After Sony cut off its supply of capital to the ill-fated Sakai production plant that it jointly owns with Sharp, it became clear that the final goodbye may be little more than a formality. And here it is, in the form of a cold, resolute press release stating that Sony is selling its seven percent stake back to Sharp and taking back the 10 billion yen ($126 million) it originally invested. The only reason given is the “rapidly changing market for LCD panels and LCD televisions,” which is a polite reference to the fact that profits from big TVs are well below what these companies predicted back in the heady days of 2008 and early 2009, when the impact of the global economic crisis loomed without yet being fully apparent. Fortunately for Sony, which is in the delicate stages of reform, the solid pre-nuptial agreement it had in place with Sharp should protect the company from having to revise its financial forecasts for the coming year — not that those were particularly great in the first place.

We’ve been jonesing for a more international look at smartphone market share for the start of 2012, and IDC is now more than willing to oblige. In case you’d thought Android’s relentless march upwards was just an American fling, Google’s OS has jumped from 36.1 percent of the world’s share a year ago to exactly 59 percent in the first quarter of this year. That’s nearly two thirds of all smartphones, folks. As we’ve seen in the past, Android is siphoning off legacy users looking for something fresher: Symbian and the BlackBerry have both lost more than half of their share in one year’s time, while Linux (led mostly by Bada) and Windows Mobile / Phone together lost small pieces of the pie despite raw shipment numbers going up. As for Apple? Even with all the heat in the kitchen, the iPhone’s share grew to 23 percent, leading to a staggering 82 percent of smartphone buyers siding with either the Cupertino or Mountain View camps.

SOURCE via IDC

The timing of Corsair’s announcement that current market conditions equity market conditions are too “weak” to justify an IPO may be just coincidence, but it is certainly interesting. Facebook’s stock appears to have landed at $32 per share, more than 20 percent down from what mortal investors had to pay when the stock became available for trading last week. The hype surrounding Facebook’s IPO and the subsequent crash on the floor of reality will have investors looking at upcoming IPO’s with much greater scrutiny.

Corsair co-founder and CEO Andy Paul commented briefly on the decision to pull back and said that Corsair’s “business is growing, and is generating increasing profitability and cash flow.” He added: “We have decided that we will re-launch when equity market conditions are more favorable. While we do intend to expand our capital base through public capital markets, our existing capital structure and balance sheet provides sufficient capital to enable continued investment in our brand strength, products and people.”

Corsair did not indicate when it might consider to file for an IPO. The company was founded in 1994, employs 383 people and has annual revenues of about $326 million.

Seagate said that it has entered an agreement to purchase a majority share in consumer HDD storage vendor LaCie. Seagate said it intends to acquire the 64.5 percent ownership share of LaCie from CEO Philippe Spruch and to also place a tender offer to purchase all remaining shares thereafter.

Seagate is offering a base €4.05 per share in cash, but reserves the right to adjust the price based on the cash and debt position of the company at the time of closing. The offer reflects a 29 percent premium over Lacie’s average closing price over the past 30 days.

Seagate is offering an extra 3 percent (for a share price of €4.17) if it can acquire at least 95 percent of all shares as well as voting rights of LaCie within 6 months following the closing. Without the increase, Seagate values the company at about €146 million, or $186 million. The sum includes about €49 million ($65 million) in cash.

“Seagate has a strong commitment to the growing consumer storage market and bringing the most dynamic products to market. LaCie has built an exceptional consumer brand by delivering exciting and innovative high-end products for many years. This transaction would bring a highly complementary set of capabilities to Seagate, significantly expand our consumer product offerings, add a premium-branded direct-attached storage line, strengthen our network-attached storage business line and enhance our capabilities in software development,” said Steve Luczo, Seagate chairman, president and CEO. “We are also excited that Philippe, who is a true visionary and leader in the consumer storage business, would join Seagate to run our consumer storage products organization.”

“With the proliferation of devices and content being shared and stored today, consumer demand for high-quality branded storage solutions continues to grow,” said Philippe Spruch, LaCie’s chairman and CEO. “We are excited about the potential for this combination to benefit customers and employees by creating significant scale and opening up new markets. We look forward to making the resources of a much larger company available to our customers around the world.”

Aereo’s mini-antenna arrays started streaming OTA television broadcasts in Gotham a couple months ago in spite of the lawsuit filed by a few of New York’s local stations to stop them from doing so. Today, it was able to dismiss its opponents’ state law unfair competition claim under the theory of federal preemption. Essentially, Aereo argued (and the judge agreed) that the anti-competition claim was actually an attempt to vindicate the broadcasters’ rights to control the performance of their copyrighted materials. Because those rights are granted under federal law, the state law claim was preempted and dismissed from the lawsuit pursuant to the Copyright Act. Despite this courtroom victory, Aereo still has a lot of legal legwork to do, as it still faces two copyright claims that could still shut down the OTA streaming party. Stay tuned.

SOURCE via Weblog Sinc

The at times very heated legal battle between Apple and Samsung might be softening just a bit ahead of truce talks on May 21st. Samsung’s mobile head JK Shin just left Seoul for the mediated discussions saying there were still “several negotiation options” on tap, including the possibility of cross-licensing patents. He warned that there was still a “big gap” between the two sides, and we’d tend to agree — neither Apple nor Samsung is exactly backing off just yet. However, it’s a definite shift in language from March, when Shin was vowing “no compromise,” and it parallels Apple CEO Tim Cook’s own disdain for lawsuits. We just wouldn’t bet money on the two singing “Kumbaya” this week.

In same breath, Shin added that an ongoing 4G chipset shortage wasn’t letting up: he didn’t see things getting better until the start of the fourth quarter, or October for us common folk. That’s a problem for Samsung’s phones and tablets most of all, of course, and in a dire case could see LTE-packing American Galaxy S III variants rely on other vendors’ chips to stay on the 4G bandwagon. There’s also a chance of a ripple effect on other companies that want Samsung’s parts, but short of getting a peek at Samsung’s inner workings, we won’t know the full impact for a while yet.

SOURCE via Reuters

It’s been a battle of epic proportions over a microscopic piece of plastic, but the warring sides appear to be working together to find a compromise. We’re referring to the fight between Apple and a coalition formed by RIM, Motorola and Nokia as each group attempts to make their own nano-SIM design the ETSI standard. Neither entity has seemed willing to extend an olive branch and come up with any compromise — until recently. RIM and Motorola have updated their design proposal in an effort to reach middle ground with Cupertino, and it appears that they were more than accommodating in the chip’s refreshed look (seen above).

So how different can two nano-SIM designs be? Worlds apart, it turns out. For instance, RIM and Motorola have insisted from the beginning that a notch is necessary to allow for “push-push” mechanisms (push to lock the chip in place, push to pop it back out again); Apple, on the other hand, has been entirely anti-notch — not a surprise, given the fact that the company uses SIM trays on the iPhone, therefore making the concept of a notch completely irrelevant. In its redesign, however, RIM and Motorola took elements from both sides of the fight and combined them. The new look retains Apple’s simple rectangular style, but still makes room for a low-key notch on one side. It’s difficult to say whether this move will be enough to gain the affection of Tim Cook’s company and sway the vote — Apple is still hard at work modding its own design, after all — but it’s nice to see both factions playing nice with each other prior to the next ETSI meeting on May 31st. Head to the source to see the difference between the original designs and the latest version.

SOURCE via The Verge

It’s seldom the case that we get to look at world smartphone market share on a national level, but Kantar WorldPanel has given a rare peek that might give Windows Phone fans some good news to crow about. Even though things haven’t always gone well for the Microsoft camp, Nokia phones like the Lumia 800 sparked a minor Renaissance in some countries in the three months leading up to mid-April: Windows Phone was up to between three and four percent in France, Italy, the UK and the US. The Metro interface must also be sehr gut for Germans, which nearly doubled Windows Phone’s local share to six percent in that short space of time.

Kantar is eager to point out that it’s still mostly a tale of Android and iOS successes, though. Google took extra ground in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and the US, while Apple was on a tear both on its native soil and in the UK. HTC’s upbeat predictions may have played a significant part in Android’s continued rise — the One X cracked the British top 10 list despite having only been in shops for a few days. About the only underdog story not going well in early spring was RIM’s, where the BlackBerry’s share of the US was cut to a third of its year-ago glory at three percent.

SOURCE via Reuters

It sounds like an urban legend: A serial killer posing as a police officer pulling over motorists and then murdering them in their vehicles on the side of the highway. But this is no hoax, as the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is on the hunt for a suspect after discovering two such victims, according to CNN.

The shootings both took place last week, on two separate roadways some 55 miles apart, according to the report. Police say the victims were not acquainted.

Authorities in Mississippi are advising motorists to be cautious if they’re pulled over, and to call 911 to verify that the police officer is legitimate. Pulling over into a well-lit, well-populated area is also advised. Scroll down to watch CNN’s report on the Mississippi killings.

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Over the last few months, most headlines regarding Kodak have focused on the company’s financial struggles. Early this year, Kodak filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection, and, not too long after, announced plans to step away from the digital camera market and move more towards home photo printers and high-speed commercial inkjet presses. Today brings something totally different: News that, up until 2006, Eastman Kodak had its very own nuclear reactor in New York.

According to a recent report in Democrat and Chronicle, Kodak kept a small nuclear reactor underground at Kodak Park, the company’s Rochester, NY headquarters. The reactor was apparently for research purposes and was contained insider a bunker with two-foot-thick concrete walls. Albert Filo, a former Kodak research scientists, is quoted as saying the reactor was used to check the purity of materials as well as for tests related to neutron radiography. According to D&C, “only key personnel” could go into the chamber where it was stored, and never while it was running.

Now, the fact that Kodak had a nuclear reactor, no matter how small, is surprising, but the fact that it was there for nearly 30 years and so few people knew about it is that much more surprising. Apparently Kodak never made a public announcement regarding the facility and a spokesperson for the company told the Democrat and Chronicle that he wasn’t sure whether police, fire, or hazardous-material officials were ever notified. Word of the reactor only got out a few months back, when a former employer mentioned it to a reporter.

When the reactor was dismantled in 2006, federal regulators ensured Kodak provided detailed plans of how it planned to remove the reported 3.5 pounds of highly enriched uranium it had been keeping in the basement for nearly 30 years.

Click through to read the full story on Kodak’s very own nuclear reactor.