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President Obama test drives a Sphero on Boulder visit
President Obama was in the Centennial State last night, hyping up an enthusiastic crowd at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Coors Events Center. Of course, he couldn't help but take some time to check out some some of the local innovation. The President took a few moments out of his busy schedule to play around with the smartphone-controlled Sphero RC ball, declaring "how cool is that," before demanding that the crowd, "give me some space to drive my ball." He also tossed out some superlatives like "terrific," after nearly driving it into a woman's flip-flop. Now that's a solid endorsement, if ever we've heard one. In the end, though, it didn't last long -- the guy's got a country to run, after all.
Michael Lynton becomes CEO of Sony America, Nicole Seligman picked for SCA president
Plenty of moving and shaking going on after the bell today. Hot on the heels of news that RIM's CEO is making major internal changes, in flies word that Michael Lynton has been selected as the CEO of Sony Corp. America. He's coming over from Sony Pictures Entertainment, where he previously sat as the Chairman and CEO. Effective June 27th, Lynton will have a few new reports as well, and unsurprisingly, Sir Howard Stringer is more than encouraged by the move.Stringer stated: "Lynton is an incredibly accomplished executive who has distinguished himself in at least three different fields -- entertainment, technology and publishing." In related news, Nicole Seligman has been appointed SCA President; we're told that Lynton will be overseeing Sony's entertainment businesses (including SME, Sony / ATV Music Publishing and SPE), while Seligman will have responsibility for Sony's U.S. headquarters operations. Hard to foresee what two relatively new names mean for the consumer side of Sony's business, but we'll be keeping a close eye on their first hundred days, for sure. The full release is after the break.
Logitech selects Bracken Darrell as president right now, next CEO in 2013
When current CEO Guerrino De Luca took the reins at Logitech following huge losses on Google TV and its business in the EMEA region, we knew it was only temporary and now Logitech has appointed a successor. Bracken P. Darrell is coming over from Whirlpool (where he lead its efforts in, you guessed it, Europe, Middle East and Africa) to be its new president effective April 9th. The plan is for him to take over for De Luca on January 1st, 2013 (who will return to his former role as Chairman), while leading an improved, slimmed down product roadmap -- the theme is said to be quality over quantity -- for the second half of the 2013 fiscal year. On the conference call De Luca indicated more would be revealed during an upcoming earnings announcement in April which, combined with a hint at a Harmony remote refresh during the last call in January, has us marking our calendars already.
Sharp executive officer Takashi Okuda to take over as president next month
In a move similar to the ones seen at fellow struggling Japanese electronics giants Sony and Panasonic, Sharp has announced a change at the top, swapping out president Mikio Katayama (kicked upstairs to the position of Director, Chairman) for current executive officer Takashi Okuda. The move will go into effect April 1st, giving him the keys after a fiscal year 2012 to forget comes to an end. According to his biography he's been with the company since 1978, although your guess is as good as ours about what he can do to turn around the company's fortunes -- although getting that 8K Super Hi-Vision LCD into production ASAP would be a great start.
CCP's North American president steps down
It's been a long run heading up work on spaceships and vampires, but after 19 years at the helm, North American CCP President Mike Tinney is saying goodbye. Tinney announced that he is departing the studio on February 29th to work at an unnamed company that will combine health and fitness with games. Tinney has no regrets with his prior role but is excited about the future: "CCP has gone through a fast-paced growth cycle. It's been a fun run and a lot of good experiences and memories. But I would like to move to a younger, earlier stage company, and plan to start one myself." CCP's management expressed gratitude toward Tinney's service: "We are grateful for Mike's energetic and effective leadership and for all his valuable contributions to CCP. We will miss him. We wish him well with his next endeavors. And we're eager to see what he comes up with next." Tinney's 19 years of service includes being CEO of White Wolf, which was snatched up by CCP in 2006. He will continue to assist CCP in an "advisory capacity" for several months to help the transition.
Panasonic names Kazuhiro Tsuga as new president after old one loses $9 billion
In the aftermath of company losses that passed $9 billion, Panasonic has announced that Fumio Ohtsubo is to step down as company president. He'll be replaced by current senior executive Kazuhiro Tsuga in an executive reshuffle that'll take place in June, when Ohtsubo will step up to become chairman of the board, replacing Kunio Nakamura who is taking an "advisory role." Tsuga was formerly an exec. at Matsushita (before it was renamed... Panasonic. Confusing, we know), where he spent a lot of time thumbing his nose at HD DVD and promising that Blu-Ray would win the last format war -- so we know his instincts are at least halfway decent.
Olympus board announces chairman and president picks, resigns
Olympus's entire board handed in its resignation this week, but not before picking a new president and chairman to head up the scandal plagued imaging company. Hiroyuki Sasa, from its medical equipment marketing arm, has been named for the president spot, and Yasuyuki Kimoto, who served as an executive for the Olympus-connected Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., has been picked for role of chairman. Both appointments are pending shareholder approval. Sasa, for his part, stated the importance of getting consumers back on board with the company in light recent controversies, telling the press, "My duty is to win back as soon as possible the trust from everyone and repair this damaged brand."
Tomoyuki Tsuboi is Konami's new president
Konami Digital Entertainment has made 14 year company veteran Tomoyuki Tsuboi its newest president. Tsuboi, who comes from a global business planning background within the company, replaces Shinji Hirano, who is now president of Konami's European branch, Konami Digital Entertainment GmbH. Tsuboi will "look to grow the business and institute strategies" around the publisher's marquee franchises, such as Metal Gear and Silent Hill, which we're pretty sure means "use our recognizable IPs to make boat loads of cash" in business speak.Technically speaking, Tsuboi now mans the helm at Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc., which is not to be confused with Konami Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd., a division of the publisher's Japanese branch (Konami Corporation), which also includes baby-stroller manufacturer Combi Wellness Corporation and valve/pump/fittings manufacturer Takasago Electric Industry Co., Ltd..
Sony confirms Kazuo Hirai as new President and CEO, replacing Howard Stringer
Sony has just confirmed Kazuo Hirai as its new CEO and President, validating rumors that have been swirling for a few weeks now. Outgoing CEO Howard Stringer, meanwhile, has been appointed Chairman of Sony's Board of Directors. The Hirai era officially begins April 1st, while Stringer will assume his new role sometime in June (until then, he'll remain executive chairman). Today's announcement, coming a day before Sony's earnings call, brings an end to more than a year's worth of speculation, though Hirai's selection hardly comes as a surprise, considering his recent string of promotions. In April, he was named Executive Deputy President; five months later, he was promoted to Sony Computer Entertainment Chairman. According to Stringer, in fact, Sony has been grooming Hirai since as early as 2009, when the Board began designing its succession plans. Kaz, he says, stood out from the crowd: Kaz is a globally focused executive for whom technology and the cloud are familiar territory, content is highly valued, and digital transformation is second nature. I believe his tough-mindedness and leadership skills will be of great benefit to the company and its customers in the months and years ahead. I look forward to helping Kaz in every way I can so that succession leads inevitably to success. It was my honor to recommend him to the Board for the positions of President and CEO, because he is ready to lead, and the time to make this change is now. Kaz, for his part, acknowledges that Sony is going through some "challenging" times at this juncture, but credits Stringer with steadying the ship, and seems clear-minded about the future. "The path we must take is clear: to drive the growth of our core electronics businesses - primarily digital imaging, smart mobile and game; to turn around the television business; and to accelerate the innovation that enables us to create new business domains," the 51-year-old PSN architect explained. "The foundations are now firmly in place for the new management team and me to fully leverage Sony's diverse electronics product portfolio, in conjunction with our rich entertainment assets and growing array of networked services, to engage with our customers around the world in new and exciting ways." Click past the break for Sony's full press release.
The White House joins Google+, invites you to Hangout
President Obama may have been on Google+ since November, but the administration is now stepping up its presence on the social network even further in anticipation of next week's State of the Union address and the forthcoming presidential campaign. It now has an official White House Google+ page, where it plans to post the usual news, photos and videos, and also host regular Hangout video chats. There's no promises yet that the President himself will take part, but the White House says it will regularly have administration officials and policy experts take part in the conversations, which will also be streamed on YouTube and WhiteHouse.gov. Those interested can click the link below to add the page to their Circles.
Sony's Kaz Hirai to step up as president as early as April (updated)
Nikkei is reporting that Sony will be promoting current Executive Deputy President Kazuo "Kaz" Hirai to president as soon as April, while Howard Stringer is expected to remain chairman and CEO of the company. As you may recall, Sony started its search for a new president as far back as November 2010, and with Kaz's two promotions last year (to Executive Deputy President in April and to Sony Computer Entertainment Chairman in September), it isn't surprising that he's the chosen one to pick up some of Sir Howard's work. It'll be a while before we see the consequences of this promotion, and anything can happen between now and the board meeting as early as next month to seal the deal; but here's hoping that under Kaz, Sony will go easy on all these new memory card formats while it further unifies its various groups within the corporation. Update: Bloomberg has received a brief statement from Sony clarifying that the board has not yet made a decision on this promotion, which isn't really a denial of the plan considering the final board meeting has yet to take place.
New Last of Us art pieces hint at a world-ending disease
You might have already guessed that Sony's PS3 exclusive The Last of Us was probably about an apocalyptic virus of some kind, just by watching that video released last weekend. And these two new shots that have appeared on the official site don't do much to prove you wrong: One shot shows a forest, with the view pointed up into the sun, and the second, above, pictures a ruined newspaper stand talking about the President addressing a broken nation as "millions more are feared dead or infected," and quarantines breaking in New Mexico while martial law is declared in England. In short, the world is packed nicely into a handbasket, with some sort of infectious disease filling out the customs-required shipping forms to a final destination of Hell. We've seen the world end lots of times before, but maybe The Last of Us has an artsy new spin on it. We'll likely find out more this weekend at Saturday's Spike Video Game awards, or as the site says, on 12/10/11. Get those surgical masks ready, people.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to create music with a tax on ISPs
Nicolas Sarkozy is worried about the future of his country's music industry, and he's turning to French ISPs for help. Speaking alongside other G8 and G20 delegates at the Forum d'Avignon this weekend, Sarko affirmed his commitment to setting up a "national music center" within France, in the hopes of spurring artistic creativity amid a rather dour industrial climate. Modeled on France's National Cinema Center, the system was first proposed back in September by Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand, and, if launched, would be funded by a tax on ISPs. According to Sarkozy, taxing service providers in the name of protecting French art is only fair game. "Globalization [has allowed] the giants of the Internet to make a lot of money on the French market," Sarkozy explained, echoing familiar Gallic attitudes toward online protectionism. "Good for them, but they do not pay a penny in tax to France." He went on to praise his country's Hadopi copyright law for reducing internet piracy by 35 percent, but stressed that the government must do more to protect what could be a dying French commodity: "The day when there is no more music, the day when there is no longer a cinema, the day when there are no writers, what will your generation search for on the internet?" Other things, probably.
ARM's Mali-T658 GPU aims to beat the world in 2013; president Tudor Brown steps down
Here's an ARM duo to digest this fine morning -- ARM's president (and co-founder) Tudor Brown has announced that he'll be retiring in May after serving a bit over a score with the company. His final day will be May 3rd of next year, with Chairman Doug Dunn confessing that Brown had played "an important role in the creation and successful development of ARM over the past 21 years and has made an immense contribution in a wide range of positions." Oddly enough, a company spokesperson has stated that ARM has "no plans at this stage to replace Mr. Brown," though we suspect that could change as the date draws closer. In more product-related news, the company's forthcoming (and by "forthcoming," we mean "perhaps by the end of 2013") Mali-T658 GPU should provide a 10x improvement in performance over the existing Mali-400. According to a slide hosted up over at AnandTech, it'll offer double the shader cores per GPU, twice the arithmetic pipes per shader core and "extensive" API support. For those unaware, the Mali-400 MP4 is a real barnburner for the Android platform, and given that the T658 can scale to eight cores, we're guessing you may have just made your mind up about timing on your next smartphone purchase. Hit the links below to dig in deeper, but remember -- 2013 is about an eternity from now. Depressing, we know.
PSA: FEMA to test nationwide Emergency Alert System today, emphasis on 'test'
Don't freak out or anything, but at 2 PM EST today, the US government will sound a nationwide alarm. Barring a coincidence of cataclysmic proportion, however, it will only be a test. It's all part of FEMA and the FCC's Emergency Alert System (EAS), which is slated to be tried out on a nationwide level for the very first time. If, like us, you've spent a healthy portion of your life sitting in front of the TV, you're probably familiar with those monthly local alerts that tend to flash across the screen smack dab in the middle of a Saved by the Bell rerun. That's basically what's gonna happen today across the nation's television and radio networks. Some TV viewers will hear that familiar "this is a test" message during the trial, though most will simply see the word "test" run across their screens. The EAS would allow the president to disseminate information to the public in times of real emergency, which is why the government is so eager to make sure it actually works. All told, it'll last about 30 seconds, so plan your End of the World party accordingly. For more details, hit up the source links below.
John Opel, IBM CEO during onset of the PC era, dies at 86
John Roberts Opel, the former IBM CEO who helped usher in the PC era, died last week at the age of 86. A native of Kansas City, MO, Opel received his MBA from the University of Chicago in 1949, after fighting in the Philippines and Okinawa during World War II. Upon graduating, he was presented with two job offers -- he could either re-write economics textbooks, or assume control of his father's hardware business in Missouri. Not particularly enthralled with either opportunity, Opel decided to think things over during a fishing trip with his father and a family friend. As fate would have it, that friend turned out to be Harry Strait, an IBM sales manager. Strait offered Opel a sales position at the company, fortuitously setting the young grad on a career path that would span 36 years. Opel's career, in fact, began and peaked at two inflection points that would come to define not only IBM, but the computing industry as a whole. When he came aboard, IBM was still producing typewriters and other accounting devices; but that would soon change, with the dawn of the computing era. In 1959, he became assistant to then-chief executive Thomas J. Watson Jr. Just five years later, he oversaw the introduction of IBM's System 360 mainframe computer. He was appointed vice president in 1966, president in 1974 and, on January 1st, 1981, took over as IBM's fifth CEO, replacing Frank T. Cary. During his four-year tenure, Opel led IBM's push into the burgeoning PC market, overseeing the launch of IBM's first PC, the 5150, just seven months after taking the reins. He was also at the helm in 1982, when the Department of Justice dropped its 13-year antitrust suit against IBM, allowing the firm to expand its operations. Opel took full advantage. Under his stewardship, IBM's revenue nearly doubled and its corporate stature grew accordingly. In 1983, Opel made the cover of Time magazine, under a headline that read, "The Colossus That Works." He stepped down as CEO in 1985, served as chairman until 1986 and would remain on IBM's board until 1993. On Thursday, he passed away in Ft. Myers, FL, due to undisclosed causes. John Roberts Opel is survived by his wife of 56 years, five children, 15 grandchildren and a legacy that extends far beyond these 400 words.
Verizon promotes Lowell McAdam to CEO, Ivan Seidenberg stays on as Chairman
Ivan Seidenberg, the man who took the helm as Big Red steered its ship into the iPhone's waters, is stepping down as CEO effective August 1st, the completion of a succession plan that's been underway since last year. His replacement? Current President Lowell McAdam, who helped lead the charge to bring Apple's smartphone to the company's subscribers -- and who proudly stood on stage with Apple's Tim Cook to announce it. Seidenberg will remain Chairman for the time being to help aid in the transition, and while we're not sure for just how long that will be, we wonder if maybe he's not just waiting to pick up a Bionic before heading out.
President Obama gets an iPad 2 filled with Polish pride
President Obama is on a European tour, and one of his stops included Poland. Before parting, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk gave President Obama several gifts, a usual custom for visiting dignitaries. One of those gifts was an iPad 2. President Obama already has an iPad 2, but TUAW reader Darek points out this iPad 2 was just a "container" for other Polish goodies, including some masterful Polish movies. "One of them was 'Cathedral' by Tomasz Bagiński, which got Oscar nomination several years ago," Darek says. "There was also a masterpiece 'City of Ruins' -- a digitally recreated aerial panorama of post-war Warsaw, almost totally destroyed during WWII." Darek also told us President Obama received another gift, the hot video game "The Witcher 2," which is made in Poland.
Charlie Ergen steps aside as President & CEO of Dish Network, will remain as Chairman
With the "Seinfeld strategy" of its Blockbuster and DBSD purchase, TiVo settlement and new multiroom boxes underway, apparently this is the right time for Dish Network's founder, President and Chief Executive Officer Charlie Ergen (pictured) to step aside. Joseph P. Clayton, formerly of Sirius, Global Crossing and Frontier will be the new president and CEO effective June 20th while Ergen will remain as Chairman of the company. We don't usually remark on executive changes at the companies we cover but Ergen's been out front leading the charge of Dish, EchoStar and Sling for some time now and it's notable to see him taking a less active leadership role. We don't know much about Clayton, but if he wants to get off on the right foot, taking credit for the "free Sling Adapters for everybody" promotion would probably be a good idea.
Barack Obama and the iPad-in-Chief
US President Barack Obama has been well-known for his love of RIM's BlackBerry, at least until last year when he admitted that the device is now "no fun" because of the security strictures he faces as Commander-in-Chief. The President has also said that technology in the White House is "30 years behind," with a lack of "really cool phones and stuff." The President recently admitted he got an iPad, but until a recent photo, it wasn't clear whether he got the old model or the new iPad 2. Consider this mystery solved, because based on this photo of him boarding Marine One it's clear the President is toting around a brand-new iPad 2, complete with a Smart Cover. The iPad-in-Chief We're still not sure what the President uses his iPad for, though it's funny to picture the world's most powerful politician playing Angry Birds on Air Force One while the "football" sits nearby. It seems Apple's device has been cleared by White House security, which typically is not an easy feat -- the President reportedly had trouble getting clearance for his BlackBerry. If you work for a company whose IT department has been reticent about letting the iPad in, you've now got some potent ammunition for your counterargument. Thanks for the tip, Alex!
