Business, Financial & Legal - Page 255

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.

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.