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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Will Facebook deliver an IPO surprise? (AP) : Technet

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Will Facebook deliver an IPO surprise? (AP) : Technet

Will Facebook deliver an IPO surprise? (AP)

Posted: 31 Jan 2012 06:07 PM PST

By PALLAVI GOGOI, AP Business Writer Pallavi Gogoi, Ap Business Writer – Tue Jan 31, 9:07 pm ET

NEW YORK – Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg turns up at business conventions in a hoodie. "Cocky" is the word used to describe him most often, after "billionaire." He was Time's person of the year at 26.

So when he takes Facebook public, why would he follow the Wall Street rules?

The company is expected to file as early as Wednesday to sell stock on the open market in what will be the most talked-about initial public offering since Google in 2004, maybe since the go-go 1990s.

Around the nation, regular investors and IPO watchers are anticipating some kind of twist — perhaps a provision for the 800 million users of Facebook, a company that promotes itself as all about personal connections, to get in on the action.

"Pandemonium is what I expect in terms of demand for this stock," says Scott Sweet, senior managing partner at IPO Boutique, an advisory firm. "I don't think Wall Street would want to anger Facebook users."

The most successful young technology companies have a history of doing things differently. Google's IPO prospectus contained a letter from its founders to investors that said the company believed in the motto "Don't be evil."

Facebook declined to comment, but Reena Aggarwal, a finance professor who has studied IPOs at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, believes Zuckerberg will emulate Google's philosophy, at least in principle.

Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted an IPO accessible to all investors, and said so in their first regulatory filing. Facebook may say something similar when it files to declare its intention to sell stock publicly.

Facebook is expected to raise as much as $10 billion, which will value the company at $75 billion to $100 billion, making it one of the largest IPOs. A stock usually starts trading three to four months after the filing.

The highly anticipated filing will reveal how much Facebook intends to raise from the stock market, what it plans to do with the money and details on its own financial performance and future growth prospects.

Along with Wall Street investment banks, Google used a Dutch auction, named for a means of selling flowers in Holland, to sell its shares. It took private bids and allowed investors to say how many shares they wanted and what they were willing to pay.

The process wasn't smooth, though, and Google had to slash its expected offer price at the last minute. If you bought at the IPO, for roughly $85 a share, you still did well: Google closed Tuesday at $580.

More recently, when it filed for an IPO last June, Groupon, which emails daily deals on products and services to its members, added a letter from its 30-year-old founder, Andrew Mason.

"We are unusual and we like it that way," the letter said. "We want the time people spend with Groupon to be memorable. Life is too short to be a boring company."

It's almost become conventional for tech companies to include an unconventional letter when they make their stock market debut. It's widely expected that Zuckerberg, in the very least measure of showmanship, will write one.

But IPO watchers wonder whether there might be a provision specifically designed to give the little-guy investor, even the casual Facebook user who doesn't invest, a piece of the debut.

"There is a feeling that there will be something unique in store for Facebook users," Aggarwal says.

When most companies go public, they let Wall Street investment banks handle everything, with the sweet ground-floor stock price reserved for big institutional investors.

But that probably won't do for Facebook, created in a Harvard University dorm room eight years ago. Or Zuckerberg, whose antiestablishment credentials include spurning a $15 billion takeover offer from Microsoft.

Few expect Zuckerberg to offer a Dutch auction because of the Google experience. But he is at least as unorthodox as Google's founders. People expect him to be in the driver's seat on Wall Street, rather than hand over the controls to bankers.

Facebook is a vital part of people's Internet lives and the most successful company in the history of social media. Its closest competitor, Google+, has less than a tenth the active membership — 60 million people.

"While there is no such thing as untouchable, Facebook is getting near there, with even Google imitating it," says Sweet, of IPO Boutique.

In "really hot IPOs," 90 percent of the shares go to institutional investors and 10 percent to everyday investors, Sweet says. It's a perk for the banks' biggest clients, like Fidelity Investments or T. Rowe Price or hedge funds.

The funds pay big commissions to the banks for regularly trading large blocks of stocks or bonds. Those relationships are deep and long-lasting — and lucrative for the banks. The funds expect to be rewarded.

But Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, the banks expected to guide the Facebook IPO, are in an awkward place: They don't want to tick off 800 million Facebook users — but they don't want to tick off Fidelity, either.

Most IPOs are underpriced, and the stock usually shoots up the first day. Lucky large investors get the basement price and usually a big payday if they sell on the first day. Smaller investors buy on the open market, after the price has spiked, and pay more.

And most early investors do sell. One university research paper found that about 70 percent of the new stock changes hands in the first two days. Groupon introduced 35 million shares, but on the first day its shares were traded almost 50 million times.

Ann Sherman, associate professor and IPO expert at DePaul University, raised the possibility that Facebook could set aside a portion of its shares for the small investor and use a lottery system if there is a lot of demand.

She says the U.S. is the only country without IPO rules that put traditional investors on an equal footing.

"Given that this is such a huge and popular IPO, I've been hoping that Facebook would use this opportunity to try a new method to bring in retail investors — a public offer where shares are set aside for only individual investors," Sherman says.

But Zuckerberg will also probably be careful how he plays his cards. He doesn't want to anger Facebook users, but his primary goal is to raise money.

The recent experience of Groupon's faltering IPO holds tough lessons for young entrepreneurs. After analysts started questioning its accounting, Groupon had to amend its regulatory filing several times.

Trying to salvage the IPO, founder Mason shed his trademark jeans and T-shirt and donned a suit. He dropped the irreverent talk and spoke about the company's growth prospects at the IPO "roadshow" to impress investors.

Other companies have encountered problems when they went public and tried to reward customers. Upstart Internet phone company Vonage wanted to give customers a chance to buy up to 15 percent of its 31 million shares at its IPO at $17 apiece.

But when the shares fell 13 percent on the first day of trading, many of its small investors that had put in orders to buy didn't want to pay the offer price. It gained the dubious title of one of the worst IPOs that year, something Facebook wants to avoid.

It's also more expensive to sell shares to many people. When thousands of small investors want to buy in, it becomes a logistical nightmare to make sure each investor gets a prospectus with all the important information.

Banks like large investors because it costs about the same to process an order of 50 shares as 50,000. But William Hambrecht, founder and CEO of WR Hambrecht & Co., a firm that runs IPO auctions, says companies that value their customers benefit in the long run.

He gives the example of Boston Beer, maker of Samuel Adams, which went public in 1995. Its founder, James Koch, wanted to reward the people who made his company successful: the buyers of Sam Adams.

Koch set aside a quarter of his shares for the small investor. The deal was a big success and attracted more interest from his beer drinkers than there were shares available. Some people left out were dissatisfied.

Hambrecht says about two-thirds of the investors who bought those shares still owned the stock two years after the IPO. Even today, about a third still own it. Hambrecht says that's because these investors appreciate the company's product.

"Our argument has always been that true buyers of your stock ought to be your own customer base," says Hambrecht. "As the great investor Peter Lynch said: Invest in what you know."

Amazon 4Q results, outlook sends stock lower (AP)

Posted: 31 Jan 2012 05:21 PM PST

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay, Ap Technology Writer – Tue Jan 31, 8:21 pm ET

NEW YORK – Shoppers spent more money online this holiday season than ever before, and yet, Amazon _the world's largest Internet retailer_ failed to meet Wall Street's sales expectations with its latest financial results.

In a surprise, the company's revenue fell nearly $1 billion short of Wall Street's expectations, even as it grew 35 percent from a year earlier. The quarter included Amazon's headline-grabbing November launch of the Kindle Fire, its answer to Apple's iPad. Its net income also fell sharply and its guidance for the current quarter was disappointing.

Investors punished the stock. Amazon's shares dropped $17.44, or 9 percent, to $177 in after-hours trading on Tuesday following the earnings announcement.

Though revenue grew 35 percent to $17.4 billion, analysts expected the holidays to lift sales to $18.3 billion, according to FactSet.

Even so, BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis said the company "didn't really give a good answer" as to why its revenue fell short of expectations. And while its earnings were stronger than expected, he said the company has been "more revenue driven than earnings driven."

That explains why investors focused on the company's sales growth. With a stock valued as high as Amazon's, they are looking for any sign of a slowdown as an excuse to sell.

Meanwhile, Amazon's expenses are increasing. Operating expenses grew 38 percent to $17.2 billion. The company has been investing heavily in new sales-fulfillment centers. Investments such as these cut into profits during all of last year.

Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc. said that its net income was $177 million, or 38 cents per share, in the three months that ended Dec. 31. That's down 57 percent from $416 million, or 91 cents per share, a year earlier. Earnings dropped, the company said, as it continued to invest in sales fulfillment centers and increased its workforce by 67 percent from a year earlier.

For the current quarter, Amazon is forecasting $12 billion to $13.4 billion in revenue. Analysts were expecting $13.42 billion. The company also said it may record an operating loss for the quarter. Its outlook was in the range of a loss of $200 million to a profit of $100 million for the three months ending in March.

Analysts had been worried about Amazon's profit margins because of the heavy operating expenses, but they had expected stronger revenue growth.

Although the company's earnings of 38 cents a share were well above Wall Street expectations of 17 cents, investors seemed to focus on the bad news elsewhere.

Amazon said sales of its Kindle tablet computers and e-reader gadgets nearly tripled compared with the final quarter of 2010. The company did not give exact sales numbers for the devices.

The Kindle Fire, Amazon's $199 tablet, went on sale in November. The company sees the Kindle as a way to drive sales of digital content such as e-books, music, movies and apps.

CEO Jeff Bezos said the Kindle was Amazon's bestselling product during the holiday season in both the U.S. and Europe.

Sales at Amazon's media business, which includes books, DVDs, and content consumed on the Kindle, grew 15 percent to $6 billion. Sales from electronics and other general merchandise, which includes the Kindle devices, jumped 48 percent to $10.9 billion.

The company grew its employee base 67 percent from a year earlier, ending the year with 56,200 full-time and part-time workers. Chief Financial Officer Tom Szkutak said the job additions were in operations and customer service to support Amazon's growth.

For all of 2011, Amazon earned $631 million, down from $1.15 billion a year earlier. Revenue grew to $48.1 billion from $34.2 billion.

Amazon's stock dropped $17.44, or 9 percent, to $177 in after-hours trading following the earnings announcement.

VC firm Andreessen Horowitz raises $1.5B to invest (AP)

Posted: 31 Jan 2012 02:12 PM PST

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke, Ap Technology Writer – Tue Jan 31, 5:12 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Silicon Valley entrepreneur-turned-venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and his partners have raised another $1.5 billion to invest in technology startups as they prepare to profit from a previous bet on Internet social network Facebook.

The fundraising announced Tuesday serves as further validation of the success that Andreessen has enjoyed since he started his own venture capital firm in mid-2009. The Menlo Park, Calif., firm, Andreessen Horowitz, has invested in about 90 companies since then. The portfolio includes an unspecified stake in Facebook, which is expected to file its plans for a long-awaited initial public offering of stock as early as Wednesday.

Those IPO documents may divulge the holdings of Andreessen Horowitz, if it is among Facebook's biggest stockholders. Before co-founding his venture capital firm, Andreessen also personally invested in Facebook and joined the company's board of directors in 2008.

Andreessen, 40, got rich as one of the Internet industry's first big stars during the 1990s. He helped change the way people used the Internet as part of a team that developed a graphical Web browser called Mosaic in the early 1990s. He went on to co-found Netscape Communications before he had turned 25. After losing its early lead in the Web browser market to Microsoft Corp. in a bruising battle, Netscape was sold to AOL for $10 billion in 1999.

With the latest infusion, Andreessen Horowitz has raised $2.7 billion since the firm's inception. The firm's other partners include Andreessen's longtime business partner, Ben Horowitz, and Jeff Jordan, former CEO of online restaurant reservation service OpenTable Inc.

"We are single-mindedly focused on partnering with the best innovators pursuing the biggest markets," Andreessen said in a statement.

Facebook, which started eight years ago in CEO Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard University dorm room, is expected to seek an IPO price that would value the company at $75 billion to $100 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Andreessen Horowitz also was among the early investors in Zynga Inc., a maker of "FarmVille," "Words With Friends" and other games that are frequently played on Facebook's social network. Zynga's stock has received a lukewarm response since its Wall Street debut in December. Zynga's stock gained 10 cents to close at $10.49 on Tuesday, just slightly above its IPO price of $10.

Although it focuses on startups, Andreessen Horowitz has explored investing in older companies too. Last year, it was one of several firms discussing the possibility of buying a nearly 20 percent stake in long-slumping Internet company Yahoo Inc. There was even speculation that Andreessen might join Yahoo as an executive, an idea that he refuted in a posting on his personal blog in December.

Yahoo has since hired former PayPal executive Scott Thompson as its fourth CEO in less than five years.

Just Show Me: 3 great football apps for your iPhone (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 31 Jan 2012 06:03 PM PST

Could “smart paint” warn of future disasters before they happen? (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 31 Jan 2012 05:57 PM PST

Twitter Is Not a Media Company, CEO Says (Mashable)

Posted: 30 Jan 2012 05:21 PM PST

Lauren Indvik Lauren Indvik – Mon Jan 30, 8:21 pm ET

"Twitter is not a media company," Twitter CEO Dick Costolo declared on stage at AllThingsD's media conference in Laguna Nigel, CA, Monday evening. The statement was surprising given Twitter's well-publicized role as a platform for breaking news, entertainment and other communications. "You [even] sell advertising," AllThingsD's Peter Kafka pointed out.

[More from Mashable: Twitter CEO: We Are Not Censoring the Web]

"We're in the media business, but we're not necessarily a media company," Costolo elaborated. "We don't create our own content; we're a distributor of content and traffic. We're one of the largest drivers of traffic to other media properties, [namely] to other online web properties, even to films."

Costolo pointed to a Super8 campaign Paramount Pictures ran on Twitter last June. The studio promoted the hashtag #Super8Secret, through which it offered advanced screening tickets to the film. The film performed "50% better" during opening weekend than Paramount expected, Costolo said.

[More from Mashable: Behind the Scenes of Twitter's No-Cost Viral Recruiting Video]

SEE ALSO: Twitter Is Not a Media Company, CEO Says

Kafka and Costolo went on to discuss the origins of Twitter's advertising business. "When you came [to Twitter] in 2009, Twitter's business model wasn't clear," Kafka recalled. "Now it's solidly an ad business. Did you push the company in that direction?" he asked.

"I was certainly involved in it," said Costolo. "The honest answer is that i was a key participant in it, certainly advocated for it. By no means was it my idea to create and launch the products we have now."

Kafka asked Costolo if the company explored any other business models at the time, but Costolo evaded the question. "The notion that there were other ideas we considered and that I disposed of makes it sound too palace intrigue-y," he complained. "It makes it sound a little too Hamlet. The reality of life is that it's a lot more Tom Stoppard than Shakespeare," he said.

Costolo likewise skirted questions about whether Twitter would have its first profitable year in 2012 -- "We don't discuss financials," he said -- but did stress the health of Twitter's advertising business. In particular, he noted that engagement in several recent Promoted campaigns was above 50%, and that the cost per customer acquisition rate -- by which we assume he means the cost per follower acquisition rate -- is "fantastic."

At the moment, Twitter is less interested in developing new products or revenue streams than growing the ones it's already developed, Costolo suggested. "It's all about scaling that now, launching these products globally," he said.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Mexico broadband project stuck in stalemate (Reuters)

Posted: 31 Jan 2012 04:00 PM PST

– Tue Jan 31, 7:00 pm ET

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – An ambitious private project to unlock wireless access across Mexico appears to be stuck in a stalemate with the developer and the government unable to agree on terms.

At the heart of the debate is 190 megahertz (MHz) of bandwidth owned by MVS Comunicaciones that could be used to deploy a next-generation LTE (Long Term Evolution) network in Mexico.

The bandwidth, briefly used to transmit radio using microwaves in the 1990s, has been dormant for most of the last decade, sparking calls from competitors for it to be put up for grabs again.

"Unfortunately and despite our best efforts, the licensee (MVS) has decided to reject the different alternatives that have been submitted by the government," communications and transport minister Dionisio Perez Jacome told a news conference.

The recent explosion of data-hungry devices like tablets and smartphones has offered a more obvious market for the use of that bandwidth.

About 12 percent of the licenses in MVS's entire spectrum holding have come due in recent years, with the rest expiring through 2018.

"Due to the lack of an agreement ... we have continued refusing to renew the expired licences," Perez Jacome added.

MVS could not be immediately reached for comment.

The company pitched a plan in April 2011 to use the spectrum more efficiently by making it available to just about any player via a proposed joint venture for a high-speed network that would include MVS, Clearwire Corp and chip maker Intel Corp. They would have jointly invested $400 million.

The government has said its review of the case involved multiple scenarios.

One option was to charge MVS a fee to let it claim back the expired licenses, critical to fully operating a national broadband backbone, keep the ones that have not come due and let the company and its partners operate the network.

Another alternative was to leave at least 120 MHz in the hands of MVS and auction the rest of the capacity to other competitors. The most extreme option was to take away all the spectrum from the company and re-auction it in the market.

Perez Jacome did not say on Tuesday what the government's proposal to MVS was.

The delay on the MVS project comes as authorities scramble to promote competition in a country where tycoon Carlos Slim's companies have the lion's share of the phone market and two broadcasters have a near duopoly in Mexican television broadcasting.

A report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development released this week underscored the lack of competition in telecommunications, resulting in significant costs to the Mexican economy and consumers.

(Reporting By Lorena Segura; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Hackers attack large Brazilian bank (AP)

Posted: 31 Jan 2012 11:48 AM PST

By STAN LEHMAN, Associated Press Stan Lehman, Associated Press – Tue Jan 31, 2:48 pm ET

SAO PAULO – A group of Internet hackers said Tuesday it took down the website of Brazil's second largest private sector bank, one day after it did the same with the country's largest private bank.

The group that calls itself "Anonymous Brasil" said on Twitter: "Attention sailors: Target hit! The http://bradesco.com.br is sinking. TANGO DOWN."

Banco Bradesco SA said in a statement that its site suffered "momentary interruptions," due to a denial of service attack, but that it was never forced offline. However, attempts by The Associated Press to access the site were unsuccessful for several hours.

Denial of service attacks are operations that block websites by flooding them with traffic.

The group said on Twitter that its attacks were a protest against corruption and would continue for at least a week.

On Monday, the group attacked the website of Itau Unibanco Banco Multiplo SA, Brazil's largest private sector bank, saying it was the first of several such attacks.

That bank said in a statement that its site was offline for part of the day, but that it was re-established after the problem was detected.

The Brazilian Federation of Banks said in a statement posted on its website that it has been calling for approval of a law that criminalizes electronic attacks and fraud.

One week ago, the websites of the Sao Paulo state government and state court were taken down for a few hours by the same group of hackers.

Anonymous Brasil said the attacks were to protest the evictions of some 5,000 people from a sprawling slum.

In June last year, hackers struck the website of Brazil's statistics agency and temporarily blocked traffic to the websites of the Brazilian presidency, the nation's internal revenue service, oil company Petrobras, the Senate and the Sports Ministry

Mel Gibson's "Get the Gringo" to debut on DirecTV (Reuters)

Posted: 31 Jan 2012 08:00 PM PST

By Joshua L. Weinstein Joshua L. Weinstein – 1 hr 10 mins ago

LOS ANGELES, Jan 31 (TheWrap.com) – Mel Gibson's next movie, "Get the Gringo," will debut on DirecTV, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, DirecTV and Gibson's Icon Productions said Tuesday.

The R-rated movie will be available exclusively on DirecTV before being released on Blu-ray, DVD, VOD and digital download.

DirecTV plans to aggresively promote the movie, which premieres in HD on May 1. It will cost $10.99.

After an initial period in which the movie is available exclusively on DirecTV, Fox Home Entertainment will release it.

Adrian Grunberg, who was first assistant director on Gibson's "Apocalypto," directed the movie, which he and Gibson wrote.

An individual familiar with the project told TheWrap that Grunberg and Gibson got along so well on "Apocalypto" that Gibson told the director, who lives in Mexico, that he wanted to work with him again.

Grunberg came up with an idea about a guy who ends up in prison and he and Gibson turned it into a screenplay, the individual said.

The movie, formerly titled "How I Spent My Summer Vacation," is about a career criminal who crashes his car into the border wall while trying to escape the U.S. Border Patrol. He survives the crash, but ends up in a tough Mexican prison where a 10-year-old boy shows him the ropes.

Gibson, Bruce Davey and Stacy Perskie produced the movie.

Although "Get the Gringo" is being released on home video in the United States, it is getting a theatrical release in countries that do not have well-established VOD markets. In Russia, for example, the movie will premiere in movie theaters.

This is Icon's first movie to premiere on home video.

Icon also produced "Apocalypto," "The Passion of the Christ" and "Edge of Darkness."

(Editing By Zorianna Kit)

Toilet-Time Cellphone Habits Make for Interesting Survey (ContributorNetwork)

Posted: 31 Jan 2012 03:46 PM PST

Susan Graybeal Susan Graybeal – Tue Jan 31, 6:46 pm ET
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COMMENTARY | I have often wondered where researchers come up with the subjects of their surveys. Here's one to beat them all. According to the New York Times, a survey by 11mark shows three-quarters of the populace have used a cellphone while on the toilet. 91 percent of respondents ages 28 to 35 have done it, but fewer than half of respondents over 65 have.

Those who do go for a bit of cellphone action while on the toilet, the particular action that is partaken is varied. They text. They call and accept phone calls. They shop and surf the Web. People with children are more likely to talk on the phone while using the bathroom. People who are single are more likely to text. 20 percent of male respondents have participated in a conference call while on the pot.

According to the article, the use of mobile devices while on the toilet is "a testimony to our collective passion for communication and contact over all other needs." Perhaps that's it. Or perhaps we're so busy these days, trying to use every waking second to accomplish something.

Whatever the reason and whether you're in the majority or not, you have to admit it's a strange thing to do and an even stranger thing to ask others about by way of a survey. As interesting as the results are, I hope the research wasn't government funded. I don't know why, other than the idea that surely there is more important stuff for the government to fund than research that involves asking people if they text in the bathroom.

I also hope that now that I know the results, I can quickly put them out of my mind. I don't want to wonder the next time I get a call or a text if the person trying to communicate with me is doing it from the stall.

Anti-Wall Street protester's Twitter posts subpoenaed (Reuters)

Posted: 31 Jan 2012 04:46 PM PST

By Joseph Ax Joseph Ax – Tue Jan 31, 7:46 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Prosecutors have subpoenaed the Twitter records of an Occupy Wall Street protester who was arrested in October during a mass protest on the Brooklyn Bridge.

The January 26 subpoena from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office seeks "user information, including email address," along with three months' worth of tweets from @destructuremal, the Twitter handle for Malcolm Harris.

Harris, 23, a freelance writer and editor who lives in the New York borough of Brooklyn, said Tuesday that Twitter sent a copy of the subpoena to him on Monday. He posted it -- where else? -- on Twitter.

"When you get an email from Twitter Legal, you assume it's a phishing scam, trying to get your password," he said. "It turned out that it is a phishing scam, but it's from the prosecutors."

It is not clear what specific evidence prosecutors are after. But the subpoena is an example of posts on social media sites posing potential legal problems for authors.

Harris said his lawyer, Martin Stolar of the National Lawyers Guild, would file a motion to quash the subpoena. Twitter has agreed not to comply with the subpoena while Stolar prepares the motion, Harris said.

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney's office declined comment.

The subpoena seeks Harris' tweets from September 15 -- two days before the Occupy Wall Street movement began -- to December 15. Harris is not sure what tweets could be fodder for prosecutors; Twitter's interface does not allow him to review all of his old tweets.

Stolar was not immediately available for comment Tuesday evening.

A Twitter spokesman declined to comment on the case but confirmed that the San Francisco-based company's policy is "to notify users about law enforcement and governmental requests for their information, unless we are prevented by law from doing so," in order to protect users' rights.

Harris is one of hundreds of Occupy-related defendants whose cases are still winding their way through the court system. A special courtroom has been set up to handle more than 1,800 cases in New York, the vast majority involving misdemeanor charges.

He was charged with disorderly conduct and is due back in court on February 29. Like a number of Occupy protesters, he has vowed to take the case to trial rather than accept a deal from prosecutors.

The National Lawyers Guild is representing many of the arrested protesters.

Humble Indie Bundle Now on Android with Nearly Free Games (ContributorNetwork)

Posted: 31 Jan 2012 03:14 PM PST

Jared Spurbeck Jared Spurbeck – Tue Jan 31, 6:14 pm ET
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The Humble Indie Bundle is a promotion that started in May 2010 and has reappeared several times since then. It's a collection of games from indie developers, that's sold as a download with no DRM (meaning you can copy it as much as you want). What sets it apart is that you can name your own price, or even donate the money to charity instead. And all of the games are cross-platform, meaning they work on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Well, the Bundle is back, and this time it's added a new platform: Android.

Yes, that means mobile

Google's open-source Android operating system is the one with the friendly robot mascot, which powers nearly all smartphones and tablets that aren't BlackBerries or iPhones/iPads. If your phone or tablet gets its apps from the Android Market, it's running Android (unless you modded your BlackBerry PlayBook to use it).

The Humble Indie Bundle apps aren't being sold on the Android Market. You buy them on the Bundle website, humblebundle.com, and then download and install them manually. It isn't hard, but you need to first open the menu on your home screen, tap on "Settings," tap on "Applications," then tap the "Unknown Sources" checkbox to allow it. This is what lets you install from outside the Android Market.

What about updates?

If you buy an app through the Android Market, you get free updates and can download them at any time. Updates are trickier for apps that you install from outside it, but according to Brandon Lancaster of Android Police, that shouldn't be a problem for the Humble Indie Bundle games. Two of the games will prompt you when there's a new update available, and "hopefully" the other two will follow suit. Meanwhile, the Humble Bundle people are "working on an Android app" that should help you keep track of your games.

Which games are included?

The four games that are part of this bundle are on all three computer platforms, as well as Android.

You can name your own price for the first three, which are Anomaly: Warzone Earth (a sort of reverse tower defense game), Osmos (a game where you play as a single cell which absorbs others), and Edge (a puzzle platformer where you roll a cube through a maze).

If you try to donate less than $1, it will show you a picture of an impoverished programmer, note that you have no heart, and not grant you the keys to unlock the games on Steam (which is an option for people who use that service). It will still let you download the games, though; you just won't be able to put them on your Steam account.

If you donate more than the average price -- currently $5.30 -- you get World of Goo as well, a physics-based puzzle game that requires you to build bridges and scaffolds.

All games include soundtracks, and can be installed as many times as you like. Demos of the Android games can be found here.

How long does it last?

The bundle offer ends at 6 p.m. EST Feb. 14.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

TouchPal Keyboard Tablet offers another great input alternative (Appolicious)

Posted: 31 Jan 2012 03:15 PM PST

Phone + tablet merge: Asus to show redesigned PadFone at MWC in February (Digital Trends)

Posted: 31 Jan 2012 08:02 AM PST

Jeffrey Van Camp Jeffrey Van Camp – Tue Jan 31, 11:02 am ET

asus-padfone-early-design

Asus has been one of the leaders in innovative tablet designs. We were saddened that it did not announce any new products at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, but it looks like Feb. 26 or 27 may be its time to shine. Asus has confirmed with MoDaCo (via PocketNow) that it intends to unveil a newly designed PadPhone tablet + phone at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. 

Much like the concept of the Motorola Atrix + Laptop Dock, the padphone is essentially a 10.1-inch tablet that has a slot for a 4.3-inch Asus smartphone to plug into it. Once the phone is snapped in, it provides the processing power for the tablet, which gives it a charge in return. This concept would allow Asus to manufacture the actual tablet shell for much less than a standard tablet, since it only needs a screen and battery inside it. The processor, which is rumored to be a new Qualcomm Snapdragon S4, and other components all come from the phone. If executed correctly, it also means that users don't have to worry about syncing up devices because everything would be saved on their smartphone. This redesigned model can also snap into Asus's Transformer Prime keyboard dock as well, which extends functionality yet again. 

asus-padfone-screens

The newest version of the PadFone runs Android 4.0, which has us wondering if Asus has bundled a custom tablet interface with it (ala Motorola's Laptop Dock "Webtop" interface) or if Android 4.0 is capable of scaling itself to a larger resolution if docked into something. We've speculated that it is capable of this feature, which would mean that your Android smartphone would instantly look like an Android 4.0 tablet if docked into a larger screen. Supposedly, nothing would be lost in the transition. It also means that if you run out of battery power, you can always turn your phone into a tablet for a while. 

The real question here is how cheap it's all going to be. Cost has been one of the major issues with Motorola's attempt at docking phones to laptops. The PadFone is already somewhat expensive since you have to buy the phone and the tablet to really make use of it. If the phone costs $200-$300 (and hopefully it has LTE), then we can't imagine people wanting to pay more than $100-$150 for the dock. Especially since they may have to buy a keyboard dock as well, which runs $150. 

The video below shows a brief glimpse at the front of the new PadFone, which was first announced at Computex last year. The woman in the video is quite enthusiastic about the device, though she fails to show us how it snaps in the back or the tablet interface. Hopefully her enthusiasm is warranted. We'll let you know when we check out the device at MWC on Feb. 27. 

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

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CEO: Vevo made $150 million in revenue last year (AP)

Posted: 31 Jan 2012 06:11 PM PST

By RYAN NAKASHIMA, AP Business Writer Ryan Nakashima, Ap Business Writer – 2 hrs 59 mins ago

DANA POINT, Calif. – Vevo, the online music video service launched by Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment in late 2009, pulled in $150 million in revenue last year, chief executive Rio Caraeff revealed on Tuesday.

The service gets most of its viewers through YouTube, where Vevo is one of the most popular channels. Because of its high-quality music videos, Vevo commands advertising rates on par with broadcast television programming, he said. Vevo's popularity has boomed, going from 350 million global views per month two years ago to 3.5 billion a month today.

Along with disclosing revenue, Caraeff said Vevo has paid out $100 million to the music industry for the licensing fees on the videos over the last two years. He also told the "D: Dive Into Media" conference that the company is profitable.

Caraeff said the future of the industry is not necessarily just tied to sales of songs or concert tickets.

"The future of music is about allowing billions of people on the planet to access music experiences, not trying to sell music to a small amount of people who want to buy it," he said.

Vevo carries music videos from three of the largest recording companies in the world: Vivendi SA's Universal, Sony, and EMI, which does not have an equity stake.

Warner Music Group Corp. is not part of the coalition. Outgoing chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr. told the conference earlier that Warner's strategy is to build up the artists' brands, not that of another company.

Caraeff said there is value in aggregating multiple record labels' artists in one place.

"I'm confident that we will have a relationship with Warner Music Group," Caraeff said. "Right now we respectfully have gone separate directions."

EU probes Samsung, Germany blocks its tablets (AP)

Posted: 31 Jan 2012 03:51 PM PST

By GABRIELE STEINHAUSER and DAVID RISING, Associated Press Gabriele Steinhauser And David Rising, Associated Press – Tue Jan 31, 6:51 pm ET

BRUSSELS – Samsung took a double-hit in its battle against archrival Apple when the European Union announced it would investigate whether it was illegally trying to hinder competitors and Germany blocked sales of some of its tablet computers.

Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc. are engaged in a strategic war over patents in many countries across the world as they try to draw market share away from each other.

The EU's antitrust watchdog thinks the South Korean company may be overstepping the bounds and launched a formal investigation into whether Samsung is using lawsuits over key patents on 3G wireless technology to hinder competitors — including Apple.

The European Commission, which is acting as the EU's antitrust enforcer, said Tuesday it suspected Samsung of not giving other companies fair access to patents it holds on standardized 3G technology for mobile devices — despite committing to do so in 1998.

A spokeswoman for the Commission said the probe also affected tablets such as Apple's newest iPad, which uses standardized wireless 3G technology.

The Commission said that Samsung last year sought legal injunctions against other device makers in several EU states, alleging patent infringement.

Under EU patent rules, a company that holds patents for standardized products is required to license them out indiscriminately at a fair price.

If Samsung is found guilty of unfairly restraining competition, it can be fined up to 10 percent of annual revenue related to the investigation.

"Samsung now has to think carefully about how it wants to deal with (the probe)," said Florian Mueller, a patent analyst who has been closely following the battle between Samsung and Apple.

In the EU, Samsung has sued Apple in Germany, France, Italy, the U.K., the Netherlands and Spain. It also has legal proceedings against its competitor in the U.S., South Korea, Japan and Australia, Mueller said. However, Mueller said, Samsung may now be inclined to withdraw its lawsuits against Apple following news of the European investigation.

The battle between the two companies began in April, when Cupertino, California-based Apple sued Samsung in the United States, alleging the product design, user interface and packaging of Samsung's Galaxy devices "slavishly copy" the iPhone and iPad.

Samsung — the global No. 1 in TVs and No. 2 in smartphones by sales — responded by filing its own lawsuits that accused Apple of patent infringement of its wireless telecommunications technology.

A spokesman said the European Commission launched its probe after its own investigation of the market, rather than reacting to complaints from Samsung's competitors. However, the Commission last year sent antitrust questionnaires to both Apple and Samsung.

The spokesman added that similar probes could also be launched against other companies strategically using patent lawsuits to stop competitors from selling similar devices.

Nam Ki-yung, a spokesman at Samsung Electronics in South Korea, said his company was looking at details of the news on the probe but had no immediate comments.

EU antitrust probes don't have a deadline and the Commission stressed that its investigation does not mean Samsung did indeed breach the bloc's competition rules. Samsung now gets the chance to respond to the Commission's concerns, as will other market participants.

Also Tuesday, in a separate case, an appeals court in Germany ruled in favor of Apple, saying Samsung could not sell its Galaxy Tab 10.1 nor the Galaxy Tab 8.9 in the country because they too closely resembled the iPad2, in violation of unfair competition laws.

"Samsung wrongly used the enormous reputation and prestige of the iPad," Duesseldorf state court Presiding Judge Wilhelm Berneke wrote in his ruling.

Samsung's successor tablet, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 N, was not affected by the ruling, and the company said that while the decision was disappointing, it was largely irrelevant.

"Today's ruling is of little factual relevance due to the new model Galaxy Tab 10.1 N, and ... the decision therefore is of no indicative value with respect to other legal proceedings involving the Galaxy Tab 10.1 N," Samsung said in an email to The Associated Press.

"Samsung will continue to take all appropriate measures, including legal action, to ensure continued consumer access to our innovative products."

Mueller concurred that the German court ruling won't have a commercial impact on the South Korean company, since it has already been selling a new model of the Galaxy tablet since November.

"The defeat in Germany is more of a symbolical nature," said Mueller, whose clients include Apple competitor Microsoft.

The probe and victory in the German court for Apple come after the California company has met with several setbacks recently in its fight with Samsung.

Most recently, a Dutch court ruled on Jan. 24 that Samsung's Galaxy Tab tablet was not a copy of Apple's iPad, and that it could continue to be sold in the Netherlands. That came on the heels of a December decision in Sydney, where the High Court dismissed Apple's appeal and said Samsung was free to sell its Galaxy tablet computers in Australia.

___

Rising reported from Berlin; Hyung-jin Kim contributed to this story from Seoul.

Apple engineers ‘heavy into’ near-field communication for iPhone 5, rumor says (Appolicious)

Posted: 31 Jan 2012 10:52 AM PST

Megaupload users: EFF wants to help you recover lost files (Digital Trends)

Posted: 31 Jan 2012 11:16 AM PST

Andrew Couts Andrew Couts – Tue Jan 31, 2:16 pm ET

megaupload-seized

As of Monday, it seemed all but guaranteed that the files stored on the servers used by Megaupload, which was seized by the US government on January 19, were gone for good. This includes the data of people who used Megaupload for legitimate purposes, like distributing work documents, or their own photo and video creations. But thanks to a collaborative effort between the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Carpathia Hosting, which owns and operates many of the servers used by Mega in the US, users who lost their files may now have a way to get them back.

The EFF is now offering its legal services to "innocent" Megaupload users who lost access to their files. While the online rights organization does not guarantee that it can successfully help recover users' data, it has asked users to email with details about their situation, which will be used to help the case for gaining access to the data.

"EFF is troubled that so many lawful users of Megaupload.com had their property taken from them without warning and that the government has taken no steps to help them," said Julie Samuels, Staff Attorney at EFF, in a statement (pdf). "We think it's important that these users have their voices heard as this process moves forward."

At present, Carpathia "does not have access to any data for Megaupload customers," said Brian Winter, CMO of Carpathia Hosting, in a statement. But he added that Carpathia supports "the EFF and their efforts to help those users that stored legitimate, non-infringing files with Megaupload retrieve their data." To backup their claims of support, Carpathia has launched MegaRetrieval.com, which provides contact information and further details about the EFF's efforts to help users recover their files.

Users who wish to utilize the EFF's legal resources can email the organization with details of their case to this address: megauploadmissing@eff.org.

We have reached out to the EFF to find out more details about what kind of information such users should provide, and what kind of legal hurtles stand between users and their data. We will update this piece as soon as they respond.

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

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