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Mesh WiFi startup Eero lays off a fifth of its workforce
Mesh WiFi pioneer Eero has laid off 30 employees in a bid to "focus on its core business". The company, which launched in 2015, has played a pivotal role in changing the face of home WiFi with products that blanket spaces in coverage, designed to replace old-school systems of routers and extenders.
EVE Evolved: Capital ships ruined nullsec
All throughout EVE Online's lifetime, compelling stories of incredible events, daring heists, and colossal battles with thousands of players have periodically surfaced and spread across the gaming media like wildfire. Most of the recent stories have been about record-breaking battles between huge alliances of players in the lawless depths of null-security space, and each one has been met with an influx of new players who want to participate. The surprising truth behind nullsec warfare, however, is that many of those on the front lines are simply fed up with the political state of the game. In EVE's early years, the map was split between hundreds of small alliances, each of which slowly expanded its influence by conquering the star systems bordering its space. Skirmishes and pirate incursions were brief and commonplace, while border wars over territory were long and protracted affairs. Today's nullsec is a different animal entirely, with nearly the entire map carved up between two colossal mega-coalitions of alliances (N3/PL and CFC), each one internally held in a state of perpetually monotonous peace. No alliance in a coalition can break away and stand on its own for fear of being demolished by the others, and so all of nullsec is at peace with its neighbours and bored to tears by it. In this edition of EVE Evolved, I examine how nullsec got to the state it's in now and why it's badly in need of an overhaul.
Engadget's back to school guide 2012: portable audio
Welcome to Engadget's back to school guide! The end of summer vacation isn't nearly as much fun as the weeks that come before, but a chance to update your tech tools likely helps to ease the pain. Today, we're taking our audio with us -- and you can head to the back to school hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the month. Be sure to keep checking back -- at the end of the month we'll be giving away a ton of the gear featured in our guides -- and hit up the hub page right here! With all of the studying and on-campus traveling you're about to delve into, sometimes adding a bit of music to your step can spice up those mundane times in your daily routine. That's why we've rounded up a selection of portable speakers and headphones that'll not only help you rock out whenever the mood strikes, but also go a step further by letting you take phone calls without skipping a beat. It may not be audiophile-grade gear in the official sense, but it won't matter when you're enjoying good sound just about anywhere your smartphone-connected life takes you.
Apple gets paid for products faster than it has to pay for manufacturing
Here's yet another sign of what a great position Apple has put itself in in terms of manufacturing: According to the Wall Street Journal [paywall], the company gets paid by its customers much faster than it is required to pay its suppliers. The difference between the inflow of sales and the outflow of manufacturing capital means that Apple's capital investment is actually negative -- a sort of fiscal antigravity. Apple is getting paid by customers after 18 days on average, but it has leveraged into a position where it has up to 83 days to pay its suppliers. That's phenomenal, and it's a result of quite a few different initiatives by the company in the past. First, not only are Apple's products built around high profit and high demand, but Apple has made various company acquisitions and locked down powerful supply deals. This also means that the companies that Apple has teamed up with end up taking on more of the risk than usual, leaving Apple in a very agile and flexible position. According to the WSJ, in 2011 Apple paid to keep only four days of inventory on hand, versus 10 days of inventory held in 2010. Again, this is of course the product of years of spending on R&D, acquisitions and investments, and Apple's legendary advertising budgets and reputation for quality. But it's obviously a very impressive place for Apple Inc. to perch. [via 9to5Mac] #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
AIAIAI Capital headphones bring the beats, take abuse on the streets (video)
Denmark's AIAIAI has developed a reputation for targeting its headphones at specific listeners. This time, it's aiming at someone we know all too well: the urban dweller who goes through replacement headphones like so much meat through a grinder. The Capital over-ears' bolstered fiberglass shell is designed to be rain- and snow-resistant, not to mention take the casual knocks that might beat up other headphone pairs. The foldable set likewise gives us every excuse to keep it on our heads, both through a light and reputedly comfortable brace as well as an in-line mic and remote to take that iPhone call through the Capital's 40mm drivers. At $125, the pair isn't the lowest-cost entry into the headphone world, but if it spares us from having to dive for cover when the weather turns foul, it could well be a bargain. You can get a sense of AIAIAI's impetus for yourself in a video after the break.
Space Shuttle Discovery salutes Washington on historic final flight
As historic flights go, this has to be right up there with the best of 'em. Space Shuttle Discovery performed a final fly-by over the capital, and created a trail of excited spotters as it did so. Perched atop a Boeing 747, the iconic craft was flying at a relatively low 1,500 feet according to NASA. Pictures of the voyage have been popping up on social media and image sharing sites as it headed in from the west, before coming to its final resting place at a special off-shoot of the Smithsonian Institute's National Air and Space Museum near Dulles Airport. Have you spotted Discovery? Be sure to add links in the comments if you do. [Image credit: NASA]
Space Shuttle Discovery to make final in-air appearance in 1,500-foot DC flyover
Folks lucky enough to be in the nation's capital next week will have one final opportunity to gawk at Space Shuttle Discovery as the decommissioned spacecraft makes its way to its final resting place in Washington D.C. The shuttle is scheduled for a 1,500-foot flyover between 10 and 11 next Tuesday morning, passing over the National Mall and Reagan National Airport atop NASA's modified 747-100. The craft will then land at Dulles Airport before making a land-based journey to the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Center, where it will replace the Enterprise shuttle, which is destined for the Intrepid Museum in Manhattan. That prototype shuttle is scheduled to land in New York City a few days later on April 23rd, where it will touch down at JFK mounted to what's likely to be the same Shuttle Carrier Aircraft scheduled to make the Discover delivery in D.C., though there's sadly no word of a similar photo op in NYC.
Hawken developers raise $10 million in capital to launch
Tim Schafer's Double Fine Entertainment has made a lot of noise by getting fans to pay over $2.6 million for them to put together an old school adventure game, but here's a reminder that there are still some reasons to do things the old way. About 7.4 million reasons, in fact: Publisher Meteor Entertainment has reportedly raised over $10 million in funding for its upcoming multiplayer mech game, Hawken.Meteor raised the money by pitching its idea to venture capital firms Benchmark Capital and FirstMark Capital, the same companies that initially invested in the makers of League of Legends, Riot Games.Riot Games later sold for a rumored $350 million. Hawken (which is being developed by Adhesive Games) is also enjoying a nice bit of player interest already, with over 200,000 signed up for the closed beta, and lots more looking forward to the free-to-play launch. Schafer and company have done great things with Kickstarter, but there's still a lot of money to be made through more traditional routes as well.
Amazing EVE Online video tells epic tale of wormhole conflict
PvP in EVE Online is more often likened to a game of strategy than of action. If that's true, then Rooks and Kings' impressive track record for tactical genius makes the alliance undeniably a grandmaster of intergalactic chess. The group's instructional video Clarion Call: Triage Special in early 2009 was released to wide acclaim, and the tactics demonstrated in the video became core strategies replicated by military corporations throughout the game. The follow-up video Clarion Call: Pantheon evolved those strategies to counter opponents prepared to come up against triage carriers. Massively is proud to exclusively reveal Rooks and Kings' third and undeniably most impressive video to date. Clarion Call 3 moves the stage of Rooks and Kings' normal hunting grounds in nullsec and lowsec to the undiscovered lands of wormhole space. But star Alazais says "one does not simply walk into a wormhole," noting that the tight restrictions on the mass of ships that can enter a wormhole presents new challenges. The group fought outnumbered and outgunned against an enemy possessing an ability that later became known as "the infinity gun." Skip past the cut to learn more about the infinity gun exploit and to watch the full film. Don't forget to set it to 1080p for the full HD experience.
Latest EVE dev video talks ship balance and features coming this winter
Several weeks ago, EVE Online developer CCP Games restructured its company and announced a new laser focus on in-space features for EVE Online. Since then we've seen an absolute deluge of news updates and devblogs on features due for release in the winter expansion. In the first two of CCP's new In Development video series, CCP Guard explored the art department and showed off the new nebula effects, EVE's sharpened shadows and the new tier 3 battlecruisers. In the latest In Development video, Guard talks to the EVE feature teams about the absolutely massive list of balance changes and features coming with the winter expansion. CCP Soundwave admits that developers have "probably done more rebalancing in the past month than we have in the past two years," before rattling off an impressive list of changes and new features. Skip past the cut for a brief summary of the changes and to watch the video in HD.
LG Display cuts spending targets for 2012, amid sagging LCD demand
LG Display has decided to drastically cut its expenditure target for 2012, in yet another sign that the LCD market is going through some tough times. Today, the manufacturer announced that it will spend only three trillion won (about $2.8 billion) on its production facilities next year -- a 33 percent decrease from its previously revised budget and LG Display's lowest expenditure target since 2009. The company also said that it has no plans to build a new LCD plants in 2012, suggesting that it may already be facing excess panel supply. Analysts are predicting that demand will remain subdued throughout the end of 2011, though LG Display CFO James Jeong had previously said he expects things to pick up by the beginning of next year.
Nokia Siemens Networks chooses a suitor: its own shareholders
A lot of marriages hit rough patches from time to time, and it's no different for companies and their shareholders. The last three months have likely been especially tumultuous for Nokia Siemens Networks as it played the field, conducting a review to assess potential private equity interest. In the end, however, NSN determined the grass was indeed greener on its own side. According to the press release (found after the break), it concluded that "the current shareholders are in the best position to further enhance the value of the company." Given that NSN's reported three successive quarters of year-on-year growth, the troubled relationship appears to be out of hot water for now -- we just hope the shareholders are willing to kiss and make up.
AAPL's top owners have cashed in some stock recently
Fortune's Apple 2.0 blog has an interesting tidbit about Apple's stock lately. A blogger who calls himself Sammy the Walrus IV has been poking around into AAPL records, and has found out that several of Apple's top shareholders have sold some of the stock recently. There's nothing shocking here (nothing outside of the usual buy and sell on the stock exchange), but the numbers are interesting, with firms like Janus Capital and Capital Research investing back into AAPL for over a billion dollars each. Four of the top 10 holders of Apple shares have sold off some this past quarter, including Goldman Sachs, who got rid of 61% of its shares, and these same top 10 holders basically determine the fate of AAPL, as they own around 25% of the company as a whole. Again, these are all routine sales, and as you can see from the chart above, there's still plenty of AAPL buying going on (and we'll even state the obvious: this post should not be considered financial advice). But it's an interesting overview of some of the core firms and shareholders behind the movements of AAPL lately.
Wheego needs more cash to produce LiFe EVs, 'living hand-to-mouth' for now
Oh, how the winds of fortune can swirl. Just a few weeks after finally selling its first LiFe electric car to a happy couple in Atlanta, Wheego appears to have suddenly fallen on hard financial times. Very hard times. Speaking to Automotive News, CEO Mike McQuary claimed that his startup's coffers are bare enough to jeopardize future production of Wheego's flagship, battery-powered two-seater: "My constraint is primarily capital. We'll be living hand-to-mouth as we try to get the first cars built. The next 200 will creep out as we raise money." McQuary didn't say how far behind schedule Wheego is at the moment, but part of the problem seems to be finding enough money to buy parts for its $32,995, 100-mile range EVs. The company's plant in California was supposed to produce 200 vehicles a month starting in January, in the hopes of eventually churning out 60,000 a year. Those plans, however, were soon derailed, due to unexpectedly delayed approval from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration -- a setback that also hurt the company's capital raising campaigns. The company is hoping to raise some $15 million with the help of a VC firm in Connecticut, but until it does, Wheego may not be going anywhere.
Make your travel plans to visit Rift's majestic Meridian city!
If your tastes run more to the technological terrors of Rift: Planes of Telera's Defiant, then prepare to get to know Meridian, the faction's capital, quite well. Spitting in the eye of the old gods, Meridian is a cutting-edge metropolis full of harnessed magics, steampunk wonders and rogue water elementals. Although it is on the front lines of the great world war, Meridian still prides itself on its beauty and elegance, as evidenced by soaring towers and technomagic constructs. The city will offer players a quick travel system via portals, which allows a character to instantly zip to any portal he or she has already discovered. There are secret places to uncover, colorful characters such as Sparky the potion-mixing automaton to meet, and plenty of places to drop your coin in exchange for goods and services. You can read a guided tour of the city and watch the quick one-minute flyby of Meridian after the jump.
Ogmento secures $3.5 million for augmented reality game development and publishing
Augmented reality game developer and publisher Ogmento this morning announced that it has secured the first $3.5 million of venture capital funding for development. The exciting news? That means the company is hiring. "The key thing is really we're looking to partner, and hire folks, so we'd love to get that word out," Ogmento co-founder Ori Inbar told us in a phone interview earlier today. "What we do is we go after people that we've either known for many years or people that have passion about augmented reality, and have good experience in game design or art. It's a lot about passion." But that first round of funding won't just go to expanding the still nascent company's New York (R&D) and LA (development) offices with passionate people -- Inbar told us Ogmento plans on using part to release a few titles this year, "leading on mobile." That said, he was also happy to talk about possible console developments in the future. "Sony's EyeToy camera is basically enabling a whole set of augmented reality games ... and Project Natal will enable something similar. Then of course there is the DSi/3DSi and PSP platforms which are already embracing AR. When you see a game like LittleBigPlanet include AR into its development, you know this is a technology with some serious potential." Ogmento is currently composed of eight employees, including industry veterans Brian Selzer ("he's heading up the creative in the company," former senior director of Marvel properties at Hands-On Mobile) and Brad Foxhoven (former strategic consultant for ... everything). As far as announcements with game developers or publishers attached, Inbar says we'll "hear more soon."
Booyah raises $20m, aims for 6m users
I've lately been guessing that Booyah might eventually hook up with Ngmoco, since they're both iPhone gaming/app companies with somewhat similar goals that could help each other out. But it looks like Booyah doesn't need any help any more -- it's just raised a whopping $20 million from investors in a new round of funding. Booyah was originally included in the iFund investment, but that contribution pales in comparison to this one, which sets Booyah up as one of the heaviest single-brand hitters in the app market. Booyah is made up of a few ex-Blizzard developers (we interviewed CEO Keith Lee back at GDC), and the growth of its second app, MyTown, has been amazing -- a little while back, they said the app was growing by 100,000 users a week, and they're aiming to hit 6 million users by the end of the summer (presumably with a new app coming as well, not all inside just MyTown). Their user investment is huge as well -- they say that average usage of the app was over an hour a day, and they're now hitting 8.3 million virtual item impressions a day. Along with selling virtual items, they're also putting together high-profile partnerships with companies like H&M and The Travel Channel. And they've done all of this while still standing in the shadow of more well-known check-in services like Gowalla and Foursquare. There's a heck of a lot of activity and potential coming out of Booyah, and with this big chunk of funding, they're set up to do some more amazing things with their next app. We'll have to keep an eye on them.
EVE Evolved: Medic ships, part 2: High-end healing
In the first of this two-part guide, I looked at some of the more affordable entry level ships and modules available to dedicated healers in EVE Online. I went on to examine an effective strategy for using medic ships as part of a PvE gang, whether you need some help on a particularly hard mission or you're trying to crack one of EVE's hardest exploration complexes. This week, I look at high-end healing as I explore capital ships and the role of medic ships in both PvP and wormhole operations. Healing in missions and exploration sites is a largely passive affair, with the healer permanently locked to the main tank. NPCs in these sites never switch targets but the same can't be said for players or the advanced Sleeper AI that roam wormhole systems. Repairing your gang-mates in PvP or a wormhole operation is a completely different affair, made all the more complicated by the fact that the dedicated medic ship is sure to come under fire. In this article, I look at capital ships and the remote assistance strategies players use in PvP or wormhole operations.
EVE video corner: "Clarion Call 2: Pantheon"
Whether you're a full-on EVE Online junkie or you don't play the game at all, EVE has undeniably produced some great stories and incredible gameplay videos. Just over a year ago in my weekly EVE Evolved column, I looked at ten of the best EVE videos of all time but since then a lot more videos have been made. In this new irregular segment, I aim to showcase some of EVE's best video productions and shine a spotlight on their creators. Once or twice per month I'll highlight a video that has particularly caught my attention, from high-class productions that play like a sci-fi film to gritty PvP videos showing real gameplay. What better way to kick off this first edition of the EVE video corner than with the sequel to an old favourite? The original "Clarion Call: Triage Special" video came in fourth place in my top ten list last year and its sequel "Clarion Call 2: Pantheon" doesn't disappoint. Like the original, the video follows Rooks and Kings alliance as they engage in capital warfare against terrible odds. Once again the video takes an instructional tone, with Princess Aricia of Fairlight Corp providing explanation of the tactics being used as each fight progresses. In this video, Rooks and Kings unveil a new strategy they call "Pantheon", which is designed to combat the growing usage of specialised Triage tactics. Whether you play EVE or not, this is definitely a video to watch. Skip past the cut to watch 10 minutes of scenes from this goliath 22 minute video. The full version is available for download from the video's page at the EVE forums.
Microsoft still beats Apple in cash and investments, for now
Back during the earnings call a few weeks ago, it was mentioned that Apple has a jaw-dropping almost $40 billion just sitting around in cash. In the chat, we started talking about other companies that might have that much money in the hopper -- Google came up, but I don't think we were able to guess another one. But it turns out Apple isn't even the most flush company out there, and the name of the first might surprise you: According to this chart on Silicon Alley Insider, Microsoft is currently sitting on just slightly more money than even Apple, with Google and Intel coming close behind; although Apple briefly pulled ahead of MS at the end of 2008, the Redmond Revenue Racers had more cash through most of '09 than Apple did. Well how 'bout that. Of course, the current curves are not so favorable to Microsoft (after the Win7 update push slows down a bit) so it may not be long before Apple's pile grows even bigger. We can probably look for some significant acquisitions from all of these companies very soon -- with the rest of the economy down and lots of interesting ideas looking to sell, odds are we'll see some of this money spent on worthy purchases. [via Cult of Mac]
