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Reuters: Vivendi finds 'few takers' on Activision stake sale, eyes other departments
Vivendi's planned sale of its 61 percent controlling stake in Activision is apparently waning, according to Reuters. Vivendi is said to be eying a sale of Brazillian telecommunications company Global Village Telecom (GVT), which would bring in anywhere from $8.59 to $10.42 billion – a distinctly larger number than the $8.3 billion Vivendi's stock in Acti is worth. Vivendi reportedly sought "at least 12 percent" more than the $8.3 billion stock valuation, which potential buyers turned down (Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and several other companies were reportedly offered the stock).Vivendi is a French conglomerate, and it's not in great financial shape. In an effort to shore up capital, it reportedly sought a sale of its controlling stake in Activision, turning to its GVT wing less than two months later in a similar effort. The French conglomerate purchased its stake in Activision back in 2007, forming what is now known as Activision Blizzard in the process.Economically minded readers may notice that Vivendi's interest in retaining control of Activision began declining along the same downward slope as the international economy. Though Vivendi's current financial situation is more complicated than "bad economy, sell parts of business," the worldwide recession surely can't be helping its standing.
Reuters cooks up remote camera rigs for 2012 Olympics, mounts them where humans can't tread
Sure, the 2012 Olympics may be gearing up for HD, 3D and even Super Hi-Vision broadcasts, but that doesn't mean still photography has lost its appeal. In fact, Reuters photographers Fabrizio Bensch and Pawel Kopczynski are taking Olympic photography to the next level, perching remote-controlled camera rigs in stadium rafters. The system, which the duo has been developing since 2009, can turn, adjust focus and receive commands wirelessly. Once stills are snapped, they're sent to an editing system and then off to distribution. The team is spending more than 12 hours a day installing the cams at different Olympic venues before the games kick off on July 27th. In the meantime, you can sprint to the source for photos of the setup.
RIM's global sales head departs after 14-year stretch
Research in Motion's head of global sales is leaving the company after serving the BlackBerry maker for 14 years. Patrick Spence joined the company before it had even produced its first smartphone before rising to his current position, based in London. Reuters hints that he was dissatisfied about being passed over for the vacant COO's position, due to be filled by former Sony Ericsson man Kristian Tear later this year. A spokesperson for the Canadian company said that Mr. Spence would be moving to a leadership role in another industry. [Image Credit: Globe and Mail]
Former RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie's very different rescue plan revealed
Sources close to former RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie have revealed his plans to save the company before he was shown the door, a plan that didn't involve handsets. He'd entered into talks with AT&T, Verizon and several European carriers to offer them use of the company's BlackBerry-exclusive network to provide limited data plans to featurephone users that included social networking and BBM -- with the aim of reducing the cellphone operators data burden and coaxing users to upgrade to smartphones. The company was working on Mobile Fusion; software that allowed enterprise and government users on iOS and Android devices to join RIM's system, which reportedly earns the company $1 billion per quarter. However, while talks progressed, company execs grew nervous and ousted him in favor of Thorsten Heins with a mandate to focus on BB10 and new devices rather than turning RIM into a service company. However, given that it's still losing money on its handset business, Heins has reopened the door to Balsillie's plan. It's just a shame Balsillie himself is keeping quiet, as we'd love to hear his thoughts in an executive-level edition of How Would you Change.
The rumors have begun: next iPhone to get a bigger screen?
Now that the iPad's been announced and launched, it's time for the rumor mill to start churning out gossip on the next generation iPhone. The latest report comes from a Maeil Business Newspaper via Reuters and claims the next iPhone will sport a 4.6-inch display. An unnamed industry source provided this tidbit, so I wouldn't place any bets just yet. If you want to see what a 4.6-inch handset looks like in real life, then head down to Verizon Wireless and scope out the Galaxy Nexus. You might be surprised by how big a phone has to be to accommodate such a screen.
Facebook reportedly acquires 750 IBM patents, beefs up its IP profile
You don't take a few shots in the patent wars without gearing up for the next battle. According to a Reuters source, Facebook just armed itself with 750 IBM patents. The library of intellectual property is said to cover a wide spectrum of technology, including semiconductor and search patents. So what's the beef? Well, Facebook could be prepping for a classic countersuit, the promised "vigorous defense" of its News Feed, user profiles and advertising methods versus a handful of Yahoo patents -- although it's just as likely to be bolstering its portfolio for investors. We'll let you know how it turns out.
Court says reworked Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1N can be sold in Germany
Apple's been going back and forth in German courts over the Samsung Galaxy Tab, suggesting it "borrows" a few too many features from the iPad, but the latest ruling has fallen in Samsung's favor. A German court has now decided that the Galaxy Tab has "clear differences" from the iPad, and thus can be sold in that country. Note, also, that this is the Galaxy Tab 10.1N, not the original version, so Samsung has already made some changes to the design. And those changes apparently worked, because the court has ruled that sales are on. That's not great for Apple, though Cupertino may likely follow up with appropriate appeals going forward. Samsung also has its own lawsuit going up against Apple in Germany, claiming infringement on a few of its own patents. The next ruling in that case is apparently due on March 2nd.
Apple to buy flash chip maker Anobit for $500 million?
Disclaimer: Delving into Apple's business requires a hefty pinch of salt, okay? Good. Is Apple about to open that $84 billion war chest to make another one of its traditional flash-memory supply-chain land-grabs? Rumors from Reuters suggest it's planning to snap up Israeli outfit Anobit for $400 or $500 million. The outfit specializes in signal processing for the memory chips, increasing volume and performance, which you'll already find bolted onto the Samsung and Hynix flash drives inside the iPhone 4S. Whilst we're having a hard time believing Cupertino would buy a hardware maker (even P.A. Semi and Intrinsity were fabless designers), it seems a logical move from a company who probably see traditional HDDs as an evil to be eradicated from its simplistic designs. We've reached out for comment from the companies and we'll let you know if we get anything more substantial than the regular "no comment." Update: The initial reports suggested that Anobit had production facilities, but it's since been clarified that the company is a fabless designer in the same vein as P.A. Semi and Intrinsity.
French papers team up to oppose Apple's Newsstand
Much in the way that Apple has come to dominate the media shopping experience through iTunes, the company is now aiming to make purchasing of newspapers and magazines much easier through iOS 5's Newsstand. The app is billed as a digital kiosk at which you can buy individual issues and subscriptions of periodicals. A group of French newspapers and magazines is hoping to get their own way by teaming up against Apple. Reuters reports that eight newspapers and publications, including Le Figaro, Les Echos, le Nouvel Observateur and the sports daily L'Equipe, have launched their own digital kiosk to sell issues on the iPad. The group is also negotiating with Apple as a unified front, and has stated that they refuse to sell their products on Newsstand without major concessions. One of the issues that the group has with Newsstand is Apple's 30 percent commission and refusal to share customer information with the publishers. L'Equipe's Xavier Spender said that the publication would "make less money selling a digital edition of the newspaper" than it would with the printed version. The group has signed with Google to sell subscriptions via Android's digital kiosk, since Google charges only a 10 percent commission and allows publishers to set their own prices and capture customer data. The group's digital kiosk is already live at Relay.com and sales of subscriptions will begin in November.
Zynga delaying stock IPO, due to 'rocky stock markets' and SEC questioning
Zynga was all revved up to release the initial public offering of its stock, but has had to delay that plan due to market instability and to answer questions from the SEC, according to The New York Post. The IPO was planned for next month, but the SEC is looking into how the social games company is reporting both its user numbers and revenue, two factors which would obviously greatly influence a stock's performance. Zynga's also citing "the rocky stock markets" as a factor in the delay, which means the IPO will be pushed back to sometime later this year, possibly in November. Zynga also needed some time to post its performance numbers on all of its friends' walls on Facebook, as well as send out Free Mystery Gifts to everyone on the SEC's ruling board.
Reuters suggests 8GB iPhone 4 is coming
News from Reuters journalists in Taipei and Hong Kong suggests that Asian suppliers to Apple are now manufacturing a lower-priced 8 GB version of the iPhone 4. The journalists are basing their assertion on word from two sources "with knowledge of the matter." According to the sources, a Korean firm is supplying the 8 GB flash drive for the low-end iPhone 4, which suggest that Samsung -- the source of flash drives for many other iPhone models -- could be the manufacturer. Unsurprisingly, both Apple and Samsung declined to comment about the rumor. While a less expensive iPhone 4 could help Apple's sales in emerging markets, Yuanta Securities analyst Bonnie Chang was quoted as saying that "Apple will still need a completely new phone with low specifications for the emerging markets." Chang also noted that it would be difficult to bring the price of an 8 GB iPhone 4 down into the $150 - $200 range needed to compete with high-end feature phones. The Reuters post also noted that one source confirmed a late-September launch for the iPhone 5, with production of the phones coming from Hon Hai and Pegatron. The source notes that an initial order of 45 million of the new phones, which sport an 8-megapixel camera, has been made.
China Telecom plans iPhone launch this year
Reuters is reporting that China Telecom will officially launch the iPhone on its 106 million-subscriber service by the end of 2011, according to sources. We've heard this rumor before, but this seems about as good as we're going to get before an actual, official confirmation. Currently, China Unicom sells the iPhone in China, but that deal is relatively thin, according to Reuters, and a China Telecom deal would bring out a CDMA iPhone, along with the possibility of that new crop of subscribers. If a deal is hammered out by the end of the year, that will mean a lot of new iPhones to sell in a country where Apple's been trying to make some big gains. Sounds like we'll know by November -- that's when China Telecom is set to introduce the new phone. If Apple and China Telecom can hash out this deal, they'll not only make a mint, but probably make a lot of Chinese customers happy besides.
The iPod's effect on the global economy
Chrystia Freeland, editor of Thomson Reuters Digital, wrote a piece last week in which she cited a paper -- Innovation and Job Creation in a Global Economy: The Case of Apple's iPod -- by three scholars who studied how the iPod has impacted the world economy. Freeland's assertion in "Winners and Losers in the Apple Economy" is that "the key to understanding the U.S. economy" is any device created by Steven P. Jobs. The paper by scholars Gren Linden, Jason Decrick, and Kenneth L. Kraemer that Freeland takes her talking points from was published last month, but uses somewhat stale data. The study results are based on data from five years ago, which is like trying to describe the current U.S. military with a discussion of equipment and tactics from the Civil War. In 2006, iPod design and manufacturing employed 27,250 people overseas, and about 13,920 in the U.S. That's a year before the iPhone hit the market, and four years prior to the introduction of the iPad, so the numbers are miniscule compared to the employment in the Apple economy in 2011. Freeland's conclusion is that American innovation creates a lot more jobs outside of the country than it does inside. That's not surprising in the least. The interesting part of the post is that the predominant beneficiary of Apple's innovation were the American engineers and professional workers who created the iPod. They made up only 6,101 of the almost 14,000 U.S. Apple employees associated with iPod design and production, but made about US$525 million -- more than twice what all of the foreign non-skilled employees took home. Freeland notes that although globalization does create more jobs overseas, the professional employees and shareholders of Apple clearly keep much of the financial value inside the United States. The non-skilled American Apple employees who participated in iPod production and development -- such as office support and retail staff, or freight and distribution workers -- accounted for 7,789 jobs, but brought in only $220 million. I'm not sure exactly what Freeland is trying to do with her article other than throw fuel on the tired "haves, have-nots" fire. Sure, non-skilled workers both here and abroad are making less money than their professionally trained counterparts. However, the engineers and developers who are pulling in the big bucks spend years of their lives not only getting advanced degrees, but also continuing their education to stay current with the latest technological leaps. It would be eye-opening to see the results of a similar study of the Apple economy that takes advantage of more recent data, particularly now that Apple's success has been skyrocketing thanks to the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.
Garmin in talks to buy Navigon?
It's hard out there for a company making endangered gadgets. According to Reuters, flailing satnav maker Navigon could be acquired by none other than Garmin, which has struggled itself to maintain strong handheld navigator sales in the face of stiff competition from smartphones. The deal could be worth somewhere in the "mid-double-digit million" Euro range -- a none-too-helpful estimate, but enough for us to understand that the personal navigator market is in such a state that Garmin could scoop up its rival for a pretty modest sum. Garmin, for its part, has been doing well, considering -- it's the top navigator brand in the US (a market Navigon has long since exited), and its profit nearly tripled in the most recent quarter. That's largely thanks to those bestselling navigators, but also because the company's been wise enough to reinvent itself as a purveyor of running watches and expand its boating and aviation businesses. In any case, if the Navigon brand is going bye bye, it looks like we could find out as soon as this month.
Reuters: a failed takeover of T-Mobile would cost AT&T as much as $6 billion
AT&T's proposed acquisition of T-Mobile was a big deal as soon as it was announced, but now Reuters has unearthed some more context to lend it even more cruciality. We already knew that in the event of AT&T&T-Mobile failing to garner regulatory approval, AT&T would owe Deutsche Telekom, the current owner of T-Mo USA, $3 billion in cash, some spare AWS spectrum, and a roaming agreement "on terms favorable to both parties." Reuters' sleuths say that the spectrum in question is worth $2 billion and the roaming deal a further $1 billion, bringing the total breakup payout to a hair-raising $6 billion. Given the wording of the two companies' deal, we don't expect the roaming part of that settlement would be free for T-Mobile (so $6b looks to be a bit of an over-estimation), but the fact remains that AT&T is staking a whole lot of moolah on this takeover going through. Whether it does or not, Deutsche Telekom's René Obermann (above left) looks assured to still be laughing this time next year -- but will the same be true of AT&T's Randall Stephenson?
Taiwanese firm to ship 30 million iPad 2 screens
Reuters is reporting that Taiwanese tech manufacturer AU Optronics Corp. has won a major contract from Apple to provide flat panel screens for the ultra-popular iPad 2. With the high demand for the new device, it's no surprise that Apple is looking for new sources for this critical iPad 2 component. The AU Optronics contract will provide up to 30 million of the displays, occupying over half the capacity of the company's plant in Taichung. The report cites local Taiwanese paper The Economic Daily News as the source, and MacStories notes that AU Optronics is the world's fourth-largest supplier of LCDs. The move by Apple follows unprecedented demand for the iPad 2, which has likely sold just over a million units in just the first weekend of availability. There has been speculation that the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan would cause production constraints on certain iPad 2 components, including the screens. With this new source of displays, Apple's ability to produce and ship iPad 2s should remain unfettered.
Reuters staffer spots iPad 2 at The Daily launch event
Imagine, if you will, a high-profile introduction for a major new media product on the iPad; major enough to merit attendance and brief remarks from Apple's Eddy Cue. Let's posit for a moment that the room is filled with professional journalists who make it their business to notice small details that might lead to interesting stories. Consider as well the possibility that some of the Apple team members in attendance might be carrying some product models that are ... unacknowledged, shall we say? Yes, the front runners for the 2011 Phone In A Bar Accidental Scoop Awards are the new team of Apple and Reuters. The party of the first part seems to have brought along an iPad with front-facing camera to today's launch event for The Daily, and a Reuters reporter saw the device in the wild. Reuters says "a source with knowledge of the device" confirmed that this was not a trick of the light, and that the real chips-and-salsa iPad 2s will indeed sport the camera along with other yet-to-be-confirmed features. Nice job, anonymous Reuters reporter. Good luck on the job market, Apple intern who was supposed to bring the gaffer's tape and cover the iPad cameras.
News Corp developing a tablet-exclusive publication
Reuters is reporting that News Corp, the world's third-largest media conglomerate, has confirmed they will be releasing a news publication developed specifically for tablet computers like the iPad. "It's a tablet-only product and it's very exciting," says James Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive, who was speaking to journalists at a conference in Spain. "You'll hear more about that soon." Companies are looking for ways to capitalize on user demand for instantaneous, real-time news as the newspaper industry falters, and one way to do so is to develop apps and publications that customers are willing to pay for. With millions of iPads sold by Apple this year and major companies like RIM now selling their own tablet computers, media companies are beginning to see the multi-touch tablet format as something they should be investing in for their own products. By creating tablet-specific publications, News Corp -- which owns hundreds of different media outlets around the world -- could potentially find a new source of income from customers still willing to pay for their news.
Yahoo! CEO: iAds 'going to fall apart' for Apple
Known for her salty language and accordian playing, Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz isn't your typical Internet executive. Along with other comments in a recent Reuters interview, Bartz stated that she felt Apple's iAd service was "going to fall apart for them," since "Apple wants total control over those ads." Apple, of course, is known for having total control over a number of things: the design of its products, content in the App Store, development of apps, ad infinitum. AAPL (at 10:46 AM EDT on September 16, 2010): 271.81 YHOO.O (at 10:46 AM EDT on September 16, 2010): 14.04 Need we say more? [via Business Insider]
The Virtual Whirl: A brief history of Second Life, 2008-2010 and beyond
This week, we cover the final installment of our summarized history of Second Life and Linden Lab (check out the first installment or the second, if you missed them). It's only possible to cover a tiny fraction of the events that took place in the space we have here, but the highlights paint an interesting picture. We'll be working our way from 2008 to June 2010, and looking at what future directions we expect from there.
