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Go Daddy, an Internet domain registrar, is sold (AP) : Technet |
- Go Daddy, an Internet domain registrar, is sold (AP)
- AP Source: Google among firms looking to buy Hulu (AP)
- 'FarmVille' creator Zynga to go public (AP)
- Could an iPad 3 really be on the way this year? (Yahoo! News)
- NBA players face $1 million fine for using Facebook or Twitter during lockout (Yahoo! News)
- Make Google+ Look More Like Facebook (Mashable)
- Cuban tweeters meet, squawk about Internet (Reuters)
- Pte equity firms take piece of web host Go Daddy (AFP)
- Dual Pen Sports review (Digital Trends)
- Got $6,700? This Luxury Android Smartphone Is for You (NewsFactor)
- Talent show mulled for Timberlake's Myspace (AP)
- Dream Trigger review (Digital Trends)
- Zynga files for $1 billion initial public offering (Appolicious)
- Apple/RIM group top Google in $4.5 billion Nortel sale (Reuters)
- How a Google-Hulu Tag Team Threatens Facebook's Future (The Atlantic Wire)
- HP targets Apple's iPad with new tablet (AFP)
- Android OS and tablets get another rival with HP TouchPad (Appolicious)
| Go Daddy, an Internet domain registrar, is sold (AP) Posted: 01 Jul 2011 03:48 PM PDT SAN FRANCISCO – The parent company of GoDaddy.com, a top registrar of Internet domain names, has been sold to a group of private investment firms for $2.25 billion, a person familiar with the transaction told The Associated Press. Go Daddy Group Inc.'s sale to KKR, Silver Lake and Technology Crossover Ventures comes as the company expects to top $1.1 billion in revenue this year because expanding Internet use has fueled the creation of more websites and the "domains" needed to help find them. Go Daddy announced the sale late Friday. A person close to the transaction, who asked to remain anonymous because of not being authorized to speak publicly, told the AP the sale price. A fact sheet accompanying the release indicated that Go Daddy's revenue has grown by more than 20 percent in each of the past several years. The Go Daddy Group Inc. was founded in 1997 by Bob Parsons, who continues to serve as its CEO. The company, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., manages more than 48 million domain names, and sells other Internet-related technologies. |
| AP Source: Google among firms looking to buy Hulu (AP) Posted: 01 Jul 2011 12:48 PM PDT LOS ANGELES – Search giant Google Inc. is one of about a dozen companies involved in talks to potentially buy online video site Hulu, a person familiar with the matter said Friday. As the owner of YouTube, it would be a strategic buy for the Silicon Valley technology company, which has had a rocky relationship with Hulu's Hollywood owners. Hulu has begun presenting its financial information to many prospective bidders, but it's too early to declare a front-runner, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions are confidential. The online video service began seeking bidders early last week after an unsolicited offer prompted Hulu's board to look for other interested parties. Hulu streams movies and TV shows from broadcasters ABC, Fox and NBC to personal computers and, for a monthly fee, to a range of Web-connected devices. The company is owned by the broadcasters' parents, The Walt Disney Co., News Corp., and Comcast Corp., along with Providence Equity Partners. In February, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar said Hulu will have 1 million paying customers by the end of the year and generate nearly $500 million in revenue, up from $263 million in 2010. He has said the company is profitable. Google's own attempt last year at launching a service that streamed Web content onto television sets, Google TV, was met with a blockade by broadcasters that continues to this day. People using personal computers can see recent shows on Hulu for free with ads, but those trying to access them through Google TV aren't able to. Hulu does not allow viewers to watch its shows on mobile devices or through television sets unless users subscribe to Hulu Plus, an $8-a-month plan that offers access to a broader catalog of material. Even if Google were to buy Hulu, the right to continue to stream content from its current owners isn't guaranteed. The broadcasters insist Mountain View, Calif.-based Google must reach a new agreement to license the content to be used in that way. Google's YouTube also rents movies from studios such as Sony, Warner Bros., Universal and Lionsgate but not from Disney, Paramount and 20th Century Fox. Paramount owner Viacom Inc. is appealing a lower court's rejection of its $1 billion lawsuit in which it accuses YouTube of showing tens of thousands of pirated video clips from its shows. Google's interest in Hulu was earlier reported by the Los Angeles Times. A Google spokesman said the company doesn't comment on rumor and speculation. A Hulu spokeswoman declined to comment. |
| 'FarmVille' creator Zynga to go public (AP) Posted: 01 Jul 2011 02:02 PM PDT LOS ANGELES – Zynga, the online game maker behind "FarmVille" and other popular Facebook pastimes, is going public, the latest in a crop of high-valued Internet IPOs expected after LinkedIn Corp. showed that the online networking craze is a hot commodity on Wall Street. Zynga Inc. hopes to raise up to $1 billion in an initial public offering that follows LinkedIn's sizzling stock market debut last month. The amount of money Zynga is seeking in its IPO will likely change as its bankers determine how many shares should be sold and at what price. That process typically takes three to four months. There's pent-up demand for the stock of large social media companies because so few of them have gone public, even as they have been steadily expanding their reach for several years. The opening of the floodgates could culminate next year in a long-awaited IPO of Facebook, the biggest social network of them all. Because of Zynga's size, strong financials and potential for a valuation of $20 billion or more at the start, the 4-year-old company's IPO is already drawing comparisons to another high-profile stock-market debut. "Google came to town like a three-ring circus and this one will too," said John Fitzgibbon Jr., founder of IPO Scoop, which tracks IPOs. "They're going like gangbusters, and they're coming to town with a lot of hype, and I'm sure that will carry over into the IPO and the aftermarket." Fitzgibbon cautioned against talk of a "bubble" following the steady stream of recent IPOs. He and other market watchers say there is a key difference now, compared with Silicon Valley's fiasco a decade ago. Although the Internet IPO market is as hot as it's been since the dot-com heyday, there are still comparatively few companies coming to market. And many already have solid financials, having been forced to stay private while the Great Recession sapped investor interest. "The door is open for the specialty technologies — but it's not a bubble," he said. The dot-com era "looked like a stampede. Right now it's a cavalry charge. It's lacking the numbers to call it a bubble." Meanwhile, there's little demand for those who fell from grace. News Corp. sold the struggling Myspace — once a social media darling — for a pithy $35 million on Wednesday. It paid a whopping $580 million in 2005. LinkedIn, a service that connects people looking to advance their professional careers, doubled its IPO price in its first day of trading to give it a market value of nearly $9 billion — the highest for an Internet IPO in the U.S. since Google Inc. went public nearly seven years ago. LinkedIn's co-founder and executive chairman Reid Hoffman, now a billionaire, belongs to Zynga's board of directors. The daily deals site Groupon Inc. has also filed its initial IPO papers. Zynga is expected to attract even greater interest than LinkedIn did because its games have become a much larger cultural phenomenon. About 230 million people every month play addictive Zynga games such as "Farmville," "CityVille" and "Texas HoldEm Poker." By comparison, LinkedIn has more than 102 million members. Zynga makes most of its revenue by charging small amounts of money to buy virtual items in its games. It also makes some money from advertising and partnerships with companies such as Netflix or Vistaprint on special offers. Revenue grew to $597 million in 2010, from $121 million in 2009 and $19 million in 2008. The company, which is based in San Francisco, has a co-dependent relationship with Facebook. Zynga probably wouldn't exist if it hadn't tailored its games for Facebook's audience of more than 500 million users. On the flip side, Zynga games give people another reason to keep make frequent visits to Facebook so they can tend to virtual farms, play online poker or watch over virtual cities. Zynga was founded in 2007 by CEO Mark Pincus. It has about 2,300 employees, most of them in San Francisco. Private investments earlier this year valued the company as high as $10 billion well before the IPO. By comparison, Electronic Arts Inc., the iconic video game company behind "Madden," "The Sims" and other popular titles, is currently valued at $7.8 billion. "Call of Duty" maker Activision Blizzard Inc., meanwhile, has a market capitalization of $13.4 billion. Before its IPO, LinkedIn shares were recently traded for $30.79 on SharesPost, a private stock exchange. This gave LinkedIn an implied value of $2.8 billion. Zynga, meanwhile sold for $15 a share for a $12.6 billion valuation. But that's all dwarfed by Facebook, which had valuation of $72.6 billion based on a recent trade contract. Officially, based on a private Goldman Sachs investment, Facebook is valued at $50 billion. The sky-high valuations of Zynga, Twitter and other tech darlings have sparked some worries of a bubble, echoing the late 1990s when companies with large online followings but little revenue triggered an investment frenzy that ended in what became known as the dot-com bust. This time, though, companies such as LinkedIn and Zynga are coming to the market more mature and, even more importantly, profitable. Zynga earned $90.6 million last year. But that doesn't mean their market values can't be grossly exaggerated. It may take several more years to determine whether any of this generation of Internet stars will grow into huge companies or leave investors with a bad case of buyer's remorse. ___ Barbara Ortutay reported from New York. AP Technology Writer Jordan Robertson contributed from San Francisco. |
| Could an iPad 3 really be on the way this year? (Yahoo! News) Posted: 01 Jul 2011 06:19 PM PDT |
| NBA players face $1 million fine for using Facebook or Twitter during lockout (Yahoo! News) Posted: 01 Jul 2011 06:11 PM PDT |
| Make Google+ Look More Like Facebook (Mashable) Posted: 30 Jun 2011 07:37 PM PDT A new userscript style makes Google+ look even more like Facebook. Since its launch earlier this week, Google+ has frequently been compared to Facebook, both in its focus and its user interface. [More from Mashable: Sneak Preview: Gmail Has a New Look, Too] Using a bit of CSS magic, designer Fabio Giolito has created a theme that turns Google+ into a dead-ringer for Facebook. The theme is installable as a userstyle user script or as an add-on for the Chrome/Firefox plugin Stylish. Internet Explorer and Opera users can also install the script, which alters the design of Google+ to mimic the colors and layout of Facebook. Check out the before and after images to see Google+ Facebook in action. Fabio has also put the code for the userstyle on Github. [More from Mashable: Get Ready for Google+ Games]
What do you think? Do you like a Facebook-ified Google+ or do you prefer the original interface? Let us know. This story originally published on Mashable here. |
| Cuban tweeters meet, squawk about Internet (Reuters) Posted: 01 Jul 2011 06:36 PM PDT HAVANA (Reuters) – Members of Cuba's small Twitter community gathered on Friday for the first time to put faces to names in a meeting where political viewpoints were off limits but complaints about the island's poor Internet connections were not. About 50 people showed up at a civic center in the Cuban capital for the event -- called #TwittHab -- organized by Leunam Rodriguez, a student and reporter at the state-run Radio Cubana. It is not known how many tweeters there are in Cuba but invitations were sent out to more than 450 people on Facebook, tweeters said. Former leader Fidel Castro has a Twitter account in his name but does not personally tweet, state media has said. Well-known dissident blogger and tweeter Yoani Sanchez initially said she would come with some of her fellow dissidents but they did not attend. The Cuban government has begun using social media in its ideological war with the United States but Rodriguez said it was not involved in this event. The tweeters compared notes on their experiences with Twitter, and said it was a wonderful way to make friends, some of whom they now had the pleasure of meeting. One participant, Agustin Lopez, stood and said he was "a social thinker" opposed to the lack of freedom on the communist island but was quickly hushed by other tweeters who told him politics were not the purpose of the meeting. "What we wanted was that people who appeared in virtual space come out to this real space," Rodriguez said. "The idea of #TwittHab is not politics, the idea of #TwittHab is to share." Twitter has been used in the Arab Spring popular uprisings this year, as well as in other instances, to pass along anti-government messages and organize protests. But in Cuba Internet access is limited and public opposition to the communist-led government little tolerated by authorities. Tweeting can be costly in Cuba, too -- the equivalent of $1 per tweet if sent via cellphone, which is a lot in a country where the average monthly salary is equivalent to $20. Tweeters said they longed for better Internet connections on the island, where the Internet comes through a satellite, is slow, expensive and not widely available. "There is a lot of difficulty with the issue of connection through the satellite. It's true that Cuba has many problems (with the Internet)," said Pedro Alejandro Cruz. But he and others hoped for better Internet on a new undersea fiber optic cable connecting Cuba with socialist ally Venezuela. "I think the cable will be a way to be able to connect and bring the Internet to all the people like it is in all parts of the world," Cruz said. Government officials have warned that, due to logistical issues, for the first few years Internet via the cable will be limited mostly to the government, academia and businesses. (Additional reporting by Jeff Franks; Editing by Bill Trott) |
| Pte equity firms take piece of web host Go Daddy (AFP) Posted: 01 Jul 2011 05:02 PM PDT NEW YORK (AFP) – Go Daddy, the world's largest registrar of Internet domain names, said on Friday that it was selling a stake to three major investment firms including private-equity giant KKR. "The Go Daddy Group, Inc. ... has signed a definitive agreement to receive a strategic investment and enter into a partnership with KKR, Silver Lake and Technology Crossover Ventures," the company said in a statement. The company did not disclose details of the transaction, but the Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, put the size of the deal at $2.25 billion including the assumption of Go Daddy's debt. It said the new investors would own a majority of the company. Founded in 1997, Go Daddy says that it manages more than 48 million Internet domain names and serves more than 9.3 million customers around the world. Go Daddy's new investors will help it "accelerate growth internationally," Harold Chen, head of software and Internet for KKR, said in the statement. KKR is a leading private-equity firm with more than $60 billion under management. Last year, Go Daddy stopped registering domain names in China after the Chinese authorities sought to tighten control over its activities there, following a similar move by Google. |
| Dual Pen Sports review (Digital Trends) Posted: 01 Jul 2011 05:30 PM PDT
The trick is that you need to use the two styluses in order to play each game — at least in theory. For some of the games, like baseball, it simply means you use one to pull the bat back on the left side of the ouch pad, and the other to swing forward on the right side. However, except for using the two sides of the touch pad, both movements could easily be accomplished with a single stylus. Just look at any console baseball game with an analog stick swing mechanism, it is pretty much the same thing. Each sport has a different, yet equally simplistic means to play. Basketball uses one stick to jump and the other to shoot, soccer uses one stick to act as a power gauge while the other directs the penalty shot, and so on. While there is some variety, each game's movements are very basic. But regardless of the exact nature of each game, they all have one thing in common: They are incredibly simple and won't hold your attention for long. There is only so much you can get out of a game where the majority of the movement is a basic back, then forward movement. There is a versus mode to keep things lively, but it only offers four of the seven games (archery, baseball, basketball and soccer). While it is fun for a moment to play against a friend, despite the fact that this is a sports title, there is very little sport to be had. Playing digital soccer against your friends can be fun, but only having the penalty shootout and not even being able to defend the other players kick — instead simply trying to score more goals against the AI-goalie — is underwhelming. There is also a section called “Tap Exercises,†Dual Pen Sports feels like one small piece of another bigger and better game. The graphics are dated even by DS standards, the games are simple to the point of boredom, and there is no depth at all. Even the create-a-player is underwhelming. The games can be fun, but only for the first few times, then it is just a simple mini game that uses the gimmick of two styluses. Even the main selling point of this game, the dual pens, is underwhelming. With very little effort, this game could have eliminated the dual pen control scheme and remade all the movements compatible with a single stylus. But then again, Solo Pen Sports doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
Score: 4 out of 10
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| Got $6,700? This Luxury Android Smartphone Is for You (NewsFactor) Posted: 01 Jul 2011 11:44 AM PDT Hoping to capitalize on the reputation of Swiss watchmaking for quality and precision, 150-year-old luxury jeweler Tag Heuer is jumping into the smartphone business with a stainless steel-encased Android handset. The device is available with diamond, gold or platinum trim and an alligator-skin case. The cost -- are you sitting down? -- is about $6,700, more than the cost of 10 unsubsidized, 16GB iPhone 4's from Apple. Then again, if you have to ask the price, you probably aren't getting one. An Adventurer's Phone Tag Heuer, based in La Chaux-de-Fonds, is a subsidiary of the French luxury-goods conglomerate LVMH Moet Hennessy-Louis Vuitton S.A. The Android Link, now available, is targeted at adventurers, sportsmen and business executives, the company says. But the specs of the bar-shaped, 3.5-inch touchscreen phone, which runs Google's Android 2.2, are fairly standard. The screen resolution is 800 by 480 pixels, and it includes a fairly low 256 megabytes of internal storage with support for an 8GB memory card. The camera is a five-megapixel HD model equipped for video recording and playback. The 1400mAh battery is good for six hours and 30 minutes of talk time. The processor speed wasn't disclosed. The phone will be sold at Tag Heuer stores for GSM carriers, with Edge and HSUPA network data speed. "With luxury phones it is always more about the design, which means that the overall spec takes a back seat for the buyer," said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president for consumer technologies and markets at Gartner Research. "However, in today's market I think you do need a minimum support for things like Twitter, Facebook and anything else a celeb might be after." The Android Link will have access to social media via applications from the Android Market. Milanesi added that the United States is not likely a major market for the Tag Heuer phone. "Historically, the Middle East, Russia and Japan have been big markets for luxury phones," she said. A big name in the luxury-phone realm is Vertu, based in Hampshire, England, and acquired by Finland-based Nokia in 2001. Vertu's offerings can easily range into five figures, with platinum casings and crystal glass screens. Motorola and Ericsson have also made luxury phones targeted at the superrich. Ready for Upgrades But a downside of previous phones is that despite the high cost, they are quickly outdated. As the first luxury Android phone, the Tag Heuer has the advantage of readiness for regular software updates from Google. Despite the poor economy in much of the world, the luxury smartphone business is still viable. "As the phone becomes a personal extension for some users, it has become the symbol for affluence, not dissimilar from the market for luxury watches, which is often the same venue where these devices are sold," said Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg. "As such, there's less emphasis on things such as feeds and speeds and far more on form, materials used in construction, and cachet of brand." |
| Talent show mulled for Timberlake's Myspace (AP) Posted: 01 Jul 2011 03:05 PM PDT LOS ANGELES – Justin Timberlake's longtime manager Johnny Wright said Friday that a talent show or some other way of developing new artists will be core to the revamp of Myspace. The kernel of an idea is what has emerged from a frenzied two weeks of deal-making that brought the former `N Sync pop star into a partnership with new buyers of the ailing website. "Whether it becomes a talent competition or something like that, those are things that we will still flesh out," said Wright, who has managed Timberlake since his `N Sync days. "We definitely want to bring the industry back to Myspace to really look at the talented people that have put their faces there." Timberlake and the new management of the social networking site will explain their plans at a press conference Aug. 17. His new partner is Irvine, Calif.-based online ad network operator, Specific Media. It said Wednesday afternoon that it had bought Myspace from News Corp. The deal was for $35 million, mostly in stock. Hours later, Specific Media said in a second release that Timberlake had become a part owner and would be a creative force behind the social network's revival with his own office and staff. Timberlake's partnership deal hadn't been completed until 30 minutes before Specific Media's Myspace purchase was made public. It capped a rushed courtship, starting with an idea hatched by Nicole Winnaman, a branding executive who has also worked with Timberlake since his `N Sync days. She knew the people at Specific Media, including its founding brothers, Tim, Chris and Russell Vanderhook, and got approval from Wright to explore a partnership two weeks ago. The Vanderhooks jumped aboard on Thursday last week, without even knowing they'd win the bidding for Myspace. "It was the Thursday before. They said, `Let's go, let's see if we can pull this together,'" Winnaman said. Wright, Winnaman and the Vanderhooks met Friday last week at Los Angeles International Airport for a meal and conference call with Timberlake, who was in New York. They all met again in New York late Tuesday afternoon, where everyone was "instantaneously aligned," Winnaman said. Lawyers worked through the night before the deal was announced Wednesday. Wright said Timberlake is anxious to get to work. The day after the deal closed, Timberlake sent Wright an e-mail saying, "Are you up? My mind is going dizzy with ideas. I need to talk." |
| Dream Trigger review (Digital Trends) Posted: 01 Jul 2011 03:36 PM PDT If you are looking for a title for the Nintendo 3DS that combines the touchscreen and 3D technology in a new and interesting way, than look no further than Dream Trigger. Of course, if you are looking for a game with depth, then you might consider looking around a bit. Dream Trigger, from developer Art Co. and D3Publisher, is part puzzle game, part shooter, with just a touch of naval warfare mixed in. It is an odd combination that works at times, but there just isn't enough of it. At its heart, Dream Trigger is a shooter akin to a first-person flight combat game. The catch is that the enemies are invisible. To unveil them, you use the touchpad screen to drop a sonar-like wave. Once you have the enemies in your sight, you shoot them. In theory, it is a simple enough premise, in practice it is hard. Insanely hard at times. Hard to the point that if you beat the first level on your first try, you may be the video game "Chosen One." The level of difficulty will appeal to fans of the twitch shooter, but the weak tutorial isn't going to do you any favors. If you can play enough to actually understand what is going on, and make some headway in the game, Dream Trigger can be fun. It is also helped by a solid, even impressive soundtrack (if you like electronica) and some of the best visuals — albeit not that graphically intense — on the 3DS. The use of 3D is also well done, as it adds a sense of depth to the gameplay, but you will need to train your eyes and your fingers to avoid looking back and forth between the touchscreen and the 3D screen, or you risk a headache. The game offers the standard game modes, including free play, time attack and versus, but the real meat of the game is the world map. For each map you complete in the World Map, you earn Dream Points. To unlock new areas, boss fights, and nodes that have more maps, you use the points. While this offers a lot of potential game, the only real difference between early levels and later ones is that it becomes much, much harder. If you are a fan of the twitch shooters, than Dream Trigger might be worth a look. The game looks great, and the 3D is well integrated, plus the soundtrack is kinda awesome at times and goes well with the movie. But the level of difficulty is skewed towards people with freakishly fast reaction time. That in itself isn't a terrible thing, but your reward for learning the game is only more of the same. The levels never really vary, they just get faster and tougher. It is something of a one-trick pony… if a pony could release sonar pings and shoot objects. So it really isn't like that at all, but you get the point. Dream Trigger lacks depth, but that won't matter the majority of gamers who will have thrown the game down in frustration after the first few levels. Still, you have to credit the inventiveness of Dream Trigger. If Art Co. and D3 can find a better balance in future games, the series might be worth keeping an eye on. For now though, only the masochistic and twitchy need apply.
Score: 6.5 out of 10
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| Zynga files for $1 billion initial public offering (Appolicious) Posted: 01 Jul 2011 12:19 PM PDT |
| Apple/RIM group top Google in $4.5 billion Nortel sale (Reuters) Posted: 01 Jul 2011 03:23 PM PDT TORONTO/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Apple, Microsoft, RIM and three other companies joined forces to outbid Google at an auction for Nortel wireless patents, a move that could result in big licensing fees for Google. The group of six, also including EMC, Ericsson and Sony, agreed to pay $4.5 billion for 6,000 patents and patent applications that bankrupt Nortel had put up for sale, including coveted 4G wireless technologies. The winning bid was three times the amount expected by some analysts -- a sign of the lengths to which Google's rivals were willing to go to thwart the Internet powerhouse's mobile ambitions. Google had been expected to emerge victorious after it kick-started the auction with a $900 million bid. The company has a relatively small pool of wireless patents in an industry increasingly fraught with lawsuits over intellectual property. Google drew the line at bidding any higher than $4 billion, said a source with knowledge of the matter. "They played a bad hand. They went from stalking horse to not being involved ... I'm very curious how that happened," said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis. "Google had a chance to change a weakness and it didn't." One big advantage to holding the patents is the ability to swap licenses with holders of other mobile phone patents, instead of having to pay cash to use their technology. Google would now be vulnerable to lawsuits from the auction winners, analysts said. "If you picture in the art world, if the collection of the Musee D'Orsay all of a sudden came onto the market -- those are paintings you would never see again of a breadth and of a certain caliber," said Duncan Stewart, Deloitte Canada's director of research for technology, media and telecoms. Gillis said Google's failure at the auction could raise questions about the effectiveness of CEO Larry Page. "You may find it becomes a serious issue," he said. "We won't see the real impact of this for a couple of years." Google called the auction results "disappointing" and said it would keep working to reduce the "current flood of patent litigation." Investors shrugged off the auction, pushing up the shares of Google and the other companies amid a broad market rally. INTEL ALSO A LOSER The wireless industry has been embroiled in a wave of patent suits in recent years as long-established incumbents try to protect their position against newcomers. [ID:nN1E75M1C4] The winning group is expected to share the Nortel patents to maximize their ability to pursue intellectual property litigation, though they did not disclose details. Nomura Securities' global technology specialist, Richard Windsor, called the price "chunky" and said the consortium would likely "go out and seek to make a return by prosecuting the other people, particularly the Android camp." Google, the newest major entrant to the mobile market with its three-year-old Android software, is already being sued for patent infringement by Oracle Corp, which is seeking up to $6 billion in payments from Google. Another loser in the auction was computer chip giant Intel, which has been trying to gain more relevance in the wireless market. The winning consortium will need to get U.S. antitrust approval, and one industry source said regulators could look at whether this was a collusive effort to block Android. "Apple and Microsoft collaborating, it sure feels like teaming up against Android," said the source who spoke on condition of anonymity. Some people in the industry saw the purchase by a group rather than a single player -- like Google -- as better news for the sector overall, since no one company would have a monopoly. "We believe the consortium is in the best position to utilize the patents in a manner that will be favorable to the industry long term," said Ericsson. Ericsson will pay $340 million for the patents and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion will pay $770 million. The other parties did not immediately disclose their shares. The sale spans wireless, data networking, optical, voice, Internet and semiconductor technologies. The most prized relate to emerging 4G standards such as long-term evolution (LTE). This sale fetched a higher price than all of Nortel's other asset sales combined. Nortel, which filed for bankruptcy protection more than two years ago, has now raised almost $8 billion from asset sales. Lazard advised Nortel in the deal while Jefferies & Co advised its creditors. Akin Gump was legal adviser to Nortel's creditors while Cleary Gottlieb advised the company. The sale is subject to Canadian and U.S. court approvals that will be sought at a joint hearing expected to be held on July 11, Nortel said. Earlier on Thursday, Nortel obtained a court order to further extend the stay of proceedings under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) to December 14. The bankruptcy case is Nortel Networks Inc., 09-10138, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware (Wilmington). (Additional reporting by Georgina Prodhan in London, Renju Jose in Bangalore, Tarmo Virki in Tallinn, Nadia Damouni in New York, Diane Bartz in Washington, D.C., Bill Rigby in Seattle; Editing by Tiffany Wu; Editing by Gary Hill) |
| How a Google-Hulu Tag Team Threatens Facebook's Future (The Atlantic Wire) Posted: 01 Jul 2011 12:39 PM PDT Picture this. You're hanging out, doing some Gmailing and Googling to find this one Parks and Recreation clip on YouTube. (Ugh, YouTube never has the good teevee clips because of all that copyright business.) Hulu has it. In fact, they have entire episodes. So you copy the URL for the "Freddy Spaghetti" season finale, jump back to Gmail and-- Wait, maybe it's better to post this to Facebook. That way people can watch it and make some jokes about how much they love Lil' Sebastian, the little miniature pony, and it would almost be like you were sitting around a living room with your friends on couches and sort of hanging out like kids used to do. Related: Why Google Won't Survive the Facebook Threat Google's thought about this scenario, and presumably, so has Hulu. The pioneering video site has lawyered up in anticipation of an acquisition, and folks in both Hollywood and Silicon Valley are speculating like crazy over who the buyer might be. Unnamed "people familiar with the situation" told The Los Angeles Times that it's Google. A couple of weeks ago, anonymous sources also said that Yahoo was going to buy Hulu, but nevermind that. Google makes much more sense, especially in light of the launch Google+, a new social layer for all Google products. Related: Google Launches Google+, a Facebook Clone Related: The Irony of Facebook's Secret PR War Against Google Related: Google's Top Brass Are Still Warming Up to Google+ Related: Web Buttons Boom: Get Ready for Google's '+1' and Twitter's 'Follow' Facebook would love to do something like this, and Hulu is actually already working with them on it. Around the same time the LA Times reported on the Google rumor, Hulu announced some new Facebook features that made it easier to comment at a specific moment in a Hulu video and share it on your friends' Walls. The new feature even embeds the video on your Wall to create a "water cooler" effect. It cuts out a couple of steps, but it's still doesn't compare to watching your friends' faces as they react to TV shows and chat about it in real-time. Over at All Facebook, a blog that covers exactly what the name suggests, Nick O'Neill points out how Google+'s total integration could serve as a real threat to Facebook. Currently the average user spends about 30 minutes per a day on Facebook; part of the reason why that number's not higher is that people have to click off of Facebook to do other things like search for movies or check stock quotes. O'Neill writes: To be honest, my gut reaction after using Google Plus was initially, “Why on earth would anybody switch to this from Facebook?” |
| HP targets Apple's iPad with new tablet (AFP) Posted: 01 Jul 2011 03:38 PM PDT NEW YORK (AFP) – US technology giant Hewlett-Packard rolled out its new TouchPad tablet computer on Friday, seeking to dethrone the dominant Apple iPad and revive its slumping fortunes. The TouchPad went on sale in major US retailers such as Best Buy and Walmart as well as on Amazon.com, HP said in a statement. It is expected to go on sale shortly in Britain, Ireland, France, Germany and Canada, and later this year it will become available in Italy, Spain, Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Singapore. Unlike the iPad, the TouchPad supports Adobe's Flash video format. It runs the webOS operating system, developed by Palm, the mobile-device pioneer that HP acquired last year for $1.2 billion. The TouchPad debuted to mixed reviews, suggesting it will have difficulty challenging the iPad and its numerous imitators. Last month, Apple said that it had sold 25 million iPads since releasing the first version of the device in April 2010. Apple released its next-generation iPad 2 in March. Besides the iPad, the market for tablet computers now includes the Samsung Galaxy Tab, the BlackBerry PlayBook, the Motorola Xoom and dozens of devices running Google's Android operating system. HP's stock has slumped 12 percent since the beginning of the year as many analysts have warned that the Palo Alto, California-based company is being overtaken by younger, nimbler rivals such as Apple and Dell. |
| Android OS and tablets get another rival with HP TouchPad (Appolicious) Posted: 01 Jul 2011 07:33 AM PDT |
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