Why Buy.com rocks

Are you wanting to buy something for your friend? If it is an tech toy, it is best that you read and watch this video so that you can get a better understanding of why I said Buy.com rocks. While, they just rock in my opinion. They sell only tech toys, so if you are looking for non tech toys products, I am sorry guys, but I cannot help you. However, if you have any interest, you would better read this review and watch the video review. If you want to leave, just watch my video once before you leave. Please. Thanks why buy.com rocks

I.B.M. Plans $15 Billion Share Buyback

Slashdot It! I.B.M. said that its board had authorized a $15 billion share buyback program that could increase 2008 earnings by up to 5 cents a share, sending its stock up 4.2 percent. News of the planned repurchase, equivalent to about 10 percent of the market capitalization of I.B.M., pushed the stock market higher. The company’s shares rose $4.30, to $114.38. “I.B.M. is showing its confidence it can still generate a lot of cash in a difficult environment,” an analyst at American Technology Research, Shaw Wu, said. “We are in a bear market, we are literally on the brink of recession — we actually might be in one already.” The new repurchase authorization comes after I.B.M. reported strong fourth-quarter results on Jan. 17 and gave a 2008 outlook that topped expectations, saying growth abroad would make up for the weaker American economy. I.B.M. said it now expected full-year earnings of at least $8.25 a share, or 16 percent year-on-year growth, as a result of the buyback. In January, the company forecast 2008 earnings at $8.20 to $8.30 a share. Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare Get paid $7.50 for reviewing my post

Sony to own one-third of Sharp's LCD plant

Slashdot It! Sony said it would take a one-third stake in Sharp's $3.5 billion LCD panel plant set for completion by March 2010, in an effort to meet fast-growing demand for flat televisions. The move is the latest in a wave of alliances among Japanese flat TV makers as they try to secure enough panels while keeping initial investments in check to fight steep price declines. Sharp, which offers Aquos LCD TVs, plans to turn the liquid crystal display factory, which would be the world's largest, into a joint venture, with the Osaka-based company owning 66 percent and Sony taking the remainder. Besides LCD panels, the joint venture will also produce LCD modules, which are display panels equipped with components such as a backlight unit and LCD driver chips. Sony and Sharp are the world's second- and third-largest LCD TV makers, behind South Korea's Samsung Electronics. The two Japanese companies plan to hold a joint news conference on Tuesday where Sony President Ryoji Chubachi and Sharp President Mikio Katayama will speak. "For Sharp, this is a positive step since it means a major buyer that would keep the 10th-generation factory busy," Daiwa Institute of Research analyst Kazuharu Miura said. Sharp's new factory would use so-called 10th-generation glass substrates, which can yield more panels than earlier-generation, smaller glass substrates, improving production efficiency and helping both firms offer attractively priced flat TVs. Global LCD TV sales are likely to more than double to 155 million units by 2012, according to the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Association. "Sony needed an extra source of panels because the large-size LCD TV market is growing faster than it had expected. As Sony expands TV production, it is natural to seek to diversify panel sources," said Park Hyun, an analyst at Prudential Investment & Securities. Via CNet Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare Get paid $7.50 for reviewing my post

Court rules in Microsoft patent spat

Slashdot It! A federal court that hears patent appeals told a lower court to reconsider damages that Microsoft must pay a Guatemalan inventor for infringing his software in its popular Office Suite. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit tossed out the damages award of 12 cents per copy because the lower court failed to explain how it calculated the award. At issue is a software program, which was patented by inventor Carlos Armando Amado, that links databases and spreadsheets. Amado sued Microsoft in 2003, alleging that several versions of Office Suite infringed his patent. A jury ruled in favor of Amado and awarded him 4 cents per infringing unit. The case was appealed and then remanded to a district court, which tripled the damage award. In the latest appeal, Microsoft asked for damages to be held at the jury award of 4 cents per copy of Microsoft's Office Suite sold with the infringing software. Amado asked for $2 per copy, an amount ordered held in escrow. Via Cnet Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare Get paid $7.50 for reviewing my post

Microsoft Restores Downed Hotmail Service

Slashdot It! The bug affected Hotmail, Windows Live, Xbox Live, Windows Messenger, and other Web sites and services that rely on users' Windows Live IDs for logins. "An issue began that has caused some consumers worldwide to experience difficulty logging in to their Windows Live ID accounts. This issue has since been resolved and normal operations have been restored to all customers," said Samantha McManus, Windows Live product manager, in an e-mail late Tuesday to InformationWeek.com sister site ChannelWeb. Microsoft didn't disclose the nature of the bug, but reports indicate that in addition to Hotmail and Windows Live, it affected numerous Web services -- including Xbox Live online gaming and Microsoft's Windows Messenger instant messaging platform -- that rely on users' Windows Live IDs for logins. The problem appeared to be global. Affected users posted messages on various Internet forums from countries ranging from Finland to Japan and Honduras in Central America. "Our customers have come to expect a high level of service reliability in their experience with Windows Live, and Microsoft worked aggressively to resolve this unique problem as quickly as possible," said McManus. The glitch also brought down a number of third-party services. Bell Canada's Sympatico e-mail service, which is hosted on Microsoft's MSN network, was knocked out for several hours, a spokesman told the Canadian Press wire service. Hotmail was created in 1996 by a pair of programmers who sold the service to Microsoft a year later. The service was rebranded from MSN Hotmail to Windows Live Hotmail last year as Microsoft looked to unify its online services under a single brand. Microsoft claims to have about 280 million Hotmail users. Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare Get paid $7.50 for reviewing my post

Google's CAPTHCA busted

Slashdot It! Websense Security Labs has discovered that Google’s popular web mail service Gmail is being targeted in recent spammer tactics. Spammers in these attacks managed to created bots that are capable of signing up and creating random Gmail accounts for spamming purposes. Websense believes that from the spammers’ perspective, there are four main advantages to this approach. First, signing up for an account with Google allows access to its wide portfolio of services. Second, Google’s domains are unlikely to be blacklisted. Third, they are free to sign up. And fourth, it may be hard to keep track of them as millions of users worldwide are using various Google services on a regular basis. Gmail, called Google Mail in Germany, Austria and the United Kingdom, is a free Web-based email (webmail), POP3 and IMAP e-mail service provided by Google. It was released on April 1, 2004 as a private beta release by invitation only and was opened to all as a public beta on February 7, 2007. With an initial storage capacity of 1 GB, it dramatically increased the standard for free storage. Gmail currently offers over 6000 MB of free storage with an additional 10 GB available for US$20 per year. Gmail is well-known for its simplicity and flexibility, its user-friendly design; and has tens of millions of users globally. Via Websense Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare Get paid $7.50 for reviewing my post

Mattress

A lot of adults and children are not sleeping well, it is time to get a good bed or rather mattress to have and sleep well in the room. Do you know how tough it is to have a bad sleep. It is very stressful. memory foam mattress Payment Payment methods include Paypal, Mastercard, Visa and discover. With so many payment methods available online, there is no reason why you should not visit them and even buy from them. Check them out.

Progesterone

Are you a women techie who is reading this review/ Then, you better read this review carefully as i am going to review a website that would concern people like you very much. progesterone The website that I am reviewing is called Ultra PMS. It is a website catered for womens as they talk about the problems that females faces. Like even daily small problems. Thus, they might answer one of your trivial question. Shall not describe much.

Yahoo Plans to Let Users Help Mold New Feature

Slashdot It! Even as it struggles to find alternatives to being acquired by Microsoft, Yahoo continues to push elements of a turnaround plan devised by Jerry Yang, the company’s co-founder and chief executive. Yahoo plans to introduce a service called Buzz that relies on users to help it compile the most popular articles from around the Web. Yahoo plans to include some of those on its front page, hoping to attract more users and turn it into a hub for driving traffic to other publishers. Yahoo will also announce Tuesday that it will allow fuller previews of online publishers’ sites in search results. A search result displaying a user of the social network LinkedIn, for instance, could include links to that person’s connections and full profile, and a result displaying a restaurant may include direct links to a reservations page or reviews. Both moves are part of a strategy Mr. Yang has been promoting to open Yahoo’s services to third-party publishers. The Buzz service borrows heavily from other so-called social news aggregators, like Digg and Reddit, as it asks users to “vote” on items they like. Items with the most votes, or buzz, will earn prominent placement. But the Buzz service is different in some important ways. Rather than turn Buzz into a Web destination for users, Yahoo plans to include the content that surfaces through Buzz on its front page. Via NYT Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare Get paid $7.50 for reviewing my post

F.C.C. Weighing Limits on Slowing Web Traffic

Slashdot It! The head of the Federal Communications Commission and other senior officials said that they were considering taking steps to discourage cable and telephone companies from delaying the downloads and uploads of heavy Internet users. The agency is considering rules and enforcement decisions to force the cable and telephone companies to disclose their policies more clearly for delaying traffic that they say is clogging their systems. Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company, has been the subject of a complaint after it acknowledged that it slowed down some Internet traffic of BitTorrent, a file-sharing service, because of heavy use of video-sharing applications. Consumer groups have said that such discrimination against some content providers has been aimed at Comcast’s rivals and is both unnecessary and threatens to undermine the freewheeling nature of the Internet. In his comments, Kevin J. Martin, the agency’s chairman, tended to agree. “They must be conducted in an open and transparent way,” Mr. Martin said at a hearing Monday on network neutrality and network management. “While networks may have reasonable practices, they obviously cannot operate without taking some reasonable steps, but that does not mean they can arbitrarily block access to certain services.” In sharp questioning to a senior executive from Comcast, Mr. Martin indicated that the commission was considering whether to levy a fine or issue an order that would limit the company’s ability to slow down broadband traffic to consumers using file-sharing programs. Via NYT Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare Get paid $7.50 for reviewing my post

I.B.M. to Introduce a Notably Improved Mainframe

Slashdot It! The mainframe, the aged yet surprisingly resilient survivor of computing, is getting a face-lift. A model called the I.B.M. z10, which is being introduced, is far faster and has three times the data-juggling memory of its three-year-old predecessor, the z9. But the significance of the new machine, analysts say, is that it is a big step in a broad campaign by I.B.M. to make the mainframe computer a high-performance, energy-efficient engine for running all kinds of nonmainframe software. The goal, according to I.B.M. executives and analysts, is to recast the mainframe as a nimble supercomputer in corporate and government data centers, running Web-based programs, Linux, advanced data mining and business intelligence software. To do that, I.B.M. has refined its mainframe hardware and come up with new software tools, as part of a five-year, $1.5-billion overhaul. “The mainframe’s ability to survive is only as good as its ability to innovate and compete for these new computing workloads of the future,” an analyst at Forrester Research, Brad Day, said. “And I.B.M. is starting to succeed at that.” The stakes are high. Though the sales of mainframes account for less than 4 percent of I.B.M.’s revenue, the sales of mainframe software, storage and services are a big, profitable business. The overall business dependent on mainframes represents about 25 percent of company revenue and nearly half of its profit, said A. M. Sacconaghi, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. At Hannaford Brothers in Scarborough, Me., a supermarket chain with stores in five states, the company has consolidated many programs onto its two mainframes. They include its consumer Web site, its Web portal for tracking shipments from suppliers and store and customer data that were once housed on computers in individual stores. “The mainframe has become very flexible and very scalable for us,” said Bill Homa, Hannaford’s chief information officer. Via NYT Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare Get paid $7.50 for reviewing my post

Jury rules against Desire2Learn in patent case

Slashdot It! A Texas jury has ruled that Kitchener software company Desire2Learn Inc. infringed on an American competitor's patent. The verdict, announced this afternoon, allows Blackboard Inc. to demand a ban on sales of Desire2Learn’s products in the United States. The jury in Lufkin, Texas, awarded Blackboard damages of $3.1 million US for royalties and lost profits, according to Judge Ron Clark’s assistant. The case has generated strong interest from the university community. Some information-technology professors fear Blackboard will use its patent, granted in 2006, to dominate its industry. Blackboard is already by far the largest company offering classroom management software, which teachers use to communicate with students Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare Get paid $7.50 for reviewing my post

Google, SingTel, and others to build submarine cable

Slashdot It! Web search company Google has agreed to build an undersea cable with five telecommunications operators that will link the United States to Japan, and provide the capacity to sustain a surge in Internet traffic between the continents. Google and the five telecommunications companies said in a joint statement that the 6,200-mile undersea fiber-optic cable, connecting the United States to Japan, will cost $300 million. Google's partners in the consortium, dubbed Unity, comprises Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, KDDI, Pacnet, and SingTel. The cable will provide much-needed capacity to sustain unprecedented growth in data and Internet traffic between Asia and the United States. "The Unity cable system allows the members of the consortium to provide the increased capacity needed as more applications and services migrate online," said Jayne Stowell, a spokeswoman for the consortium. The consortium said it has picked NEC and Tyco Telecommunications to construct and install the system, which is expected to be ready for service in the first quarter of 2010. Via Cnet Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare Get paid $7.50 for reviewing my post

All clicks are not equal, says Microsoft

Slashdot It! Microsoft is proposing a new way for marketers to think about the value of clicks on Internet ads, with the understanding that the last click a consumer makes isn't necessarily the most important. Say a consumer sees an ad for a product in a video ad one day, and then clicks on a text ad to visit the retailer's site the next day, and then eventually sees a banner ad that leads to a purchase. All of the monetary credit tends to go to the text link that was clicked on, says John Chandler, principal analyst for Microsoft's Atlas ad serving division. "Under our (Engagement Mapping) model, those will share the credit," for example, with 40 percent each going to the video ad and the text ad and 20 percent going to the banner, he says. The ability for advertisers and ad agencies to configure the distribution of their advertising campaign dollars is the core of Microsoft's new Engagement ROI tool, which launches in beta this week as part of the Atlas Media Console. In general, "the text links may be overvalued and the video site is probably being undervalued," Chandler says. The tool is being announced at the Interactive Advertising Bureau's annual meeting in Phoenix. Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare Get paid $7.50 for reviewing my post

AMD to die in 5 years

Slashdot It! IBM MIGHT NOT BE THE BEST choice of friends for AMD if the attitude of Bill Zeitler is anything to go by. He is predicting IBM and Intel will be the only players at the high-end of the chip market in five years time. In a gaffe that can only sour relations with AMD, Zeitler - Senior Vice President & Group Executive, Server Group - let slip to Fortune that he thinks the rest of the 64bit competition will fall by the wayside. AMD is pinning its hopes on its x86-64 technology, all of its new products over the next few years are offshoots from Opteron. If Opteron and its successors are dead in five years, it would leave AMD with nothing. The obvious inference is that Zeitler doesn't expect AMD to be around in five years time. AMD has worked hard to make its new 64bit processor a success and has gained enormous support within the industry, including from IBM. It is sure to come as a nasty shock that while IBM has been helping AMD along it has also been sharpening the knives behind its back. Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare Get paid $7.50 for reviewing my post

New alliances reshaping the LCD industry

Slashdot It! Competition in the LCD industry is shaping up as a battle between two groups of major manufacturers, each of which has struck alliances designed to reduce production costs and guarantee supply. Reports that Sony was planning to start buying LCD television display panels from electronics maker Sharp sent Sharp's shares up 5.2 percent. And an Asahi newspaper report that electronics manufacturer Pioneer plans to stop making 42-inch plasma display panels helped push its shares up 4.3 percent Monday. Such a move by Sharp, the world's No. 3 LCD TV maker, and Sony, the second-largest, would underscore the importance of securing enough display panels to meet fast-growing LCD TV demand. "The (LCD panel) industry is finally splitting up neatly into two groups," said Nikko Citigroup analyst Kota Ezawa. The deal would create a larger alliance between Sharp, Sony, and Samsung Electronics, which currently runs an LCD panel joint venture with Sony, along with Toshiba, which said in December that it would buy large LCD panels from Sharp. Meanwhile, Panasonic maker Matsushita Electric Industrial and Hitachi hold a large stake in joint venture IPS Alpha Technology, which makes large LCD panels. Matsushita also announced earlier this month it would spend 300 billion yen ($2.79 billion) to build an LCD panel plant by 2010. Still, Ezawa noted that the potential deal wasn't without risk for Sharp. "By providing panels to its television competitors, Sharp faces the risk of its own televisions not selling well," he said. For Sony, the procurement from Sharp is expected to help it secure enough panels without making heavy capital investment. Sony's shares rose 2.4 percent to 5,140 yen ($47.94), compared with the benchmark Nikkei's 3.1 percent gain. Via Cnet Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare Get paid $7.50 for reviewing my post

Microsoft gets another shot at Open XML standard

Slashdot It! Microsoft ramped up its fight to have its Office Open XML document format made into an international standard as delegates from 37 countries met to reconsider the proposal. Their weeklong meeting at the International Organization for Standardization, or ISO, is meant to help broker consensus after a preliminary vote on the standard failed six months ago. There will be no ballot during the talks, but the 87 national standards bodies who previously voted will have until March 29 to adjust their positions, giving the world's largest software maker another shot at the two-thirds majority it needs. "The ISO members who voted on the draft in September will have 30 days to change their votes if they wish," said Roger Frost, a spokesman for the Geneva-based agency. Microsoft won only 53 percent of the votes in September. Opponents of Open XML, which is the default file-saving format in Microsoft Office 2007, argue there is no need for a rival standard to the widely used Open Document Format (ODF) that is already an international standard. They argue that the Microsoft product's 6,000 pages of code, compared with ODF's 860 pages, make it artificially complicated and untranslatable. The productivity software suite OpenOffice uses ODF, which is supported by IBM and Sun Microsystems. But Microsoft and others have said that multiple standards are normal in software and other industries and that competition makes for better products. Microsoft says its format has higher specifications and is more useful than ODF. Standardization of Open XML would allow other companies to build products using the file format and simplify file exchange between different software suites. Microsoft has collaborated with Novell to develop a tool to translate Open XML documents into ODF and vice versa, though critics believe the tool cannot provide a complete translation due to the complexity of the Microsoft product. XML, short for Extensible Markup Language, is a standard for describing data in a way that allows it to be shared across various systems and applications. Microsoft has handed over control of Open XML to the standards-making body Ecma, which would make it available even in the event of the company's demise. Delegates submitted about 4,200 suggested modifications to the Microsoft documents in the lead-up to last year's ballot. Those have been whittled down to 1,100 comments for consideration during the Geneva meeting this week, the ISO said. Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare Get paid $7.50 for reviewing my post

Wiretapping Made Easy

Slashdot It! Silently tapping into a private cellphone conversation is no longer a high-tech trick reserved for spies and the FBI. Thanks to the work of two young cyber-security researchers, cellular snooping may soon be affordable enough for your next-door neighbor. In a presentation Wednesday at the Black Hat security conference in Washington, D.C., David Hulton and Steve Muller demonstrated a new technique for cracking the encryption used to prevent eavesdropping on global system for mobile communications (GSM) cellular signals, the type of radio frequency coding used by major cellular service providers including AT&T, Cingular and T-Mobile. Combined with a radio receiver, the pair say their technique allows an eavesdropper to record a conversation on these networks from miles away and decode it in about half an hour with just $1,000 in computer storage and processing equipment. Hulton, director of applications for the high-performance computing company Pico, and Muller, a researcher for mobile security firm CellCrypt, plan to make their decryption method free and public. In March, however, they say they'll start selling a faster version that can crack GSM encryption in just 30 seconds, charging between $200,000 and $500,000 for the premium version. Who will be the customers for their innovative espionage technique? Hulton and Muller say they aren't sure yet. But they plan to offer the method to companies that will integrate it with radio technology, not sell it directly to the law enforcement and criminal customers who will undoubtedly be interested in putting it to use. "We're not creating the technology that does the interception," Muller says. "All this does is crunch data." Hulton and Muller will likely make a tidy profit from the fruits of their research work, which they've personally patented. The companies they work for may profit less directly; Pico makes the high-performance processors necessary to do heavy-duty encryption work. CellCrypt makes software for encrypting mobile phone conversations, patching the security flaw that Hulton and Muller's research has uncovered. As for the moral question of chipping away at the privacy of cellphone users around the world, Muller gives an answer common to security researchers: He and Hulton didn't invent the hackable technology; they just brought attention to its vulnerabilities. In fact, Muller argues, GSM encryption was cracked--theoretically--in academic papers as early as 1998. "Active" radio interceptors, which impersonate cell towers and can eavesdrop on GSM phone conversations, have also been sold by companies like Comstrac and PGIS for years. (Active techniques, however, only allow eavesdropping from within about 600 feet and are easily detectable, Muller notes.) Undetectable, "passive" systems like the one that Muller and Hulton have created aren't new either, though previous technologies required about a million dollars worth of hardware and used a "brute force" tactic that tried 33 million times as many passwords to decrypt a cell signal. All of that means, Hulton and Muller argue, that their cheaper technique is simply drawing needed attention to a problem that mobile carriers have long ignored--one that well-financed eavesdroppers may have been exploiting for years. "If governments or other people with millions of dollars can listen to your conversations right now, why shouldn't your next-door neighbor?" Muller says. The new technique may serve as a wake-up call for mobile carriers, which have long been in denial about the vulnerabilities of GSM security, says Bruce Schneier, encryption guru and chief technology officer of BT Counterpane. "This is a nice piece of work, but it isn't a surprise," he says. " We've been saying that this algorithm is weak for years. The mobile industry kept arguing that the attack was just theoretical. Well, now it's practical." David Pringle, a spokesman for the GSMA trade association, which represents 700 GSM carriers around the world, said in a statement that “the mobile industry is committed to maintaining the integrity of GSM services, and the protection and privacy of customer communications is at the forefront of operators’ concerns.” He also pointed out that decrypting GSM still requires special equipment and is more secure than a typical landline. The GSMA, he noted, has developed and is working on implementing a higher level of encryption; Newer 3G cell carriers are also immune from the attack. Although their exploit doesn't target the competing CDMA cellular technology used by carriers like Verizon and Sprint Nextel, Muller argues it's not necessarily less secure. GSM was only decrypted first because it's more popular worldwide: Few cellphone subscribers outside North America use CDMA carriers. So how do Hulton and Muller ensure that their own phone conversations aren't intercepted? Muller responds to that question, posed by an audience member at Black Hat's gathering of hackers and security professionals, with a smile. "We don't use phones," he says. Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare Get paid $7.50 for reviewing my post

Electronic Arts Offers $2 Billion for Take-Two

Slashdot It! Electronic Arts, the video gaming giant, made an unsolicited $2 billion bid on Sunday for rival Take-Two Interactive, publisher of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, a deal that would further a wave of consolidation in the rapidly growing industry. Electronic Arts, which publishes hit games like the Madden N.F.L. and Need for Speed series, offered to pay $26 a share for Take-Two, a 50 percent premium over its share price of $17.36 on Friday. The offer was made publicly after a series of private offers to Take-Two were rejected by its board. Electronic Arts approached Take Two with a $26-a-share offer on Feb. 19, up from $25 share it initially offered on Feb. 15. The timing of the bid appears to be an attempt to acquire Take-Two before it releases what is widely expected to be the top-selling game of 2008, the fourth installment of the crime thriller Grand Theft Auto. The Grand Theft Auto franchise, Take-Two’s crown jewel, has sold more than 60 million copies since Grand Theft Auto III took the game industry by storm in 2001. Through its Rockstar subsidiary, Take-Two is scheduled to release the game on April 29 for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3 consoles. If it lives up to consumers’ expectations, the game is expected to sell 10 million copies or more by the end of the year, which would almost certainly make Take-Two more expensive. Electronic Arts’s dominance has been strongly challenged by Activision. Not only has Activision had a recent string of hits, notably Guitar Hero, it also recently agreed to buy Vivendi’s game division to form a company called Activision Blizzard. At the same time, E.A. has endured a growing chorus of criticism from some investors who say the company has lost its creative and innovative edge. There is little doubt that E.A. remains the juggernaut of the video game industry. But it has come to rely heavily on sequels. A merger with Take-Two would be a union of two vastly different companies. E.A. has a reputation for steady growth and fiscal discipline, while Take-Two is known as a mercurial one-hit wonder. Electronic Arts said it was making its offer public to “bring its proposal to the attention of all Take-Two shareholders.” In a telephone interview on Sunday, Electronic Arts’ chief executive, John Riccitiello, said, “It is an enormous premium,” suggesting that rather than consider the offer hostile, “We think of ourselves as a ‘white knight.’ ” Take-Two was far less generous. In a statement, Strauss Zelnick, the company’s chairman, said, “Electronic Arts’ proposal provides insufficient value to our shareholders and comes at absolutely the wrong time given the crucial initiatives under way at the company,” referring to the new Grand Theft Auto and other products. Mr. Riccitiello said, however, he believed that Take-Two’s stock price already reflected an expectation among investors that Grand Theft Auto IV would be a success, and that Take-Two would become less valuable to E.A. after the game’s introduction than it was now. Mr. Riccitiello said his offer’s timing reflected a desire to integrate Take-Two’s operations with E.A.’s before the all-important holiday shopping season. He said he had formed a relationship in recent years with Sam Houser, one of Rockstar’s founders, but added that he had avoided contacting Mr. Houser while pursuing his negotiations with Mr. Zelnick. Mr. Zelnick said that Take-Two had offered to initiate discussions with Electronic Arts on April 30, the the day after Grand Theft Auto IV was scheduled for release. “We believe this offer demonstrated our commitment to pursuing all avenues to maximize stockholder value, while we believe that E.A.’s refusal to entertain this path is evidence of their desire to acquire Take-Two at a significant discount,” he said.Mr. Riccitiello refused to speculate about what steps he would take next, but it is possible that Electronic Arts could pursue a proxy contest to oust the board. Over the next several weeks, Mr. Riccitiello’s main challenge will be to persuade investors to accept the deal and convince employees that Electronic Arts will respect the creative autonomy of Take-Two’s various development teams. Over the last decade, E.A. has acquired many high-profile game studios, including Westwood (the Command & Conquer series), Bullfrog Productions (Populous) and Origin Systems (Ultima), which essentially dissolved after Electronic Arts tried to direct and homogenize their creative output. Any deal for Take-Two would be largely empty if Take-Two teams like Rockstar and Ken Levine’s group at 2K Boston, which recently released the acclaimed game BioShock, were to depart rather than work for E.A. Mr. Riccitiello seems aware of the danger and is taking steps to convince the game industry of E.A.’s newfound respect for creative talent. At a well-received speech at an industry conference in Las Vegas earlier this month Mr. Riccitiello promised that in future deals, Electronic Arts would avoid killing the creative golden goose as it has in the past. Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare Get paid $7.50 for reviewing my post

Sony to sell chip facility to Toshiba for $835 mln

Slashdot It! Sony Corp said it will sell its microchip production facilities in western Japan to Toshiba Corp for 90 billion yen ($835 million), in their latest move to focus on their core businesses. The equipment will be used by their semiconductor joint venture that will make high-performance Cell chips and RSX graphic chips, both used in Sony's PlayStation 3 game console, as well as other microchips that go into Toshiba products. The venture will be established on April 1. Sony, which is focusing on image sensor chips for digital cameras and pulling away from heavy investments for cutting-edge chip production equipment, said in October it would sell production facilities for making key microchips used in the PS3 to Toshiba, but the price has been unavailable. The announcement on the selling price comes on the heels of Toshiba's decision on Tuesday to abandon its HD DVD high-definition DVD format, ending a prolonged battle with the Sony-led Blu-ray camp. Toshiba twinned the HD DVD exit with an announcement that it and partner SanDisk Corp would spend $16 billion on two new flash memory plants. Shares in Sony were up 2.8 percent at 5,150 yen in afternoon trade while Toshiba fell 2.8 percent to 801 yen. The Tokyo stock market's electrical machinery index was down 2.1 percent. Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare Get paid $7.50 for reviewing my post