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Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Justin Timberlake part of group buying MySpace (AP) : Technet

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Justin Timberlake part of group buying MySpace (AP) : Technet

Justin Timberlake part of group buying MySpace (AP)

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 05:59 PM PDT

By RYAN NAKASHIMA, AP Business Writer Ryan Nakashima, Ap Business Writer – Wed Jun 29, 8:59 pm ET

LOS ANGELES – Justin Timberlake apparently wasn't satisfied with just playing a social media impresario in the movies, so now he's becoming one in real life.

The pop star, who played Napster co-founder Sean Parker in "The Social Network," a movie about Facebook, has joined Specific Media in buying its downtrodden rival, MySpace, from News Corp. in a deal that closed Wednesday.

Timberlake will have an office at MySpace's Beverly Hills headquarters and a staff of about a half dozen people working for him "around the clock" developing his ideas for the site, said Specific Media CEO Tim Vanderhook.

The partners are set to unveil their plans for reviving the flagging site in a couple of months.

"When we met with Justin and we discussed what our strategy was, we hit a chord with him," Vanderhook told The Associated Press. "One of his passions is he really enjoys helping other artists and creating a community for people to really express themselves. I think we were blown away that we were able to get someone like Justin to be so excited about what we were doing."

The deal is for $35 million, mostly in Specific Media stock, according to a person familiar with the matter. That's a small fraction of the $580 million that News Corp. paid for the site six years ago. The sale resulted in the layoff of about half of the site's remaining 500 workers, said the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

As part of the exchange, News Corp. received a private equity stake in Specific Media and less than a 5 percent stake in MySpace.

With Timberlake's help, the buyers hope to revitalize MySpace and transform it into a destination for original shows, as well as bolster its already available video content and music. Vanderhook said the revamp will include additional investment in technology and maintain the right to stream music through the joint venture it has with major recording companies, MySpace Music.

"There's a need for a place where fans can go to interact with their favorite entertainers, listen to music, watch videos, share and discover cool stuff and just connect," Timberlake, an Emmy and Grammy winning artist, said in a statement. "MySpace has the potential to be that place."

The sale closed a day before the end of News Corp.'s fiscal year, meaning it was able rid itself of about $250 million in losses, estimated Barclays Capital analyst Anthony DiClemente.

Over the last 11 quarters, News Corp. had cumulatively lost about $1.4 billion on the business segment that houses MySpace. It was a disastrous performance by a company that CEO Rupert Murdoch had predicted would reach $1 billion in annual revenue. It never reached that goal.

Walking away from the site was "the right decision," said Standard & Poor's equity analyst Tuna Amobi. "It's something that they should put behind them and kind of move on."

MySpace CEO Mike Jones, the last member of a three-member executive team appointed to fix the site in April 2009, said in a memo to staff Wednesday that he would help with the transition for two months before departing.

MySpace launched in 2003, founded by entrepreneurs Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, who is every MySpace user's first friend. It became a popular Internet destination and a key way for little-known musicians to market themselves and interact with their fans.

But MySpace lost its footing over the years as the fun of customizing one's profile began to bore its users and heavy use of banner advertisements slowed the speed at which pages load. Meanwhile, Facebook, founded in 2004, limited what users and advertisers could do, but kept pages clean, and freshened them with its "news feed" of updates, a feature that MySpace later copied.

MySpace peaked with 76 million monthly U.S. visitors in October 2008. Advertisers and musicians who once relied on it for promotion fled the site for other hotter social networks like Facebook and, more recently, Twitter.

When Facebook a few years ago began allowing apps, including music functions and addictive games like "FarmVille," MySpace was left in the dust.

Less than half of MySpace's monthly visitors are now in the United States, where its visitor count dropped by half in May to 35 million, according to tracking firm comScore Inc. Facebook now has more than 700 million monthly visitors worldwide, it said.

"Apps were the breaking point and MySpace could never recover from that," said Charlene Li, a social media analyst and founder of Altimeter Group.

Rohit Kulkarni, an 18-year-old member of the San Jose, Calif. pop punk band Four O'Clock Heroes, said his group once exclusively used MySpace to reach fans with their music, but they haven't checked the site in months. They opened their Facebook band page last year.

"Most of our following was already on Facebook anyways," Kulkarni said. "Nowadays, people use Facebook over MySpace because it's integrated into almost everything, like all your mobile phones. I'm guessing that's why it became more popular."

Even "FarmVille" game-maker Zynga has taken a role promoting music, as shown recently when Lady Gaga unveiled her new album there.

Timberlake's involvement is a clear sign that MySpace will try to reconnect with its musical roots. Tim Vanderhook said that the acquisition is about returning MySpace "to what it was supposed to be."

Specific Media, based in Irvine, Calif., brokers the sale of ads to websites and has dabbled in creating original programming and matching it with sponsors. The company was founded in 1999 by brothers Tim, Chris and Russell Vanderhook.

At $35 million, Specific Media gets an Internet property for a price that Altimeter's Li called "ridiculously low" and values each monthly U.S. visitor at about $1 each. Its new owners should be able to recoup their investment if the company gets each user to click on about 20 ads over their lifetime, she said.

Review: HP TouchPad makes a mediocre tablet (AP)

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 06:50 PM PDT

By RACHEL METZ, AP Technology Writer Rachel Metz, Ap Technology Writer – 2 hrs 41 mins ago

SAN FRANCISCO – A year after Hewlett-Packard Co. purchased flailing Palm, the technology behemoth is rolling out the first tablet that uses Palm's webOS operating system.

The July 1 release should be a triumph for HP, showcasing its ability to compete in the increasingly crowded tablet market. Yet while the TouchPad's software is beautiful and intuitive, overall the tablet is more of a "meh-sterpiece" than a masterpiece.

The TouchPad looks a lot like its peers: It's black and shiny with just a few buttons dotting its frame. The screen, 9.7 inches at the diagonal, is the same size and resolution as Apple's iPad. At $500 for a model with 16 gigabytes of storage or $600 for one with 32 GB, the price is essentially the same, too. The device I tested used Wi-Fi to connect to the Internet; HP says a version will work on AT&T Inc.'s wireless network later this summer.

At 0.54 inches thick, the TouchPad is fatter than the iPad. It's heavier, too, at 1.6 pounds. With its rounded edges and smooth plastic, it's also more slippery than other tablets I've tested.

Turn it on, and the TouchPad looks like webOS smartphones. The software makes perfect sense on a tablet. For example: Applications appear onscreen as little "cards" that you can scroll through sideways, tap on to enlarge or flick to close. Each window you open within an application — numerous Web pages or in-progress emails, for example — shows up as its own card in a small stack for that app, and you can rearrange them as you please.

The TouchPad has the latest version of webOS, which adds features like the ability to pull your photos from Facebook and online photo sites into the device's photo library, and "Touch to Share," which will let you share content with certain webOS smartphones.

Generally, webOS made navigating a breeze. Its layout keeps the TouchPad's home screen uncluttered, with the "Just type..." universal search function taking up a small amount of space in the center of the display and a strip of applications on the bottom of the screen.

I figured that the TouchPad's screen would be great for watching videos. I wasn't disappointed. Whether I was streaming Lady Gaga's latest video oeuvre from YouTube or checking out the old Mike Myers comedy "So I Married an Axe Murderer" on Crackle, colors popped and images were crystal-clear.

The TouchPad was also good for surfing the Web, in part because it supports Flash video content, which the iPad does not. It couldn't do everything. Here and there, a website didn't look quite right, and TV and movie streaming site Hulu would not work on it. Overall, however, websites loaded and functioned as they would on a standard computer.

The device includes a fine on-screen keyboard. I wouldn't have written up this review on it, but it was fine for sending emails and instant messages.

The TouchPad's battery life was decent. After streaming videos, viewing photos and surfing the Web, the tablet lasted six and a half hours with Wi-Fi on. HP said it is rated for up to 8 hours of Internet use over WiFi, or 9 hours of video playback.

One of the TouchPad features HP touts is its ability to connect with a Pre 3 smartphone to share content like webpages and videos and receive texts sent to the phone on the tablet and reply to them from the TouchPad. Though the Pre 3 is not yet for sale (it's slated for release this summer), HP lent me one to test this feature. The sharing was easy to set up via Bluetooth, and to pull up a website on the Pre all you have to do is touch its back near the bottom of the TouchPad's screen.

Sure, it's a cool idea, but I'm skeptical the feature would really get much use.

Of course, there were plenty of fumbles. Several times, I was in the middle of an IM conversation when the virtual keyboard mysteriously stopped allowing me to send text. I could type, but whenever I pressed "enter," nothing happened. I had to restart the device to fix it.

The TouchPad also seemed to stutter sometimes, like when I flipped through on-screen album covers while running other apps. And when I streamed TV shows from network websites, they would sometimes freeze. Once an incoming message notification somehow turned off the sound and I couldn't turn it back on.

The video chat feature, which I'd hoped would contend with the iPad's FaceTime, was dismal. The TouchPad has a video camera on its front and uses Skype for video calls, so I asked my colleague Peter to help me give it a whirl. But when we tried to connect, he looked pixelated and sounded OK on my end and he said I looked "like a Monet painting" and sounded crackly on his.

I tried video chatting with a high school buddy but every time we got the video to work the audio was muted. I also attempted to talk with my little brother, and after four or five misfires we got the video chat working but the picture and sound were awful.

Like any other tablet that wants a chance of survival, the TouchPad includes access to an application store. HP said its App Catalog will have at least 300 TouchPad apps at launch, and 70 percent of its 6,200 webOS phone apps will work on the device. Still, this is slim pickings compared to the 90,000 iPad apps in Apple's App Store (there are hundreds of thousands of apps total). And tablets running Google Inc.'s Android software can run any of the more than 200,000 apps in the Android Market.

Sadly, the TouchPad is more blah than brilliant. The software is great, though, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that HP can come up with a stronger tablet next time around.

Jihadist web forum knocked off Internet (AP)

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 09:04 PM PDT

LOLITA C. BALDOR and JORDAN ROBERTSON, Associated Press Lolita C. Baldor And Jordan Robertson, Associated Press – 26 mins ago

WASHINGTON – A popular jihadist Internet forum has been knocked off the Internet, and counterterrorism experts say it appears it was hacked.

Cybersecurity analysts say the al-Shamukh forum appears to have been taken down by a fairly sophisticated cyberattack that hit not only the website, but the server — which is the main computer that enables people to access the site over the Internet.

Evan Kohlmann, a counterterrorism expert who tracks jihadist websites as a senior partner with Flashpoint Partners consultancy in New York, described the site as a key al-Qaida propaganda forum.

He said it bounces around between Internet hosts every few months, but has seemingly been allowed to exist as an open secret, possibly allowing a Western government to use it as an intelligence resource.

"These sites can be like spy satellites, they're great ways of gathering information about your adversaries," he said in an interview late Wednesday. "Bringing them down is like shooting at your own spy satellites. But there are others who don't agree with that."

He said there's been a "struggle behind the scenes" in the U.S. government about whether to allow the site to stay up.

Other cyber experts agreed that the site is a popular jihadist forum.

"The al-Shamukh website had become the most trusted and exclusive haunt for e-jihadists," said Jarret Brachman, a terrorism expert who has spent a decade monitoring al-Qaida's media operations and advises the U.S. government. "If it doesn't come back up soon, the forum's registered members will start migrating to the half a dozen other main forums, all of whom are probably chomping at the bit to replace Shamukh as the pre-eminent al-Qaida forum."

The Defense Department said late Wednesday that it was aware of reports that al-Qaida's Internet operations had been disrupted, but could not comment on the specific incident.

Kohlmann raised the possibility that a government could be behind the website's problems.

If true, this would not be the first time that government officials have sabotaged an al-Qaida website.

U.S. and British officials have acknowledged that British intelligence authorities launched a cyberattack against al-Qaida's English-language Internet magazine, Inspire, taking down directions for bomb-making and replacing them with cupcake recipes.

U.S. authorities had considered knocking the magazine off the Internet but realized it would just go down for a few days, then reappear, according to one U.S. official. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the U.S. believed it was more productive to keep an eye on the site and glean intelligence from it.

Kohlmann said chatter from another message board known to be frequented by al-Qaida members confirmed that there was a technical problem with the al-Shamukh forum website and that the outage wasn't intentional, such as performing site maintenance.

The fact that the forum wasn't knocked out sooner is revealing. Forcing a website offline can be a relatively easy matter. A so-called denial-of-service attack, which floods a website's servers with enormous amounts of webpage requests is a popular hacking activity. But it apparently wasn't used in this instance. Instead, cyber experts said it was a more complex attack.

Keynote Systems Inc., a San Mateo, Calif.-based company that specializes in measuring Internet and cellphone network response times, confirmed that the site was completely down from 14 cities around the world.

Based on the kind of error the site was giving people who tried to view the site, it is likely that someone stole the domain name and caused traffic to go to the wrong server, or that someone got access to the system and directed it to not return content, said Berkowitz, spokesman for Keynote.

Kohlmann said it appears that the people who control the website were diligent about backing up the content, so it could be back online soon.

NBC News first reported the site was hacked Wednesday.

What Myspace got wrong, and why nobody misses it (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 06:34 PM PDT

Founder of TwitPic tweets his run-in with the law via his own Twitter photo-sharing service (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 06:27 PM PDT

Clever Foursquare Hack Turns New York City Into A Giant Game Of Risk (Mashable)

Posted: 28 Jun 2011 07:18 PM PDT

Sarah Kessler Sarah Kessler – Tue Jun 28, 10:18 pm ET

[More from Mashable: Mashable Hits 100,000 Foursquare Followers]

The board game Risk, in which players maneuver plastic armies on a map in order to achieve "world domination," has firmly occupied one corner of nerdom for about fifty years. Foursquare stationed itself in another more tech-oriented corner of that same kingdom about two years ago. Now, at last, the two categories of nerdom meet.

"World of Fourcraft" uses Foursquare and Google Maps APIs to turn New York City into a giant game of Risk. Users decide which team they are on by swearing allegiance to one of New York City's five boroughs. Checking into a neighborhood on Foursquare is the online game's equivalent to placing plastic man on a country in the board game. An algorithm decides who owns each neighborhood using the number of people who have checked into it on each team. There are currently about 100 players.

[More from Mashable: End of LulzSec May Not Mean End of Hacks]

"We wanted to make foursquare more compelling for long-term use," says Ricky Robinett, one member of the seven-person team that created the game during a weekend hackathon at New York's General Assembly. "[On Foursquare] you have a weekly total that gets swiped at the end of the week. This keeps adding up."

Three days in, it looks like Manhattan is winning the game, which took the "Best Location Hack" award at the hackathon. Not that winning gets you coupons or anything.

"There are no prizes. There are no celebrations. The only reward is the feeling of pride you normally only get from being re-tweeted," explain the rules on the site.

Robinett says that eventually he wants to borrow a "level up" feature from World of Warcraft that would make more-frequent users' checkins more effective at claiming neighborhoods for their teams.

At which point the nerdverse might just explode.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Amazon protests California Web-sales tax plan (Reuters)

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 05:08 PM PDT

– Wed Jun 29, 8:08 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc warned its 10,000-plus California sales affiliates on Wednesday that it may be forced to sever ties with them should the state begin taxing their online sales.

The wealthiest U.S. state became the latest -- on the heels of Illinois and Connecticut -- to be dropped by Amazon from its nationwide sales-affiliate program, which relies on in-state websites to drive its own online business.

Its affiliates, paid a fee when they funnel traffic to Amazon that results in a sale, have found themselves in the middle of a battle between Amazon and several states that argue the online retailer has a duty to collect sales taxes when those affiliates operate within their state.

Amazon counters that such taxes spur job and income losses. On Tuesday, California's legislature passed a budget that incorporates such an online sales tax and on Wednesday, Governor Jerry Brown signed the relevant bill.

"We oppose this bill because it is unconstitutional and counterproductive. It is supported by big-box retailers, most of which are based outside California, that seek to harm the affiliate advertising programs of their competitors," Amazon said in an email sent to Californian affiliates Wednesday.

"As a result, we will terminate contracts with all California residents that are participants in the Amazon Associates Program as of the date (if any) that the California law becomes effective."

Analysts say Amazon could cut its partnership with affiliates in more U.S. states that require the online retailer to collect sales taxes.

Many traditional chains such as Best Buy and Sears have openly voiced concerns about online-only retailers gaining an unfair advantage by avoiding sales taxes in states where they do not maintain a corporate presence.

Lawmakers in states -- many facing huge budget deficits -- say Amazon and other online retailers such as Overstock.com have a duty to collect tax because its affiliates operate locally.

Amazon has already announced plans to cancel its affiliate program in Illinois in response to the state's new law to target online retailers. Texas is considering taxing online sales as well.

(Reporting by Alistair Barr; Writing by Eddie Chan; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

LivingSocial moving ahead with $1 billion IPO: source (Reuters)

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 03:41 PM PDT

– Wed Jun 29, 6:41 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Online daily deal site LivingSocial is meeting with banks to discuss an initial public offering of about $1 billion, according to a source familiar the situation.

The amount values the Washington, D.C. based company in the range of $10 billion to $15 billion, according to the source.

A representative for LivingSocial declined to comment.

LivingSocial is the latest Internet startup seeking to woo investors who are piling into social media companies such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Groupon and Facebook.

Online gaming company Zynga is expected to file for its IPO on Thursday that could value the company as high as $20 billion.

LivingSocial is the No. 2 U.S. social deal site behind Groupon, which filed for its public debut and plans to raise $750 million that could value the company at $15 billion to $20 billion.

LivingSocial offers discounts on restaurant dining, lodging and other items, alerting its 39 million members via email about the deals. It gets its revenue from local merchants that agree to the discounts.

The company expects revenue of $1 billion this year.

In April, LivingSocial raised $400 million in a round of funding that included LightSpeed Venture Partners and Amazon giving it a value of about $3 billion.

LivingSocial is expected to pick lead underwriting banks by the end of the week, according to CNBC, which first reported the news.

(Reporting by Jennifer Saba, editing by Bernard Orr)

Samsung asks U.S. to ban iPad, iPhone imports (Reuters)

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 07:04 PM PDT

– 2 hrs 27 mins ago

SEOUL/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Samsung asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to ban the importation of Apple's iPhones, iPads and iPods, ratcheting up its dispute against Apple.

The filing, dated Tuesday, says Apple's iPhone, iPod digital music player and iPad tablet infringe on five of Samsung's patents involving telecommunications standards and user interface inventions.

Samsung also filed a new patent lawsuit against Apple in a Delaware federal court on Wednesday,

The complaints are the latest salvo in a growing legal battle between the two consumer electronics giants.

In April, Apple sued Samsung in a California federal court, claiming the South Korean firm's Galaxy line of mobile phones and tablets "slavishly" copies the iPhone and iPad.

Samsung then countersued in California, and Apple last week filed another lawsuit in South Korea. An Apple spokesman could not be immediately reached on Wednesday.

As well as its own phones and tablets, Samsung manufactures microchips for Apple's gadgets, a business that brought in about $5.7 billion in revenue for the South Korean company last year.

Before banning the importation of Apple's popular devices, the ITC would first have to agree to look into Samsung's allegations, a process that could be quite lengthy.

Apple is one participant in a web of litigation among phone makers and software firms over who owns the patents used in smartphones, as rivals aggressively rush into the smartphone and tablet market which the U.S. company jump-started with iPhone and iPad.

Samsung is one of the fastest growing smartphone makers and has emerged as Apple's strongest competitor in the booming tablet market but it remains a distant second in the space.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich and Miyoung Kim; Additional reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco; editing by Carol Bishopric)

Nevr 2 L8: Text messages double chance of quitting smoking (AFP)

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 04:03 PM PDT

– Wed Jun 29, 7:03 pm ET

PARIS (AFP) – People trying to quit smoking are twice as likely to succeed when they get mobile-phone text messages to encourage them, according to a study reported on Thursday by The Lancet medical journal.

British doctors recruited 5,800 smokers and randomly assigned them either to a group that received specially-tailored SMSes or to a control group.

The first group received five messages a day for the first five weeks and then three per week for the next six months.

The messages -- developed with the help of smokers themselves -- gave advice for keeping weight off while quitting and encouraged participants to persevere.

"This is it! - QUIT DAY, throw away all your fags [cigarettes]," was an example of what they received on the day they started cessation. "TODAY is the start of being QUIT forever, you can do it!"

Volunteers in this group also had a personalised system in which, at times of need, they got help by texting the word "crave" or "lapse".

They would receive this kind of reply: "Cravings last less than 5 minutes on average. To help distract yourself, try sipping a drink slowly until the craving is over."

In response to the "lapse" text, they would get this response: "Don?t feel bad or guilty if you?ve slipped. You?ve achieved a lot by stopping for a while. Slip-ups can be a normal part of the quitting process. Keep going, you can do it!"

In contrast, smokers in the control group received bland SMSes every fortnight thanking them for taking part or requesting confirmation of contact details or other messages that were unrelated to smoking.

Throughout the trial, volunteers in both groups sent off samples of their saliva by post.

These were tested for cotinine, a chemical found in tobacco, to see if they were still smoking or had given up.

After six months, 10.7 percent in the SMS support group had been continuously abstinent, but this was only 4.9 percent in the control group. Success was similar across all ages and social groups.

The researchers say the "txt2stop" trial demonstrated a powerful, low-cost tool for combatting smoking addiction -- and one that could be adapted around the world.

In 2009, more than two-thirds of the world?s population owned a mobile phone and 4.2 trillion text messages were sent.

"Text messages are a very convenient way for smokers to receive support to quit," said Caroline Free of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who led the experiment.

"People described txt2stop as like having a 'friend' encouraging them or an 'angel on their shoulder'. It helped people resist the temptation to smoke."

Txt2stop is the latest investigation of mobile-phone messages as medical tools.

In a study published last November, HIV-infected patients in Kenya who received text reminders about taking daily AIDS drugs were 12 percent likelier to achieve full adherence to their drug regimen than counterparts in the non-text group.

Smoking kills more than five million people each year, and two out of three British smokers have said at some point they would like to quit, according to figures quoted in the study.

Previous research has found that SMSes encourage smoking abstinence, but these experiments only lasted six weeks, as opposed to six months, and the results were self-reported by the volunteers, rather than checked in lab tests.

News Corp sells Myspace, ending six-year saga (Reuters)

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 03:28 PM PDT

By Jennifer Saba Jennifer Saba – Wed Jun 29, 6:28 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – News Corp has sold Myspace for $35 million, a fraction of what it paid for the once-hot social media site even as a new generation of Web-based start-ups is enjoying sky-high valuations.

Advertising company Specific Media will team with the singer Justin Timberlake to acquire Myspace in a deal that caps a tumultuous period of ownership under Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, which swooped in to buy Myspace for $580 million in 2005.

At the time, Myspace was among the world's most popular websites, and News Corp's success in beating out rival Viacom Inc in a bidding war was viewed as a major victory for Murdoch. Since then, however, Facebook has eclipsed Myspace in popularity, and the deal has become a hard lesson in what can happen when a traditional media company imposes its will on a start-up.

It also shows how quickly audience -- and investor -- tastes can shift in the world of social networking. Indeed, Wednesday's deal contrasts sharply with the current frenzy over social media companies, including LinkedIn, Twitter and Groupon, among investors looking for the next big thing.

Another of the hot start-ups, Zynga, an online social game company, plans to raise up to $2 billion in an initial public offering that could be filed by Thursday, valuing the company at $20 billion

"This is a mistake that will repeat itself," James McQuivey, an analyst with Forrester Research, said of the Myspace saga. "I'm not sure that someone being pushed on by early round investors, someone reading their own press, which is praising them, will stop and say, 'Wait, is this a one-year fad, a two-year fad? Or is this a five-year to ten-year change in the way things are done?'"

The Myspace transaction calls for News Corp to retain a minority stake in the website, the companies said in a statement, confirming a deal that was reported earlier.

Specific Media, which specializes in digital advertising, did not disclose financial terms. It announced, however, that Timberlake -- who happens to have played Facebook adviser and investor Sean Parker in the movie "The Social Network" -- would take an ownership stake and serve a "major role" in developing a strategy for Myspace.

A source familiar with the transaction said the deal is worth $35 million and is a mix of cash and stock. News Corp will retain about 5 percent, the source said.

Additionally, more than half of Myspace's 500-strong workforce is expected to be laid off because of the sale, the source said.

The deal comes after a four-month bidding process in which a number of different possible buyers surfaced, including other social networking sites and private equity firms. The auction had been expected to fetch in the neighborhood of $100 million.

In the end, the sale serves as the latest example of what can happen to a once coveted company with a rocket-like trajectory that quickly loses its luster as competitors zoom past it in popularity.

Founded in August 2003 by Chris De Wolfe and Tom Anderson, Myspace was conceived as a way for friends and fans to connect with one another as well as with their favorite bands and artists.

Myspace, a kind of musical version of pioneer social network site Friendster, fast became wildly popular with teenagers and young adults, who spent hours designing their own pages with their favorite digital wallpaper, posting photos and adding friends.

At its peak in 2008, Myspace attracted nearly 80 million people in the United States, almost double that of Facebook.

The growth was too fast and Myspace had trouble scaling the number of users who were flocking to the site. Meanwhile Facebook had opened up its platform to third-party developers, such as Zynga and its popular FarmVille game. That attracted more people and kept them on the site.

By 2011, the number of U.S. visitors to Myspace fell to about 40 million while those visiting Facebook totaled about 150 million, according to online measurement firm comScore.

For the quarter ended March 2011, News Corp reported a segment operating loss of $165 million, mainly due to declines at Myspace.

(Additional reporting by Paul Thomasch; Editing by Bernard Orr, Steve Orlofsky and Matthew Lewis)

"Adjustment Bureau" tops DVD, Blu-ray sales charts (Reuters)

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 05:14 PM PDT

By T.K. Arnold T.k. Arnold – Wed Jun 29, 8:14 pm ET

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – "The Adjustment Bureau," a quirky sci-fi romance starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt, debuted at No. 1 on the DVD sales chart Wednesday, followed by fellow rookies "Unknown" and "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules."

The moderately successful theatrical features helped knock incumbent champ "True Grit" to No. 5 on Nielsen VideoScan's sales chart during the week ended June 26, while "Battle: Los Angeles" fell two to No. 4, also in its second week.

On Nielsen's dedicated Blu-ray Disc sales chart, "The Adjustment Bureau" and "Unknown" also scored a No. 1 and No. 2 debut, respectively. They were followed by "Battle: Los Angeles" and "Wimpy Kid."

The top rental, according to trade publication Home Media Magazine, was "Just Go With It," which jumped two places in its third week. None of the new DVD champs appeared on the rental chart because they come from studios that enforce a 28-day window before they become available on Netflix and Redbox.

(To read more about our entertainment news, visit our blog "Fan Fare" online at http://blogs.reuters.com/fanfare/)

Study finds that e-reader growth has surpassed tablets in recent months (Appolicious)

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 03:30 PM PDT

Low budget is no problem for cell phone filmmaker (The Upshot)

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 02:36 PM PDT

HTC Status debuts with dedicated Facebook button (Digital Trends)

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 02:37 PM PDT

Kelly Montgomery Kelly Montgomery – Wed Jun 29, 5:37 pm ET

HTC announced today the arrival of its new phone, the Status, which comes with an integrated Facebook button for easy social media sharing. The phone will be available exclusively on AT&T this summer and while it's not the "Facebook Phone" that some have been anticipating, it does put a heavy emphasis on social media sharing directly from the phone. Using the dedicated Facebook button, users will be able to instantly post a new status, upload photos, check-in at their current location, or share stories and articles from the Web directly to Facebook. While listening to music on the phone, users can also quickly press the Facebook button to share what they are listening to with friends. Other features include app shortcuts on the lock screen, front and back cameras for Facebook-friendly self-portraits, and smart ringer technology that reduces volume when the phone is in your hand and increases volume when in a pocket or bag.

Each time users make or get a call from a friend, that friend's Facebook photo and status will pop up on the screen. If it's that friend's birthday that week, that information will show up as well. The 5-megapixel camera offers instant filters and artistic touches, and users can even choose to have the phone upload photos to Facebook as they are taken. The Status will run Android 2.3 and HTC Sense. There's no word on pricing or availability yet, but AT&T and HTC should be announcing the information soon.

While we certainly like the social integration, our first thought about the phone was why on Earth would they choose to make the phone look like a BlackBerry with a full keyboard and measly 2.6-inch screen? If the phone is designed to be all about integrating with Facebook, users are going to want a big, beautiful, high-resolution screen for reading the news feed, snapping photos, and browsing the web. The social media features of the Status are appealing, but this phone needs to be good enough to compete with the iPhone and popular Android devices to be a success. The Microsoft Kin was similarly focused around social media and was still a failure, largely because it couldn't compete with the best phones on the market. Time will tell if the HTC Status will have the same problems, but we think that the small screen and phone design might keep it from competing with the big guns.

Samsung trying to halt import of iPhones, iPads (Digital Trends)

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 05:08 PM PDT

Aemon Malone Aemon Malone – Wed Jun 29, 8:08 pm ET

apple v samsungSamsung has struck back. Following in the wake of Apple's patent lawsuit, the South Korea-based company today filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) seeking to block the import of the iPhone, iPad and iPod, according to Bloomberg.

The complaint escalates the legal dispute between the two companies which began in April when Apple filed a suit again Samsung accusing the company of copying the design of its mobile devices. Samsung quickly filed a countersuit claiming Apple's iPhone and iPad had infringed on 10 of Samsung's own wireless patents. Apple then countered Samsung's countersuit by a filing civil complaint in Samsung's home turf of South Korea. Samsung's Galaxy smartphone lineup as well as its Galaxy Tab tablet computer are seen as direct competitors to Apple's iPhone and iPad respectively. In a twist of irony, Samsung actually supplies parts to the very company its taking umbrage with; Samsung supplies the memory chips found in several Apple devices.

The legal battle between the two juggernauts continues and shows no signs of abating. Samsung's complaint with the ITC , filed earlier this week, claims that Apple is infringing on five of the company's patents. Samsung is seeking to have the ITC block imports of Apple's most popular mobile devices into the U.S. But it's not likely that the ITC will bow to Samsung's wishes — at least not anytime in the near future.

Samsung's complaint specifically takes issue with Apple's use of mobile Web-integration; the way digital documents are viewed through a touchscreen-enabled device; the manner in which data packages are transmitted; and how the iOS devices store and play audio files.

If the ITC deems the complaint is worthy of its consideration, the case could be resolved within the next 15 to 18 months.

FAQ for Final Cut Pro X Aims To Calm Angry Users (NewsFactor)

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 02:37 PM PDT

Mark Long, newsfactor.com Mark Long, newsfactor.com – Wed Jun 29, 5:37 pm ET

When Apple rolled out a 64-bit version of Final Cut Pro last week, the company promised its latest video-editing software release would revolutionize video editing. However, the revolution under way is hardly what Apple had in mind.

Video editors are up in arms because Final Cut Pro X offers little or no support for a number of capabilities that were in earlier releases. Some have demanded and reportedly received refunds, while others have loudly complained about the new product in user forums.

In response, Apple has launched a new FAQ page for Final Cut Pro X that attempts to pacify disgruntled customers. Still, a new online petition is demanding that Apple restore its discontinued releases of Final Cut Pro or sell the software's source code to a third party.

"Many have invested hundreds of thousands -- some even millions -- of dollars in creating Final Cut Pro-based companies," the petition reads. "These are now threatened by a 'prosumer-grade' product upgrade of Final Cut Pro 7 titled 'Final Cut Pro X,' and will likely put several of these companies out of business."

Unfair To Workers

Apple admitted the 64-bit architecture in Final Cut Pro X -- which is structured around a trackless timeline and connected clips -- is unable to "translate" old projects without changing or losing data. Moreover, the new product's redesigned audio effects, video effects, and color-grading tools are incompatible with previous releases of Final Cut Pro.

"But if you're already working with Final Cut Pro 7, you can continue to do so after installing Final Cut Pro X, and Final Cut Pro 7 will work with Mac OS X Lion," Apple's FAQ page says. "You can also import your media files from previous versions into Final Cut Pro X."

Many users are wondering why they were enticed to pay $249 for a new product in the first place, only to be forced to revert to using the software they already had. Many capabilities important to professional video editors are missing -- the full range of tape-capture and output features built into Final Cut Pro 7, for example -- and plug-ins from camera manufacturers are not yet available for the program's 64-bit architecture.

"This is unfair to workers who rely on Final Cut Pro as a business tool and will devastate the Final Cut Pro community," according to the online petition, which has already attracted nearly 5,600 signatures.

Missing In Action

Apple's FAQ acknowledges that Final Cut Pro X is missing the multi-cam editing and XML export support available in earlier releases and promises to "provide great multi-cam support" in the next major release. Apple also intends to "release a set of APIs in the next few weeks so that third-party developers can access the next-generation XML in Final Cut Pro X."

Once the new APIs for XML export become available, third-party developers can create tools to support OMF, AAF, EDL and other exchange formats. Meanwhile, Apple hopes Final Cut Pro editors will get hooked on the speed advantage they obtain from Final Cut Pro X.

For example, the program's new trackless approach to editing gives users the ability to add and arrange clips wherever they want, with other clips instantly sliding out of the way. Moreover, a new content auto-analysis feature scans and tags media on import and then dynamically organizes clips into smart collections, which makes it easier for editors to locate specific content.

Oracle derides HP chip claims (Investor's Business Daily)

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 03:25 PM PDT

– Wed Jun 29, 6:25 pm ET

The enterprise software giant accused Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ - News) of suing Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL - News) for simply telling customers the truth about the cloudy outlook for its high-end server chip. HP sued Oracle after the company said it would no longer make software for HP computers running Intel's (NASDAQ:INTC - News) Itanium chip, which HP helped develop. In a court filing, Oracle accused Intel of perpetuating a "myth" that there's a 10-year road map for the chip, suggesting its future is more bleak. Oracle edged up 0.3% to 32.43. HP rose 1.3% to 35.55. Intel slid 0.5% to 21.39.
at 9:46 PM

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