Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 257

Samsung's Galaxy Note, the uber-large, but curvaceously sexy Galaxy Note, which sports a 5.3-inch screen is a kind of tabletphone hybrid. This hasn't stopped the device from shipping more than 1 million in Europe and Asia, before it even hits the shores of the U.S.

The rapid sales of the device show Samsung that creating a new market for something between a smartphone and tablet PC. Samsung says that the speed of sales should accelerate even further going into the new year when it becomes available in the U.S.

Samsung also note that the Financial Times reviewed the Galaxy Note highly, commenting it as:

Amazon have had a very Merry Christmas when it comes to Amazon Kindle sales over the holiday season. Amazon customers purchased millions of Kindle Fires and millions of Kindle e-readers. 2011 was the best holiday ever for the Kindle family, with one million Kindle devices sold each week.

Amazon CEO and founder, Jeff Bezos, says "We are grateful to our customers worldwide for making this the best holiday ever for Kindle." He continues pointing out the fact that the #1 and #4 best-selling Kindle books released in 2011 were both published independently by their authors using Kindle Direct Publishing.

Three Kindle-based products took the top three spots on Amazon's best seller list, with the Kindle Fire, Kindle Touch and Kindle taking out the top three spots, respectively. Amazon's latest, Kindle Fire, was the most gifted and wished for product on Amazon this season, and was also the top selling product in the UK, France, Spain and Italy. Kindle Fire also took out the best selling product on Amazon's mobile site.

With Newegg in one corner as the second-largest online retailer in the U.S. and the number one destination for tech-savvy shoppers, with Amazon the top U.S. e-tailer in the other corner, both releasing their holiday best-selling item reports.

Neweggs list contains:

Laptops/Notebooks: 15.6" Asus A53E-EH91

There have been plenty of people who have worked for ATI, that have moved onto bigger and better things by packing up their brown box, throwing their personal items inside like a plant or a family portrait (ok, ok, that sounds like a Hollywood cliche, but it's how I imagine it as an Australian) and moving to a better job.

Now former AMD employee, Richard Huddy, has moved onto Intel. His goal with the red team was to form stronger relations with the game developers themselves. Big news, eh? Huddy has pushed through plenty of things for not only the technological industry, but the gaming industry. He worked with one of my favorite games, Max Payne, and ended up with a starring role as the mad professor in the lab. From there, he has helped a tonne of huge games hit the market.

These include Harry Potter, Just Cause, Battlefield 2 and Burnout Paradise. He also was a big player in pushing HDR with AA into a bunch of games over the years. Why would Intel want Huddy? Well, they want their GPU business to fly. Intel's Haswell architecture, due in 2013, will reportedly establish Intel as some form of leader in the mass-market graphics space.

I've covered SOPA-related news for the past few days, as it is getting quite serious with GoDaddy being hit hard. It has just been announced that Jimmy Wales decision to find a new home for Wikipedia, away from the SOPA loving hands of GoDaddy.

Wales is quite unhappy with GoDaddy's position on the Stop Online Privacy Act, by announcing the shift in the following tweet:

I am proud to announce that the Wikipedia domain names will move away from GoDaddy. Their position on #sopa is unacceptable to us.

Apple have just completed a deal to purchase Israeli flash memory firm, Anobit. The deal is reportedly worth between $400-$500 million, which makes it Apple's largest acquisition since NeXT which cost $404 million. A tweet from the Twitter account of Israel's Prime Minster has said:

Welcome to Israel, Apple Inc. on your 1st acquisition here. I'm certain that you'll benefit from the fruit of the Israeli knowledge.

It is not just exciting for Apple, but for consumers, too. Apple's new investment in Anobit shows their commitment to requiring fast flash memory, as Israel is a country known for technological breakthroughs, such as its early work in mobile phones and instant messaging.

If you haven't heard of SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), then I suggest you do some serious reading, because last week the House Judiciary Committee discussed it, and the results of SOPA would not be good, at all.

There was an abrupt end to the markup session on Friday, with a new hearing date set for this week. Opposition to SOPA is growing, with the General Manger of Reddit stepping in and saying that the bill would "almost certainly mean the end" of Reddit.

On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee will continue discussing SOPA to decide whether the bill should move to the full House. Until then, lobbying groups for and against the bill continue with their efforts to influence the votes of committee members.

CD Projekt, developers behind the successful currently PC-only game The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is going after pirates. The game has sold over one million copies so far, and while they are confident behind these sales numbers, they are also confident in going after pirates of their hard work.

CD Projekt are going after pirates, claiming that only people who they are sure downloaded a copy of the game illegally are receiving a threat of legal action. Michal Nowakowski, CD Projekt's VP of Business Development says:

We're addressing only 100% confirmed piracy causes that are 100% possible to prove. We are not worried about tracking the wrong people. As this is the trade secret of the company working on this, I cannot share it. However, we investigated the subject before we decided on this move, and we aware of some past complications. The method used here is targeting only 100% confirmed piracy cases. No innocent person was targeted with the letter so far. At least we have not received any information as of now which would indicate something like that.

We all know Skyrim has enjoyed a very successful career in just six weeks, but just how successful? Well, firstly, it has shipped over 10 million copies since it's 11/11/11 launch, with "Large retail reorders across all platforms and record-breaking digital sales reflect the ongoing global demand by consumers excited to explore this extraordinary fantasy epic," the company said in a statement.

Robert Altman, Chairman and CEO of ZeniMax Media has said:

We are gratified that Skyrim continues to garner high review scores and accolades around the world. We are most grateful to our fans for their support and enthusiasm for the game, and their love of the hundreds of hours of gameplay it offers. We continue to strive to deliver the highest quality entertainment experience for everyone. 2012 will be another huge year for our fans, with the release of the Creation Kit, as well as exciting DLC which will add to the richness of this epic adventure.

Three Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HLDS) workers, Young Keun Park, Sang Hun Kim and Sik "Daniel" Hur will face jail time after pleading guilty to fixing optical disk drive prices, according to the US Department of Justice. Throughout 2005 to 2009, the three employees suppressed competition by rigging bids for optical disk drives sold to both Dell and HP, in addition to fixing prices for devices sold to Microsoft.

Under the plea agreement, Park and Kim will serve eight months in prison, while Hur will experience seven months in jail. All there will have to pay a $25,000 fine. The three executives will also be charged with multiple violations of the Sherman Act, which covers antitrust and anticompetitive activities. Each count of the Sherman Act comes with a statutory fine of up to $1 million, (and more if the damages are large enough), and up to 10-years behind bars.

This is the first ruling against individual workers, but is the second round of charges against the join Hitachi-LG venture. Last month, HLDS itself pleaded guilty to 14 counts of violating federal antitrust laws between the June 2004 and September 2009. Hitachi-LG were sentenced to pay a $21.1 million fine and is said to be helping the DoJ with its investigation.