Mobiclip quietly confirmed Monday that it had been bought out by Nintendo. The new subsidiary of the console giant didn't explain details, including the value of the deal or what it would be producing with Nintendo's help. The company has been making primarily video codecs for the console universe, including Microsoft and Sony.
The US Department of Justice in a brief said it had approved both Google's acquisition of Motorola, the joint purchase of Nortel patents by Apple, Microsoft, RIM, and others, as well as a similar Novell patent sale. Antitrust regulators in both cases had decided it was "unlikely" that the deals would hurt competition. It was partly reassured by Apple, Google, and Microsoft all promising to license standards-based patents based on FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) terms.
Sony Music briefly inflated the price of a Whitney Houston album -- The Ultimate Collection -- only hours after the singer's death on Saturday, a Guardian report notes. The company is said to have initially raised the album's wholesale price at about 4AM on Sunday, causing its price to automatically jump at places like the iTunes Store. At the UK iTunes Store, the cost rose from £5 to £8; the album is actually an old one, a best-of compilation dating back to 1997.
When its fiscal year ends in March, Japanese camera maker Olympus is expected to post a 32 billion yen net loss (about $412 million), BusinessWeek reported on Monday. This is worse than analysts expected and largely due to writing off equipment in the Thailand factory floods that affected camera and hard drive makers alike. Company president Shuichi Takayama said Olympus may want to find a partner in order to boost capital.
Apple now represents about a fifth of all technology sales in the US, new NPD data showed Monday. By the end of 2011, 19 percent of revenue in the US was related to an Apple product. The company was now the top company selling technology in the US, topping HP, Samsung, Sony, and Dell even when the others could include their sales from all categories.
Apple on Monday took the step of asking the Fair Labor Association to orchestrate "special voluntary audits" of its last-stage suppliers. The investigations, which include Foxconn plants in Chengdu and Shenzhen, began the same day. They include both interviews with "thousands" of workers over conditions as well as inspections and document reviews.
Sony is mulling the possibility of extending is PS Vita operating system to other devices, according to AV Watch. Incoming CEO Kaz Hirai reportedly mentioned the idea to reporters during a Japanese Q&A session suggesting that, in addition to Android, the PS Vita OS offered additional scope for the company beyond gaming. The view was also given further credence by Sony Computer Entertainment Senior VP Yoshio Matsumoto, who suggested that as the OS was designed to run on the ARM architecture, that porting it to tablets and smartphones was possible.
Google made the unusual choice of a Facebook posting to hint at "big announcements" coming for Google TV on Monday. The company wouldn't give any clues as to its plans. It's unlikely to include any minor OS updates, since it recently updated to Android 3.2.
Amazon might bring the Kindle to Japan and overturn the status quo for e-readers in the country, according to claims made Friday [account required]. Japanese business paper Nikkei heard that the mid-tier Kindle Touch would be the flagship and could come as soon as April. Pricing at 20,000 yen ($258) would be steep relative to the $150 US Kindle Touch 3G, although it would include native, free 3G through NTT DoCoMo instead of roaming on AT&T.
New NPD data has once again given the Xbox 360 the lead in console sales in the US during January, but in grim conditions. At 270,000 systems in the month, it had enough to outpace the Nintendo Wii and Sony PS3, whose sales researchers were keeping secret. However, its performance was noticeably worse than a year ago, where it had moved 381,000 systems.
Sony's Executive Deputy President, Kaz Hirai, said in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal that no area at the electronics giant is "sacred" when it comes to restructuring. He continued, saying he is ready to make hard decision in terms of cutting both employees and exiting markets or selling ailing businesses. Hirai will take over from the company's current CEO, Howard Stringer, on April 1.
The early run of the aptly-named First Edition bundle of the PlayStation Vita has just received an official unboxing from Sony's US team. The system is due to arrive on February 15 to those who preordered it, or one week before its widespread launch in stores. Included in the bundle is a 4GB PS Vita memory card, a unique PS Vita carrying case, and a physical copy of the Little Deviants game.
Sony took its time at the CP+ camera show to outline much of its future Alpha and NEX roster. The company promised a full-frame Alpha camera to replace its long-in-tooth A900. No details were given to DPReview or others at the show, although Sony's frequent sensor partnership with Nikon could point to a camera based on the D800's 36.3-megapixel sensor.
The Department of Justice is leaning towards approving Google's takeover of Motorola, insiders leaked Wednesday. It wasn't clear what the motivating reasons were in the Wall Street Journal tip, but the approval could be publicized as soon as next week. Regulators would mostly be watching to see if Google abused the patents it would get with Motorola to attack competitors.
Amazon on Wednesday officially confirmed earlier rumors that it has inked a deal with cable provider Viacom to bring its TV shows to Amazon's Instant Video streaming service. As part of the deal, Amazon will allow customers to access thousands of episodes from MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, TV Land, Spike, VH1, BET, CMT, and Logo. This will include past seasons of shows like Chappelle's Show, Hot in Cleveland, Jersey Shore, Yo Gabba Gabba, and iCarly, among others.
Electronista has had the opportunity to go hands-on with the forthcoming Sony Walkman Z Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) media player and its core range of high-end Balanced Armature in-ear headphones. Although both product lines were announced late last year, due to the natural disasters in Japan and Thailand, Sony are only now in a position to bring them to the US and other markets. We came away impressed, but particularly with the new Balanced Armature earphones, which are the best in-ear headphones Sony has released.
Sony is attempting to reinvigorate consumer interest in its 3D products in Australia by introducing 3D lending libraries in its Sony Center stores. The new Sony 3D Library offers users who own 3D-capable TVs the opportunity to loan 3D digital imaging products including video cameras, as well as 3D movies and 3D games. The first of its kind program is offering users the opportunity to try the items out for three days free of charge and is available to customers regardless of whether their 3D TV is a Sony Bravia or otherwise.
Sony has released its latest firmware update for the PS3 taking it to version 4.10. The new update is referred to as being minor, but brings with it a change in the Terms of Service following the PlayStation Network (PSN) being folded into Sony’s larger Sony Entertainment Network. The move continues a trend towards Sony developing a more cohesive and integrated online platform that brings together its movie, music, TV and gaming content.
Sony in a quick brief has warned that North American gamers won't have access to the UMD Passport program for the PlayStation Vita like their Japanese counterparts. A spokesperson told Kotaku that gamers with legacy, physical PSP titles will have to buy them again if they're available on the PlayStation Store. Japanese gamers can currently register their UMD-based games through the PSP and then pay a much smaller fee to download the digital version.
Sony has filed a patent application with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a tablet-like game controller. The Position-Dependent Gaming, 3D Controller, and Handheld as a Remote in many ways conceptually resembles Nintendo's Wii U's tablet-like game controller. Sony actually began the application process for the technology in July 2010, almost a year before Nintendo showed the system.
Sony has teased an update for the PlayStation Vita that should significantly expand its features just a week before the North American launch. The 1.6 firmware patch will add a mapping tool with both driving and walking directions. Likely based on Google Maps, it has the options of satellite and traffic views as well as sending locations out on the Vita's own group messaging for a meetup.
Sony in its results call Friday was confident that the PlayStation Vita was selling well so far. Having moved slightly more than 535,000 units in its first three weeks, according to Media Create data, company CFO Masaru Kato didn't see "any problems" with results so far. The comment came even after shipments had dipped to just over 18,000 in January and had been mostly steady since.
GameStop stores as promised have started carrying PlayStation Vita demo units. Depending on which of the 3,300 stores showing the Vita gamers visit, they should have access to a handful of the 25 launch titles to try. Among the mix will include FIFA, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, and Wipeout 2048.
Sony has given notice that the unification of its online entertainment services mentioned during its CES keynote would affect the PlayStation Network on February 7. A terms of service change will see the service renamed as part of the Sony Entertainment Network. Actual functionality should stay the same.
Sony has made a filing with the US Patent and Trademark office for Xperia Sola. ‘Sola,’ which can mean ‘alone’ or ‘only,’ could be be a new device, or it could be a revelation as to what the ‘S’ stands for in its recently unveiled Xperia S , Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) smartphone. The filing, which was made on January 30, covers mobile phones as well as accessories.
Sony has quietly released Bridge for Mac, a software utility that makes it easier for Mac users to to sync its Xperia line of smartphones. Mac users have long been overlooked by Sony, with its syncing software for smartphones and other devices previously limited to Windows machines only. The software will allow users to sync music, movies, podcasts and playlists across from iTunes, much like DoubleTwist for Android, as well as photos from iPhoto.
Sony Electronics, the US operation of the Japanese consumer products giant, quietly has been reducing its payroll. AllThingsD reports that, over the past few weeks, the company has cut approximately 100 workers from its sales force. The move is claimed to be part of both the expected effort to improve a profit and, more uniquely, to realign its structure to bring its employees closer to its customers.
The hacking group Anonymous has intercepted a 15-minute call between the FBI and the British police's cybercrime investigators, according to a Friday report. Available to download, the conference call ironically focused on how to track and prosecute the very group of hackers. The FBI has launched an investigation into how Anonymous able to attain the recording, which has some names of the suspects edited out.
Panasonic compounded the troubles at Japanese electronics firms on Friday after it anticipated a steep $10.2 billion yearly loss for its fiscal 2011, which ends in March. The record drop was blamed near exclusively on the costs of buying Sanyo and its Electric division, including reorganization and write-offs. President Fumio Ohtsubo apologized, but promised corporate reform that could produce a "V-shaped" turnaround in performance.
More details of the Google TV update that started rolling out earlier this week to compatible Sony hardware have been revealed on Thursday thanks to GigaOM. Basically Android 3.2, the update now enables hardware acceleration for apps, which should make animated titles much smoother. More importantly, HTTP Live Streaming will now be possible, making viewing HTML5 web videos better and allowing streaming local multimedia files through dedicated apps.
Sony has recorded a $1.2 billion loss for the October - December quarter on revenue of $23.37 billion, reports Reuters. The company has now updated its forecast for the fiscal year expecting a worse than expected annual loss of $2.9 billion on sales of around $85 billion. Incoming CEO Kaz Hirai told reporters on Thursday, that when he takes the reigns in April, he will move quickly to turn things around for the struggling Japanese electronics and entertainment icon.
A profile of Sony's soon-to-be CEO Kaz Hirai has revealed that he may have been instrumental to getting a credible iPad rival into the market. The Wall Street Journal look showed that, under Sony's traditional structure of independently operating divisions, four different segments of the company were developing their own tablets. The User Experience group, formed while Hirai was an executive deputy to Sir Howard Stringer, culled all but one project and started focusing on the speed optimizations and PlayStation Suite support that would define the Tablet S.
Apple on Wednesday afternoon posted Mac OS X 10.7.3 (release notes). The Lion upgrade adds several languages, including Catalan for Spaniards as well as Croatian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Slovak, Thai, and Ukrainian. RAW photo compatibility has expanded to several new cameras, including the Nikon J1 and V1, Olympus' current PEN cameras, and current Sony Alpha and NEX cameras, such as the NEX-5N.
Sony has announced (PDF) that beginning April 1, Kaz Hirai (51) will become the company’s new president and CEO. Current president and CEO, Sir Howard Stringer, will move to the position of chairman of the Sony board of directors, paving the way for the ascension of the former PlayStation chief. Other leadership changes will be outlined in the coming days and weeks as the company seeks to turn its flagging fortunes around.
A quick investigation has confirmed that PlayStation Vita owners in the US will get a discount on games if they buy through the PlayStation Network. Shacknews heard that, as in Japan, games will not just be available the same day as a download but will be price-cut over their retail versions. The discounts are about 10 percent over boxed copies, or about $4-5 for games like Uncharted: Golden Abyss.
Google posted word of an update for Sony's Google TV devices. Both its Internet TV and Internet Blu-ray player now have a faster Chrome web browser. The Blu-ray gets an extra treat in support for 3D Blu-ray movies to catch it up to other players.
For the second time in a year, Sharp has announced that it will be cutting production of LCDs screens in its Sakai City (Osaka) Japan production facility. Nikkei is reporting [subscription required] that the company plans to reduce its output by one-half. Sharp will continue pushing out the screens at these levels for at least one month, and possibly longer.
Samsung in a discussion weeks after CES gave positive signs that its 55-inch Super OLED TV will be within reach of everyday buyers. To be called the KN55ES9600 when it reaches the US, the exotic set should cost well under the 8,000 euros some had been expecting, Austria's OLED.at said, and by extension under the $8,000 many had expected for the US version. When it ships, the TV should only cost "slightly higher" than premium LED-backlit LCD sets.
Sony chose an unusual late Sunday timing for a sweeping update of some of its more important Cyber-shot cameras. The TX200V, WX50, and WX70 all have newer Exmor R CMOS sensors that help them shoot more effectively in low light. The TX200V, despite being the slimmest of the group, has a new very dense 18.2-megapixel sensor that can still minimize noise and can focus in a dark scene in 0.25 seconds, and half as much time in bright lighting.
MicroOLED has developed a new electronic viewfinder that could address some of the standout complaints about not going optical. The OLED panel has five million square dots and can show a 1280x1024 image in its just over 0.6-inch view. Its resolution is higher than the 1024x768 of today's best EVFs and has no gap between pixels, leading to a seamless effect.
The European Union has approved Sony’s acquisition of Ericsson’s stake in their smartphone enterprise. The approval was granted on January 26 and gives the company the green light to forge ahead with its Sony-only smartphone branding, design and development. Sony announced it was moving to buyout Ericsson’s holdings in late October at a cost of $1.4 billion.
Sony has hoped to lure gamers to the PlayStation Vita with another bundle for the official February 22 US arrival. The Launch Day bundle mates the 3G version of the console with a free month's pass for 250MB of AT&T data. While most of the accessories aren't present from the First Edition bundle, gamers get a twice-as-large 8GB memory card to encourage more game and add-on downloads.
CEO of camera and lens maker Sigma, sadly, has passed away. The 78-year-old Michihiro Yamaki succumbed in Tokyo, Japan on January 18 after a fight with liver cancer. Yamaki founded the company in 1961 and was heading up the company up to 2011, on its 50th anniversary.
Apple's record iPhone sales have led to Android shrinking for the first time in its over three-year history, ABI Research estimated Friday. Operating on the belief that next-closest Samsung shipped 33 million smartphones, it had Android's collective share drop from 52.5 percent in the summer to 47 percent this fall. Apart from the iPhone 4S' launch effect, Android had 'sagging midsection' where LG, Motorola, and Sony had been fighting just to become profitable.
Separate IHS iSuppli and Strategy Analytics studies Friday have backed Apple's rapid return to the top of the smartphone space in the fall. Determining that Samsung had shipped 36 million smartphones, slightly higher than Samsung's preliminary estimates, IHS iSuppli put Apple's 37 million iPhones just on top. Although Samsung nearly quadrupled the amount of smartphones it shipped and moved more year-long, Apple's higher starting point meant it could just double its yearly shipments to stay competitive.
Nintendo's Friday briefing in the wake of its tough quarterly results has confirmed that it plans to at last go head-to-head with Microsoft and Sony in a persistent online gaming network. Just called Nintendo Network, it will let gamers download chat and play with each other without needing friend codes in addition to getting game add-ons. On the Wii U, gamers will have personal accounts, presumably letting them transport their Mii, downloads, and other preferences across systems.
Two Japanese camera lens manufacturers have signed onto the Micro Four Thirds standard pioneered by Olympus and Panasonic. They include Kenko Tokina and Tamron, while a third Japanese company, Astrodesign, has also jumped onboard, though it makes video measuring equipment and not lenses. This should give those how have bought into the new type of camera, which allows for interchangeable lenses on digital camera bodies that are smaller than DSLRs, more options for lenses.
Apple has faced both internal tension over as well as misleading statements from its Chinese suppliers, an in-depth investigation has uncovered. Focusing primarily on Foxconn, the New York Times spoke to numerous current and former Apple executives who said that, while there were improvements in the years since Apple began auditing factories, the company has so far stopped short of a hardline approach that would get a supplier like Foxconn to change.
More details from AT&T's escaped roadmap have shown in two leaks Wednesday afternoon. The new BGR tips point to a new, $410 Sony tablet known as the Crystal. While it could be something new, it's most likely to be the long-delayed Tablet P (S2), a dual-screened Android tablet with HSPA+ 3G.
Sony staked out an odd consolation prize Tuesday for tablet market share. It pointed to GfK data that showed the Tablet S and Tablet P as the most popular Android tablets in the UK at least as of October, the combination of the two amounting to 26 percent of the market. The figure was calculated by value, rather than sheer units, but might have favored Sony even more since the majority Tablet S costs as much or slightly less than the Samsung Galaxy Tab.
