General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

Hurt Locker P2P Lawsuit Ends, But Zombie Subpoenas Haunt Users

Posted: 23 Dec 2011 03:08 PM PST

hurtlockerThe movie studio the made the Best Picture-winning film "The Hurt Locker" made some waves nearly two years ago when it started filing mass lawsuits against people it claims pirated the film. The goal was to extort settlements from defendants, not to go to court. The case has come to an unsatisfying end for Voltage Pictures as it could not subpoena records fast enough to match names to IP addresses. Although the case is over, some individuals are still being harassed by lawyers for Voltage. 

Nearly 25,000 people were sued, but Voltage Pictures only had IP addresses to go on. After multiple delays in getting ISPs to comply with subpoenas and divulge personal details, the case was dropped this month. Some users are still receiving notices that Voltage Pictures is seeking their records despite there being no pending case. Some of those affected were not even included in the original case. Several lawyers asked about the situation called the actions of Voltage Picture's lawyers unethical.

Mass lawsuits are by no means over, with many still pending in courts across the country. However, it's not turning out to be the quick buck that copyright holders were hoping for. 

Samsung Says No Android 4.0 Update for Galaxy S

Posted: 23 Dec 2011 02:51 PM PST

galaxy sTaken together, the international Samsung Galaxy S and the US variants became the best-selling Android handsets of 2010. Millions of the devices were sold, but now Samsung is leaving a lump of coal in many a stocking this holiday season with the announcement that there will be no update to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich for the Galaxy S phones.

Samsung's proprietary interface layer, called TouchWiz. The Galaxy S devices simply lack the storage and RAM to run the software the way Samsung wants to implement it. This is especially irksome because the Nexus S, which has almost identical hardware, is happily running stock Android 4.0 right now. 

Once again a manufacturer's insistence on an unnecessary differentiating software build has hurt the users. This time it's not just delayed updates, as in the case of the 2.2 version of Android, but the devices are just being cut off entirely. Any Galaxy S users out there feeling let down?

Go Daddy Flip-Flops, Drops SOPA Support

Posted: 23 Dec 2011 11:11 AM PST

Anybody who knows anything about tech knows that the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act sucks and would break the Internet, to put it in a nutshell. That's why so many geeks find Go Daddy's support for the act …disappointing (to say the least). We told you yesterday that Go Daddy was facing a boycott slash mass exodus from irate techies for the company's vocal SOPA support, and apparently, the prospect of losing tons of domain registrations makes businessmen reconsider their political positions quickly. Today, Go Daddy announced it was withdrawing its support for SOPA.

"It's very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this," CEO Warren Adelman said in the company's press release. "Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it."

Of course, while Go Daddy may have withdrawn official support, there's no mistaking where its feelings still lie, as evidenced by the closing line of the announcement, which was penned by Christine Jones, the company's general counsel: ""Go Daddy has always fought to preserve the intellectual property rights of third parties, and will continue to do so in the future." We agree with the sentiment, but it isn't exactly the most diplomatic way to sign off.

Hey, are you heartened by Go Daddy's switch? Keep the momentum going! A couple of days ago, Gizmodo released a Congressionally-created list of every company and organization that officially backs the craptastic SOPA bill – along with the contact information for each one. Why not give some of those companies a ring or send them a letter to let them know the mistake they're making?

Netflix Missteps to Cost CEO $1.5 Million in Stock Options

Posted: 23 Dec 2011 10:45 AM PST

Reed Hastings and everyone else behind the trenches at Netflix would probably like a do-over for all of 2011. They're not getting one, and for Hastings, the company's CEO, he's not getting the full amount of his stock option award next year, either. Instead, he'll receive exactly half of what he would have been entitled to had things not gone so wrong for Netflix in recent months, but don't feel too bad for Hastings.

His 50 percent reduction in stock option awards still amount to a cool $1.5 million, according to regulatory documents Netflix filed this week, AP reports. That's on top of the half a million dollars he'll receive in base salary, giving him a grand total of $2 million to pay the bills with.

Netflix is coming off of a rough year in which its share price has plummeted 75 percent since the middle of July. The streaming movie and DVD-by-mail company has also lost at least 800,000 subscribers due to controversial business decisions, like raising subscription prices and announcing a completely separate DVD rental business, a decision that was later renounced.

Dropbox 2.0 App Hits Android Market

Posted: 23 Dec 2011 10:31 AM PST

If you're rocking the Dropbox app on your Android phone, you may have noticed that it updated last night. More than a mere bug fix, said update is instead a full-fledged version 2.0, complete with Ice Cream Sandwich support and a host of new features designed to make using the Dropbox app a smoother, more seamless experience. Looks like Christmas came early for Android users.

The Dropbox Blog listed some of the more notable changes and tweaks:

  • Favorites: Want to make sure a file is always on your phone? Star it for quick offline access.
  • Bulk upload: No need to upload files one at a time. Select multiple photos and videos to be uploaded in the background.
  • File renaming: Simple as it sounds – files and folders can now be renamed.
  • Ice Cream Sandwich support: Optimized for the newest and tastiest Android release yet: Ice Cream Sandwich.
  • Single-tap access to actions: All file and folder actions are available from a single tap.
  • Lots of others: Improved gallery view, export to (and upload from) local storage, as well as numerous bug fixes and stability improvements

Dropbox 2.0 is already up and running on Android Market, and hey, feel free to go ahead and check out our favorite Dropbox hacks while you're busy clicking links. What do you think of the changes? Are you still using Dropbox, or has another cloud storage service caught your eye?

Online Shoppers Call Best Buy The Grinch After Retailer Cancels Orders At Last Second

Posted: 23 Dec 2011 10:07 AM PST

By all accounts, most folks should be chilling out and winding down right about now. We're smack-dab in the midst of the holidays, it's Friday, and even if you could care less about Christmas, the imminent vanishing of dozens of overly festive TV commercials should bring a smile to your face.  Speaking of commercials, did you see Best Buy's "Game On Santa"? As it turns out, Santa won in the end – and you lost. Best Buy recently began notifying some customers that their online orders – even ones made as far back as November – won't be fulfilled. To quote the lady in the commercial, it's awkward.

Best Buy declined to tell the Wall Street Journal how many people or which products were affected. Best Buy beefed up its online offerings this year to combat the low prices being offered by virtual retailers. Ironically, it now claims that an overwhelming number of purchases on BestBuy.com have led to the current out-of-stock crisis. Those affected have little time to shop for replacements elsewhere, and are basically limited to brick-and-mortar stores if they want to try to pick something up before Christmas. Customers that presumably shopped online at least partially due to the convenience factor now have to hit the streets on Christmas weekend itself. 

Digging around the Web a bit, it seems that disappointed (would-be) customers aren't being offered any sort of discounts or gift certificates for the last-second hassle, either. You have to wonder – will this blunder cost Best Buy dearly next holiday season? Is this enough to scare you out of shopping for presents online?

Rambus, Broadcom Ink Patent Licensing Agreement

Posted: 23 Dec 2011 08:28 AM PST

Shares of Rambus stock rallied on Thursday after the technology licensing company announced it signed a patent licensing deal with Broadcom, which manufacturers networking and communication integrated circuits for data, voice, and video applications. The agreement absolves Broadcom from any and all previous patent claims made by Rambus.

According to Reuters, Rambus shares jumped 8 percent to $7.92 in extended trading after the announcement was made. Rambus stock is now trading at $8.48 and is up 15.84 percent. That's good news for Rambus, which dropped nearly 60 percent in value since losing a $4 billion antitrust suit against Micron last month.

Broadcom, a fabless company, is one of the top 10 semiconductors in the world, according to market research firm Gartner. Under terms of the agreement, Broadcom will make royalty payments to Rambus for applicable products for the next five years.

Intel Extends Microprocessor Lead Even as Atom Bombs

Posted: 23 Dec 2011 07:37 AM PST

How do you chip away at a giant who keeps getting bigger no matter what the circumstances? AMD would pay good money for an answer, as chip giant Intel yet again increased its share of the microprocessor market, and did so even as the demand for netbooks fell significantly. Netbooks, as you know, are almost entirely powered by Intel's Atom processors, and that served Intel well from 2008 to 2010 when the netbook market enjoyed double-digit growth.

As media tablets became all the rage, netbooks took a downward turn in 2011, and as a result Intel's Atom processor and chipset revenue in the third quarter fell 32 percent compared to last year, according to IHS iSuppli. Things are only going to get worse. IHS iSupply predicts global netbook shipments will fall to 21.4 million units in 2011, down from 33.5 million in 2010.

Big whup. Even as Intel's Atom processor bombed (comparatively), the Santa Clara chip maker still managed to grow its global microprocessor market share by 1.2 percentage points in the third quarter of 2011 to 83.69 percent. Meanwhile, AMD's shared dropped 0.3 percent to 10.22 percent, and all other chip makers combined slid backwards 0.9 percent to a 6.1 percent share of the market.

How did Intel do it? By focusing on microprocessor sales to data centers and cloud computing projects.

"The boom in media tablet sales has packed both upsides and downsides for Intel—hurting its business in netbook microprocessors—but boosting its sales of chips used in data centers to support cloud computing," said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst for compute platforms research at IHS. "Because of its broad product line that addresses both the consumer and business side of the microprocessor business, Intel in the third quarter managed to outperform the overall market. Even with the company warning that its fourth-quarter revenue will fall short of expectations, the company still is expected to expand its lead in the global semiconductor market based on its strong performance in the third quarter and the rest of the year."

AMD has Bulldozer, but it really needs is a rock of some sort if it's going to take down the Goliath known as Intel.

Image Credit: Uew Hermann (www.hermann.uwe.de)

Are Smartphones Killing Point-and-Shoot Cameras?

Posted: 23 Dec 2011 07:03 AM PST

Here's an interesting riddle: If integrated cameras on smartphones and cell phones are so much better than what they were just a few short years ago, why are there so many crappy mobile photos on the Internet? Figure that one out and we'll assign you a similar case related to YouTube videos. But we digress. The real point here is that smartphone cameras are continuously improving and are now responsible for snapping more than a quarter of photos and videos.

The NPD Group's new Imaging Confluence Study found that the percent of photos taken with a smartphone (any smartphone) jumped from 17 percent last year to 27 percent this year. At the same time, the share of photos taken on any camera dropped from 52 percent to 44 percent.

"There is no doubt that the smartphone is becoming 'good enough' much of the time; but thanks to mobile phones, more pictures are being taken than ever before," said Liz Cutting, executive director and senior imaging analyst at NPD. "Consumers who use their mobile phones to take pictures and video were more likely to do so instead of their camera when capturing spontaneous moments, but for important events, single purpose cameras or camcorders are still largely the device of choice."

It's not all grim news for dedicated camera makers. Detachable lens cameras grew 12 percent in volume and 11 percent in dollars and cents within the past year. Point-and-shoot cameras with optical zooms of 10x or more also grew, increasing 16 percent in units and 10 percent in dollars, NPD Group said.

Which do you use most often to snap pictures and videos, a dedicated point-and-shoot / DSLR, or a smartphone camera?

Google's Holiday Gift to Mozilla: A Search Deal Worth Nearly One BILLION Dollars

Posted: 23 Dec 2011 06:44 AM PST

Mozilla on Tuesday announced it had inked a new search agreement with Google (we covered the story here) that would extend the mutually beneficial partnership for at least three years, but what we didn't know is how much the deal was worth. Now we do. The sultan of search will pay Mozilla just shy of $300 million a year for the right to to have Google featured as the default search engine in Firefox, making the total deal worth around $900 million, or more than a billion dollars if it goes beyond three years.

These figures come from AllThingsD, whose sources said $1 billion was the minimum revenue guarantee Mozilla was seeking in a search deal. Microsoft was also in the running, and apparently was pretty aggressive in its attempts to supplant in its attempts to slide into Google's parking space.

Yahoo was also engaged in talks with Mozilla, but ultimately the asking price was too high, especially if a bidding war were to break out with Microsoft and Google.

The new deal represents a huge lucrative upgrade for Mozilla. According to the most recent financial records, Mozilla's search deal with Google was responsible for 84 percent of the browser maker's $123 million in revenue in 2010. That works out to about $103 million a year, or a third of what Mozilla will now collect from Google on an annual basis.

And this, folks, is part of the reason why the almighty browser wars are so important. Browsers are free to download, but when you command even just a quarter of the market (NetMarketShare reports Firefox's share of the browser market at 22 percent; StatCounter puts it at 25.23 percent), you can come within striking distance of a billion dollar search deal like Mozilla just did.
Posted by Shri Krishna

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