Friday - March 15, 2013
Although it is far from "game over" for the video game industry, February saw a 25 percent drop in sales compared with the same period a year ago, according to an NPD Group report released Thursday. Hardware sales were down 36 percent to $244.2 million. Surprisingly, it wasn't Nintendo's Wii U, the only new system released this past holiday season, but the still-going-strong Microsoft Xbox 360 that claimed the top spot in console sales. The Xbox has been in the top place for 19 months in a row, and now holds 41 percent of the share.
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Friday - March 15, 2013
Redbox Instant, the joint venture between Redbox and Verizon to add streaming video services to the DVD rental company's offerings, launched this week to help the company better compete with rivals Netflix, Amazon Instant Video and Hulu. The company announced a beta test period for the service last December, after announcing the Verizon partnership in February 2012.
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Friday - March 15, 2013
The most significant change to U.S. patent law since 1836 -- or perhaps 1790 -- is being implemented on March 16, 2013. Part of the America Invents Act of 2011, it concerns the doctrine of first-to-invent, laws concerning the protection of original inventors, regardless of whether they were the first to apply for a patent. The new law awards inventorship under a first-inventor-to-file standard.
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Thursday - March 14, 2013
BlackBerry announced that an unnamed customer has placed an order for 1 million BlackBerry Z10 smartphones, making it the largest-ever single purchase in its history. Shipments are to begin immediately. BlackBerry executives hailed the order as a "tremendous vote of confidence" in BlackBerry 10.
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Thursday - March 14, 2013
Proposed changes to the popular Mozilla Firefox browser that would block third-party cookies from websurfers' computers have sparked the ire of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which claims the move will damage how small businesses use ads to attract customers. Mozilla's proposal will require its browser users to give their permission for the installation of cookies,
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Thursday - March 14, 2013
Andy Rubin, the man who helped maneuver Android into the No. 1 mobile OS position, is stepping down as head of Android at Google. Taking Rubin's place will be browser and applications chief Sundar Pichai. The reshuffling effectively folds Google's mobile OS, applications and Chrome browser into one operation.
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Thursday - March 14, 2013
Microsoft was once rapidly growing like Google and Apple. Then it changed. It became a very large, but very slow growing company. These days it seems stuck, struggling to break into other businesses. The growth wave Microsoft rode crested years ago, but it hasn't been able to catch the next wave.
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Thursday - March 14, 2013
There is much lamenting in some quarters that the U.S. has lost its road map for tech innovation. Many point to China as a country in a hurry to catch up to and even pass America in technology. They talk about how China is stressing tech-related endeavors and how forward-looking it is. I simply don't buy this argument. Why? Let's start with retailing and Amazon.
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Wednesday - March 13, 2013
The Federal Trade Commission released its updated Dot Com Disclosures guidance on Tuesday, emphasizing the requirements for advertisers targeting mobile devices. In short, the rules that apply to ads in newspapers, radio and television also apply to mobile devices and social media. The update is the first since the guidelines were released in 2000 -- an era when smartphones and tablets were far, far less ubiquitous.
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Wednesday - March 13, 2013
Following Tuesday's final approval by the Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice, the focus now shifts to some MetroPCS shareholders who have raised last-minute objections to their proposed merger with T-Mobile. The wireless carriers announced the deal in October, claiming it would create a "bigger, better, bolder" network that would keep the T-Mobile name.
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Wednesday - March 13, 2013
Google has settled its Street View privacy case with 38 states and the District of Columbia. As part of the settlement, the company will destroy the personal information it collected under the project, train its employees on privacy issues for a 10-year period, launch a campaign to educate consumers on WiFi security, and pay a $7 million fine.
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Wednesday - March 13, 2013
The social bookmarking site Pinterest, one of the fastest-growing social networks of the last two years, released a new analytics tool Tuesday so that users -- especially businesses and marketing professionals -- can do a better job of tracking traffic and sharing aspects of the site.
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Wednesday - March 13, 2013
It appears Yahoo may be interested in acquiring Zynga. Both companies have been through rough patches in recent times, but Zynga's stock actually spiked 10 percent following speculation in an analyst's research note. While some things have been looking up at Yahoo since Marissa Mayer took over as CEO, the same can't be said of Zynga, which seems caught in a downward spiral.
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Wednesday - March 13, 2013
There are more than 6 billion mobile devices in the world. As of last July, there were more than 321 million wireless subscriber connections in the U.S. alone. Given the wide penetration of wireless gadgets, it is no surprise that GPS location devices are now getting a great deal of attention in both civil and criminal courts.
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