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Socialcam sells to Autodesk for $60 million
Autodesk has added yet another feather to its growing cap, buying mobile video sharing app Socialcam for a price of $60 million. Socialcam was launched only about 18 months ago, but it's been a big hit since then, attracting lots of high profile investors and a prestigious spot at the Y Combinator startup accelerator. Autodesk's purchase likely means Socialcam will continue to grow. There are only four employees at the moment (which in itself is pretty spectacular for a purchase like this), so of course there will be some more hires, and presumably Autodesk will look at integrating the company's technology in its own apps. Autodesk is slowly and quietly building a mobile software empire. The company is obviously most known for its popular drafting software AutoCAD, but I've seen Autodesk Scaleform pop up in quite a few mobile and PC games lately, and Autodesk has also picked up photo editing site Pixlr, and maker community Instructables as well. There are already more than 20 Autodesk iPad apps in the App Store, ranging from games and 3D art 'toys' to video effects (FluidFX) to engineering tools and simple alarm clocks. Socialcam is yet another sizable consumer pickup for the company.
Investment company buys Game, halting closures, firings, bankruptcy
This has been a quick time coming -- Game, the UK games retailer, slipped into a downward spiral early this year, and since the first public announcement of its money troubles in February, Game has closed almost 300 stores, stopped stocking major titles, cut 40 percent of its workforce and entered "administration," the equivalent of filing for bankruptcy.The best outcome of these events would be for someone to step in and buy Game outright -- which is exactly what happened. Private investment company OpCapita's Baker Acquisitions Unlimited has purchased Game, bringing it out of administration and saving 3,200 jobs across a remaining 333 stores and administrative positions, Eurogamer reports.Baker will provide Game with "the capital it needs to trade on a normalised basis" and will re-hire a small number of people fired from the Game head office last week. There are no plans to close more stores in the future, Baker said.Game may have been bought for £1, after paying off an £85 million debt to Game's lenders, Eurogamer said.
SageTV HTPC software acquired by Google, next stop Google TV?
In what may be an interesting development for the future of Google TV, the folks at Mountain View have purchased SageTV. The HTPC software has been doing its media center thing on multiple platforms since 2002, and according to a note on its homepage the developers "believe our ideas will reach an even larger audience of users worldwide on many different products, platforms and services." While there's no word on exactly what Google has planned, SageTV has long included DVR and placeshifting features that the Google TV product lacks by itself. The bad news for current users is that the store links on SageTV's page have suddenly stopped working, so hopefully you snagged the software already if you're interested. If your main question is "What is SageTV?" check out a demo video created by user jaredduq that is embedded after the break. [Thanks, Jason, screenshot courtesy GeekTonic]
iPad trademark now lives at 1 Infinite Loop
No more sleepless nights for Apple's lawyers, at least not until the Nokia and HTC suits begin to heat up. The company is now the proud owner of a slightly used trademark: iPad™, as of March 17, is no longer a Fujitsu mark and has been assigned to Apple. Much speculation had surrounded the trademark process for iPad, as Fujitsu's mark was being challenged by Apple as early as September 2009, but it looks like the two companies have come to some sort of agreement. Despite Fujitsu's original 2003 application to use iPad as a trademark for its line of retail handheld terminals, the name's true master has never really been clear; as Engadget noted in January, there was already a company using "IPAD" as a product name in the payment space, and Fujitsu's application went stale in April 2009 before the company tried to reactivate it. That's when Apple's team started getting into the mix. Terms of the arrangement have not been disclosed, but unfounded speculation and an absence of real data leads us to believe that the process involved a suitcase full of gold bullion and a promise to deliver several engraved iPads to Fujitsu corporate headquarters. [Note: not really.] [via Engadget]
Mitac International to acquire Tyan
Before long, Mitac International just might own every other Taiwanese company currently out there, as the corporation is swallowing up yet another subsidiary by reportedly acquiring Tyan. The merger is slated to hit completion by the third quarter of this year, but the two firms aren't entirely strangers as it stands. Currently, the Mitac Group holds a 35-percent stake in Tyan, but the deal should allow for Tyan's products to be "more competitive in the market." Stockholders were apparently pleased with the announcement, as shares for both firms raised during public trading hours, and you can probably assume the newfound company's new supercomputer will be even more sensational (and hopefully cheaper) than the existing iteration.[Via Inquirer]
