eBay sells 65% of Skype for $1.9 billion
eBay has announced that it has sold most of its stake in VoIP messaging software platform Skype for $1.9 billion in cash plus a $125 million note. eBay will retain a 35% stake in Skype, and the transaction is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year.
The investor group which bought out eBay's share is being led by private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, and includes venture capital firms Andreesen Horowitz, Index Ventures, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
Opera 10 Final released, bringing back 'turbo' mode
Download Opera 10 for Windows from FileForum now.
Debuting in a rather comprehensive alpha nine months ago, and in beta at the beginning of the summer, Opera 10's final version has been officially released today.
Windows Phones are coming October 6th
Microsoft has at last announced the availability of Windows Phones with Windows Mobile 6.5.
Though the precise phone models were not announced today, Microsoft announced the carriers and handset manufacturers we can expect to find on October 6.
Don't drop that phone! Fragile devices threaten customer loyalty
The iPhone is a technical marvel, a full-on computer that happens to fit in your pocket. It isn't alone: The average BlackBerry is also pretty magical in its own right, as are high end phones from Nokia, HTC and a host of other vendors.
Fantastically capable as they are, don't drop yours. Don't get it wet, either. Don't stress or damage it in any way. Because if you think you can simply bring it back to the store where you got it and swap it out under warranty for a replacement unit, think again. Violate the warranty terms and you'll be buying yourself a new one.
China Mobile launches 'OPhone' to counter China Unicom's iPhone
At an event today in Beijing, China Mobile officially launched its "OPhone" platform, the mobile carrier's answer to China Unicom's recently acquired Apple iPhone.
OPhones run OMS (Open Mobile System), a China Mobile-branded fork of Google's Android, and they will be made by a number of prominent manufacturers, including Dell, HTC, Lenovo. China Mobile showed off devices by all three manufacturers today, and said it expects companies such as Samsung, ZTE, Phillips, Motorola, and LG to support the platform.
Mobile gaming proves to be a huge growth market
French video game publisher Gameloft established an early lead in download-only gaming and is seriously reaping the rewards.
Today, Gameloft published its results for the first half of 2009, showing sales that have reached €60.1 million so far. This constitutes a 20% year over year increase, and Gameloft says 95% of that growth is coming from the mobile gaming sector.
Apple's annual iPod Refresh event confirmed
Reports from "music industry executives" earlier in August which predicted a September 9 iPod refresh have been confirmed today, making 2009's iPod unveiling exactly like 2008's.
Today, Apple sent out invitations for its annual iPod event, where the year's lineup of personal media players will be unveiled. The event will take place at the Yerba Buena Cetner for the Arts Theater in San Francisco.
Samsung announces mobile app store
It's amazing what can happen in one year. Before Apple launched the iTunes App store, there was no such thing as the "mobile app store economy." It was limited to a few vendors such as Handango, who controlled the small mobile software distribution market.
Now, most mobile operating systems have their own app store, and phone manufacturers are attempting to open stores with their own devices in mind. Today, Samsung announced it will launch an on-device smartphone app store in Europe on September 14. The company has already put up a placeholder for its app store, and downloads will be available to the Omnia and the I8910 HD. Samsung says support will be added on the Omnia II and OmniaLITE at a later date.
Here come AMD's six-core, ultra-low-power Opteron EEs
There are three "rails" of wattage in AMD's architectural plan for its CPUs: its higher-performance SE line, its lowest-power EE line, and its hybrid HE line that trades some performance for power savings. Two months ago, AMD introduced its first six-core Opterons in the SE flavor first, setting the general trend for future rollouts; last month, it trotted out the HE hybrid line in that same series.
Today, as expected, the company is announcing stage 3 of its plan: the rollout of its first ultra-low-power six-core Opteron series, including the model 2419 EE, with 40 watts of average power consumption (ACP) clocked at 1.8 GHz. This time, AMD's value proposition is this: Server centers that already have quad-core 75W Opteron-based units can replace them for dropped in 40W six-core units, and see better performance per watt while gaining two cores per socket in the process.
'Macs don't get viruses' myth dissolves before public's eyes
Apple never said OS X was invulnerable to viruses. Well, not in so many words.
It's just one of those things that the media hungry --but security disinterested-- public has turned into an axiom.
DHS: Expect your computer to be seized without suspicion
In what was presented to the public this week as a clarification of its privacy policy, the US Dept. of Homeland Security published a paper referring to new guidelines for its immigration and customs agents regarding how they may conduct border searches of travelers' computers and electronic media. Clarifying the existing law, both sets of guidelines reiterated the department's policy created during the previous administration: Agents may seize, detain, and/or retain individuals' PCs and media without having reason to suspect that those people or those machines and devices are connected with a crime.
"ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] Special Agents acting under border search authority may search, detain, seize, retain, and share electronic devices, or information contained therein, with or without individualized suspicion, consistent with the guidelines and applicable laws set forth herein," states the new policy for immigration authorities published last August 18 (PDF available here). "Assistance to complete a border search may be sought from other Federal agencies and non-Federal entities, on a case by case basis, as appropriate."
AT&T announces tentative wireline union deal
AT&T announced details of its tentative agreement with the Communications Workers of America who began contract re-negotiations in April.
The CWA represents 7,000 of AT&T's legacy wireline workers, whose contracts expired in the spring. Today, AT&T announced it has tentatively arrived at a three-year agreement upon wages, pension band increases, and health care. CWA workers were threatening to strike if AT&T changed their health care benefits, which included an HMO with 100% of the premiums covered by AT&T.
Financial institutions vulnerable to phishing-by-CD, says security report
The National Credit Union Administration this week issued an alert warning credit unions of an innovative form of scareware that utilizes traditional postal mail and a piece of malware that the user actively installs.
Some NCUA member credit unions have reportedly received letters that claimed to be from the NCUA which contained CDs of important "training materials" that would help inform users about phishing scams. Running the discs, naturally, loaded up credit union computers with a bunch of malware.
'Up-to-Date' Snow Leopard customers aren't getting what they paid for
The Mac OS X Snow Leopard Up-to-Date program promised users who bought a qualifying Mac or Xserve on or after June 8th of this year an automatic upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard for only $9.95.
However, it appears that Apple is only shipping out full versions of the operating system upgrade today, and not the Up-to-Date versions. As to be expected, customers who put in their orders months ago are expressing 140 characters worth of displeasure all over Twitter this afternoon.
A reluctance to Bing: UK Yahoo portal partner makes first switch to Google
When Microsoft made its deal last month with Yahoo to provide the search infrastructure for its home page, using technology from Bing, it left open and non-exclusive the fate of several deals the one-time #2 search provider had already made, especially with carriers. Specifically, does Bing become the default search provider for services that had previously made a deal with Yahoo? The answer appeared to be no.
Today, that suspicion was roundly confirmed, as one of the world's largest cooperative portals with Yahoo -- one which still bears the Yahoo brand -- quietly but obviously switched its search box to one that was "powered by Google." In a move first discovered by the UK-based blog Connected Internet, BT's Web portal BT Yahoo became a carrier of Google search rather than Bing.
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