to make will ensure that consumers continue to reap the benefits of competition in the online marketplace and in the market for innovative wireless devices they enjoy," said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz. "This was an incredibly thorough and careful investigation by the Commission, and the outcome is a strong and enforceable set of agreements."

AMD has picked a new CFO. The internal and external search turned up Devinder Kumar, who will now be a senior vice president and chief financial officer, effective today. Kumar is 57 and will report to AMD CEO Rory Reed. Kumar has served as the interim CFO since September 2012 and as senior vice president since 2006.

"Devinder has been with AMD for more than 28 years and is a talented finance veteran with deep industry knowledge," said Read. "As we accelerate our strategic growth initiatives, Devinder will play an integral role driving the new business model in the near term and strengthening AMD's long-term financial foundation."

Kumar is well equipped for the job: He holds a bachelor's degree from University of Malaya, Malaysia, a master's degree from University of California, Santa Barbara, and a master's degree in business administration from University of California, Los Angeles.

Apple sued Amazon over its use of the term "app store" to describe its online marketplace for Android apps. In a ruling today, a judge has dismissed part of the case, the part alleging that Amazon committed false advertising by using the term.

Judge Phyllis Hamilton said there was "no support for the proposition that Amazon has expressly or impliedly communicated that its Appstore for Android possesses the characteristics and qualities that the public has come to expect from the Apple App Store and/or Apple products."

Apple has also sued for trademark infringement, though Apple does not yet own the trademark to "App Store." It has applied for the trademark, though several companies have moved to block the trademark. Microsoft has said in a motion for summary judgement that "Any secondary meaning or fame Apple has in 'App Store' is de facto secondary meaning that cannot convert the generic term 'app store' into a protectable trademark."

Polaroid will be opening up 10 retails stores in 2013 that will be called FotoBars. These locations will allow you to edit and print pictures, applying filters if your picture isn't from Instagram. The pictures can then be printed on a variety of materials, framed if you want, and be shipped to you within a couple of days.

From the image, it looks like editing will be done on Apple computers, which are probably used to make the whole experience "hip." Material options will include wood, bamboo, metal, acrylic, and canvas. Users will also have the option to print out a normal photo. According to Polaroid, a "critical aspect of the customer experience" is the ability to see and feel examples of the materials, which sounds very Appleish.

The first location will be Delray Beach in Florida, which opens in February. Further locations will open throughout the year, including New York and Las Vegas.

The patent wars continue to move forward with the latest move being LG trying to ban the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 in South Korea. LG alleges that the Galaxy Note infringes upon three of LG's patents on LCD technology used by the display panel. "Through this action, LG Display seeks to completely stop the sale, manufacture and importation of the infringing Samsung product," LG Display said in a press release.

LG has said that they would request compensation of $933,000 per day of continued non-compliance. This patent dispute started back in September when LG Display sued Samsung for infringing upon seven organic light-emitting diode patents. LG alleges five of Samsung's devices infringe, including Samsung's Galaxy S-series of smartphones.

Samsung counter-sued LG alleging that the latter company lured senior Samsung OLED researchers away from the former company, even though they had contracts preventing the working for a rival firm.

Most of my Facebook feed used to be filled with game requests, until I began blocking all game requests - I'm looking at you, Nanna. But, it looks like Zynga CEO Mark Pincus has started his cost-reduction plan which was announced last month.

Zynga has either shut down or pulled from app stores, stopped accepting new players to eleven games with some of those games turning off today. Zynga will reallocate resources from the games gone or cut down to the titles that are actually doing well, or put them into creating new games.

The company have had a very rocky year after bursting out of the gate to be a huge success, where their share price is down from their IPO launch of $10 to just $2.33 now. Zynga have announced huge cost-cutting measure which will see over 100 employees cut, offices shutting their doors, ceasing to renew deals with contractors, shutting down 13 games, as well as reducing investments into The Sims-style game, The Ville.

Samsung has announced plans to build a 1.1 million square foot campus in San Jose, which is located in the heart of Silicon Valley. Global architecture firm NBBJ will be responsible for the new building, which will feature a 10-story tower, amenity pavilion and parking garage.

Samsung's R&D facility will be moving to a new campus that will feature two new 6-story class-A office buildings with about 385,000 square feet of space. This campus will feature two 5-6 story parking structures.

With the tragic Newtown, Connecticut shooting just weeks ago, it looks like EA's grand plan of marketing has failed. When EA started their marketing for the latest Medal of Honor Warfighter game, on their website you could go a step further than most games, and buy guns within a few clicks of the MoH website.

Alongside the weapons you could use in the game on the MoH website, were links to manufacturers who actually sold them. After the Newtown shootings, the Internet went on a stampede and called EA out, where the company were quick to reply that they'd forgotten of the links, sure.

The Warfighter website has been updated and one would think anything related to violence would be removed, but no - we find links to Zero Dark Thirty, the movie based around the SEAL raid on Osama bin Laden's compound. You know, the one where he was shot in the head with a gun.

AMD are already going through tough times, but a 25-year veteran has just jumped ship to Samsung. Michael Goddard's last title with the company was Corporate Vice President for Product Design Engineering and Chief Engineer on Client Products has left the company after a quarter of a century.

He has been with AMD since 1988, and has changed jobs just this month according to his LinkedIn profile, where he has joined electronics giant Samsung as their Vice President and System Architect at their Austin, Texas-based facility.

In the last couple of months, AMD have seen some 26 executives leave the company - from the higher levels of power, all the way down the ranks. AMD sliced 15% of their workforce this fall and are expected to slash even more jobs when the new year arrives.